The real secret of getting free traffic to your blog is providing content to your prospects. If you have already set up your blog and have content ideas for your blog, it is time to publish that content.
In this post I am going to share with you how to write and publish blog posts, but before we do that I need to address something very important.
Create content with readers in mind
You will read a lot about optimizing your content for search engines, and while that is important, if you don’t optimize your content for humans, then you’ll never gain the exposure that it takes to ultimately get links and rank well in search engines.
If you write content that people love to read, then you will get traffic, social shares, and links as your readership grows.
Basic components of a blog post
The following are the basic elements of a great blog post. We’ll talk about how to optimize each for both readers and search engines.
Headline
The headline, or title, of your blog post, must be crafted to capture the attention of potential readers who may see it in their social media newsfeeds or in search results. Make sure you’ve found a great keyword that you can include in your headline.
Introduction
The first paragraph of your blog post will either keep people reading or make people leave. Make sure that it compels people to read the rest of your content.
For me, it is the part where I will tell the readers exactly what they are going to learn in the post so that they can make the decision to keep reading or leave the post.
Main content
This is the main portion of your blog post content. Think of the headline as the promise and the main content as the fulfillment of Use subheads to make your that promise. Your main content should fully satisfy anyone who posts scannable visits to your post based on the headline.
If you create content that does not satisfy the promises of your headline, people will start to identify your blog as unfulfilling and thus, stop visiting. The length of your blog posts can range from 300 to 3,000 or more words.
It’s best to alternate the length of your posts as you gain insight Write the perfect amount of content about what works best for your audience.
Sub-headlines
Most people will scan your blog content as opposed to reading it word for word. Write subheads that break your content into digestible sections, and make sure those subheads represent the content within them. Use keywords Throughout Keep keyword density below 3%
Bolded text
Use bold text in a few areas of your main content to help highlight important points. Use it selectively, otherwise, your entire article will seem bolded, thus taking away the ability to highlight key portions of the content.
Bulleted/numbered lists — While you don’t want your entire post to be bulleted or numbered lists, these lists do help separate out steps and lists with useful content.
Place a call to action in your Media — Supplement the text portion of your content with
post media, such as relevant images and videos.
This will help break up your content and illustrate your points better. Images can also be used as part of the search optimization of your post—include your post’s main keyword phrase in the filename of the image as well as the ALT tag. Include social share buttons.
Conclusion
The conclusion should be a paragraph or two at the end of your post to summarize what the reader should have gotten out of it.
If they didn’t, chances are, they will go back to see what they might include links that have missed.
How to Create a Word Press Blog Post
Step 1: Login into WordPress
In order to create a new blog post you will need to log in to your WordPress site, this is the one located at www.yoursite.com/wp-admin.
Then click on new, then post.
This is the screen you’ll see to start.
Step 2: Add the content to the main box.
Add the title of your post and the main content of your blog post, following the structure discussed above.
Step 3:Add tags to your post
Choose 3-6 tags related to the content. When you first start your blog, you won’t have any tags, but you can just enter a new tag name into the text box and add it. The tags you choose will be keywords and keyword phrases that show up in your content.
Step 4:Choose a category for your blog post
You also need to choose at least 1 category related to the content. Again, when you start your blog, you won’t have any categories, but you can just click the “Add New Category” link. This will allow you to organize your blog posts with related content.
In few words categories are subtopics of your blog, if the main topic of your blog is weight loss, you can have weight loss foods, exercises, diets, etc as categories, since all of them are part of your main topic.
Step 5: Optimize for search engine
I recommend using Yoast SEO plugin for this.
If you use the Yoast SEO plug-in, you can also enter additional keywords and a title tag for the blog post. Scroll to the bottom of the post and enter in the “title”, “description”, and “keywords” related to your content.
You need to enter your post title where it says SEO title and provide a meta description, this is you telling search engines what is your post is about, do not forget to include your blog post target keyword in both.
Step 6: Create images for your post
You need to create your own images and graphics to add to your blog posts. I use Canva for design of images. Just go to canva.com and start creating images for your post.
Also, I use pixabay.com for free images.
Step 7: Add an image to your post
To add images within a post, look for the image icon in the top left of the screen you’ll see these icons. Click the square icon beside the word “insert”.
Once you click on the images icon, you’ll see this screen. Click “Select files” to choose your image and choose an alignment. You can also add in a caption (this will be keywords) and a link URL (if someone clicks the image it will take the visitor to that link). This example below requires the SEO Friendly Images plug-in.
The plugin is called smush it and it will help you to optimize your images, you do not have to do anything just install it and it will take care of your images. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/
Step 8: Add links to your post
To create a link within your blog post, highlight the text you want to use as the link text with your mouse and then click the little “chain link” icon (it will only be available if you’ve highlighted text in the post). Then type in your link URL and Insert.
Step 9: Insert a youtube video into your post
If you want to insert a Youtube video into your blog post, you must first go to YouTube and copy the URL from youtube.
Then go back to your post and click add media, then insert from URL ( you will insert your youtube URL ) then click insert into post, your youtube video should be integrated into your post.
Click the Preview tab to make sure your blog looks the way you want it to, and then go back and hit Publish to make it live on your site.
Extra tip
Where writing your blog post there is a good chance that you will make a grammar mistake, I will recommend installing a free plugin called Grammarly it will help you to correct those grammar errors.
Final words
That is it, that how you can write and publish a blog post in WordPress, Now it is your turn, go on and write those killer blog posts.
