This is a guest post by John Burnside from MoneyIn15Minutes.co.uk
There is no feeling like finishing a post, you’ve spat all your words out onto the page and are ready to send it off to the world-wide web waiting for it to be judged by the discerning reader.
The greatest temptation of all at that point is to just publish that post and go downstairs to make a cup of tea (or vodka, whatever is your poison) but this is the very way to put people off reading your posts because without all the trimmings; your post is nowhere near meeting its true potential.
Here is a list of things that I do after the post is written to make it a more attractive proposition to the audience:
Proof Read
Once the writing is complete the thought often creeps into my head that ‘I don’t think I’ve made a mistake and there’s no ugly reading lines under any of the words telling me I have made any spelling mistakes’ you cannot let this thought win.
Always read through your post once it’s complete and you will find an error or an area of the post you would like to change when reading it back. I know I am certainly put off by errors in posts and that means that a lot of other people are to.
Add Pictures
I’ve read several articles & have found that 65% of all humans are visual learners. This means that if you aren’t including pictures in your post you are missing an opportunity to connect in the most effective way with about two-thirds of your readership.
Also try to make the pictures relevant to the article topic. This will help skim readers to make the decision to stay on your website in a few seconds rather than leaving straight away and thinking ‘boring!’.
Add Tags
Tags are important for both your SEO as well as for readers who are navigating your site. You may have heard of a program called a ‘spider’ which is what search engines like Google use to find, index and decide how high your page should be ranked in the search engines and how relevant your site is for the search.
Tags are one of the things that the spiders crawl over when they are looking for this information so the more accurate you can make these and the more developed you can make your tag network the better.
Interlink your posts
This one may not be relevant for you brand new bloggers out there but for those of us who have a few posts under our belts it is an incredibly good idea to link your posts together. Putting links in the content to your other articles allows your readership to travel through your blog freely and without interruption hopefully keeping them entertained for hours.
One of the best examples of interlinking is on Wikipedia. Every article of theirs has some interlinking and it makes it so easy to stay on there, reading for hours.
Submit to Your Social Network
This is something that takes just a couple of minutes to do but gets everyone talking about your post. Put up your link on your Facebook page, tweet about it, comment about it on relevant YouTube videos and put it on every network you are on.
All of these will give people the opportunity to find out your blog in their own way, rather than having to leave their comfort zone they will find it where they want it. You can, and I know people who do, spend hours tweaking their social profile and if you like to do this another way, you can promote your post by putting the link into relevant Facebook groups.
Make Sure Your Article Is Keyword Rich
I spoke a little earlier about spiders and search engine optimization and this is another way you can increase your chances of getting noticed by the Google giant. While proof reading your article have a quick spot check for the specific keywords that you are targeting.
I find that a good amount is approximately 3-5% keywords in your article. This allows your article to be relevant to the search engines without offending readers. Some articles that I have read you can tell that the author has gone too far with it and it comes across as spammy. A useful step but be careful with this one.
Special Considerations for Special Posts
Sometimes when you’re laying back with your cup of tea laced with vodka you may feel like you have done a particularly special post, something the world needs to see and there are a few things you can do to give it an extra boost into the blogosphere.
Firstly consider emailing a few of your fellow bloggers about it and asking for their opinion or asking them to help you promote it. The blogging community can be quite giving and it never hurts to do a bit of favor trading. This is an especially good idea if you have mentioned another blogger in the post. People like to know they are being written about and so will be even more likely to give you a leg up.
You could also add a link to that post directly on the homepage. A nice attractive way to do this is through a featured post widget but just a normal link will help your best posts get more traffic and help that individual page get higher in the search engine rankings.
If you have a little bit of money to spend on it you might also consider a bit of paid advertising. Sites like StumbleUpon have a pay per view advertising scheme which will send you a lot of visitors and don’t forget to customize the types of people who will see it because you want the most targeted traffic for your money.
All of this just shows that there is a lot more to writing a post than just the writing. You need to make sure that it looks nice and is seen by as many people as possible. Unless you are doing extra marketing because you think the post is one of the best you have written this whole list shouldn’t take you more than 15-20 minutes and believe me it is worth it in the long run.
Do you have any other methods that you use after you’ve finished writing a post?
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
This post is part reinforcement and practical to keep applying the basics for measurable results. Now that you breakdown Interlinking for me, I can’t wait to start implementing it more often into our blogging strategy. Thanks a million!!
Svetlana Koslov recently posted..Google’s Amazing Office Design In Tel Aviv
One personal anecdote about proofreading: even after I have proofread a post, I always let it sit as a “draft” until I’ve slept on it and can take a fresh look at it in the morning. I write SEO blogs, so it’s crucial that my posts lack any spelling or grammatical errors, and I’ve found that following this technique is as efficient as it is simple. Fight the urge to immediately publish a post after writing your first draft!
Jacob Arvin recently posted..Pinned SEO Suite Review: Utilizing Pinterest
I’d like to ask if 3-5% keyword density is really good for SEO? And how about using the LSI keywords in the articles? It puts more value soecially for search engine ranking factors.
Thanks,
Anup
Anup recently posted..5 Step Process That Can Make You $300 Per Day Hardly Doing Anything
People who blog are so much confidant to publish a post and after that they edit it again and again for adding images, links and all other stuffs and causes a decline rate for that post published. If you are ranked well in search engines and your every single post get index by engines in seconds then checking post maximum time is must. This is sign of a good blogger.
Atul Kumar Pandey recently posted..Various Advantages of Human Resource Outsourcing
Hi John
I have just started adding images to my posts and what a difference it makes to the over all look of things. I proof read my posts but often find myself skimming through it and everytime so far I have come back once posted the post and changed at least one thing because it doesn’t sound right or I have spelt it wrong. So some work needed there. I am not inter linking my posts will definitely start doing that.
Great advice thanks lee
Hi John,
Good points you said here.In my previous company my senior was motivate me to write the content and one day i started it and write 300 words but when i gave to him he was not satisfied and show me how to complete it that is same as you mentioned here..
Thanks.
Great post. Many people rush to publish and don’t take these things into consideration. Building internal links not only helps with SEO, but also allows the reader to progress through your site naturally. A related post section really helps as well.
Jonathan Adams recently posted..Stereotypes And Generalizations
Is there a good target number of keywords for each post? I usually focus on 3 to 5 keywords and write about 500 words per post. I always take a day after writing to come back and look at my article before posting. Its amazing how what you think you said is not what is on the page. Often, I find better ways to say it. Thanks for the tips.
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hey John
what an inspiring post!
I think most bloggers don’t know but you can automatically interlink the posts by using some keyword-rich link insertion WP plugins available free or at a premium price.
You just have to manually insert the post and the keywords, then with each new article you write, these words/phrases will be hyperlinked to your chosen page/article on your blog.
You wouldn’t believe how many people love clicking, and guess what? The more they stick on your site, the more page views you’ll generate. This increases your conversion rate, and, helps you get more sponsors, if you monetize your blog with third-party advertisers, AdSense or whatever.
From my (many) years in the blogosphere I can tell you that 98% of bloggers out there rarely pay for SU traffic or email their best posts to their contacts… this is the minimum boost it takes for a hot post to turn viral. Wouldn’t you spend some extra time and money to help your site generate the traffic it deserves?
John Gibb recently posted..How To Go From Zero To $100 + Per Day With Affiliate Marketing (Within 12 Months)
Hi there John, overall I agree with most points that you make, however, do you think it is the best that the writer do the proofread by themselves? I think it is sometimes more effective to get someone like even their families or friends that have a quick look at the articles and share their thoughts, And there are errors that the writers can never think of if others do not tell them. Anyway, thanks for sharing mate.
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