How To Start A Successful Blog : Step #2 – Build Your Website : 4. Publishing Content to Your Site

[MadMax]

Congrats! Your site is all set up and you’re ready to start adding content! To publish your first post just login to your WordPress admin panel and click “Posts.” The difference between “Posts” and “Pages” is that pages are static, meaning they are always there on every page/post of the site in the menu that the theme developer (most likely) added to the theme.

Posts are regular blog posts that will usually be pushed down as new posts are published and eventually will only appear on deeper pages (which is one reason why having a related posts plugin installed and activated is a good thing. It keeps all posts only one or two clicks from the homepage at all times).

Once you have the “Posts” page open, click “Add new.” You should now see a title field and a big field for the actual content that will be published in your new blog post. You will also see some options next to the that for the category etc. Follow these steps to publish a blog post:

1. Enter a Titlefor your Post

Use a title that is very descriptive of the article. The reader should know exactly what this is about without having to guess. It is also important to get a relevant keyword phrase that people search for in the title if you can do so while keeping it “natural” sounding.

2. Add your Article

Obviously this is where your article goes. You ideally want the article to be at least 300 words, but the more the better. It is good to get your primary keyword in the article at least once and then get some close variations of the keyword in there as well. Do NOT add any one keyword phrase 4+ times… it will likely be seen as “over optimization” with Google and it will harm the chances of that article ranking. You can, however, add several different long-tail phrases (a “long tail” keyword is one that is not broad.

For instance “weight loss” is NOT a long-tail keyword, but “easy natural weight loss plans” is) to your content, which will increase the likelihood of the same article ranking for multiple terms! Just be sure the article still reads well… it sounds natural. It is also a good idea to get some external links in your articles from time to time. It is not normal (usually) for every post on a site to link out to an external site. But it IS normal for a site to link out to external sites/pages every now and then. So every few posts that you publish, it is a good idea to link out to relevant, useful third party sites.

It is also a very good idea to add at least one relevant image to your article. This makes the content more appealing to the reader and it is also a very good thing in the eyes of Google. If you have your own pictures, that you own the rights to, that’s best. But you can also use images from Flickr and other sources of creative commons images. Just be sure to add whatever attribution/credit the source requires to avoid any legal issues. Do NOT just go to google images and pull a random image. You can be sued and it does happen. Another option is to use royalty free images. There are many sources of royalty free images on the Internet. Just do a google search for “royalty free images” and you will find some sources. With royalty free images, you do not have to add attribution/source.

Once you’ve uploaded your image, you will see some options:

In the “Title” field you can add a relevant, long-tail keyword. You can do the same for the “Alt text.” Doing this will help the post rank in Google for those long-tail phrases. Just be sure that these are both different and that neither of them appear more than once or twice anywhere else in the post. Sprinkling 5 or 6 (or more) long-tail phrases throughout the post and in these “alt” and “title” options will help you rank for each of them, but going overboard can cause the opposite effect.

You can add a caption if you want, or you can leave it blank. The same goes for the description. For “alighnment” I usually alight it left, so the text wraps around it. And for “Link to” I select “none.”

3. Create a Category

Once you have already created some categories, you will not need to create a new one for every post. But until then, you’ll need to create a relevant category for your posts. These should be general categories. So, if your blog is about funny animal videos, you might have categories like cats, dogs, horses, hamsters, pigs etc.. If your post contains a funny dog video and you don’t already have a dog category, you’ll need to create one. If you already have a dog category, you’ll just select that category. The category section is in the right sidebar on the “Add New Post” page (see below).

4. Set a Featured Image (Depending on Your Theme)

Some themes have featured images for posts that are displayed next to (or in some other place) on the homepage. The theme you’ve chosen may or may not have this. If it does, just use the same image that you chose for the content of the post. Most themes have an area (usually somewhere below the category selection area) on the “Add New Post” page where you can upload the image.

Once you’ve done all of this you’re ready to publish your new post! Just click “Publish” and it should be live on the homepage!

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