How to create a Blog post – Complete Workflow
Creating a post will be a team effort at minimum a 2 member effort. If there is ever a task to create a post. Please visit this document for instructions, Process, tools & workflow.
Workflow For New Posts on Website
Access
- Accessing the Site: Message @jass on slack for access details to any site you don’t have access to. Please check your Lastpass if details have been shared. Then visit the concerned site and login with your details.
- Accessing Google Drive: You already have a shared folder on google drive. All your files must go there. Please keep your folder organized so it’s easier to find relevant files later.
Focus Keyword
The focus keyword is keyword or phrase based on which wordpress SEO plugin evaluates the SEO Score.
Points to be Noted | Process |
> Must be 3 or 4 words long > Never One word > Rare case it can be two words | Understand the content of the article and write a phrase which matches the content of the article. Yoast may give errors if you use phrases like ‘Process for Adding Keywords’. It will say you can’t use words like ‘for’. But if you delete this and make it ‘Process Adding Keyword’ and you write the title of the article as ‘Process for Adding Keyword’, Yoast will again complain saying the focus keyword isn’t present in the SEO title. We can’t achieve 100% perfection with this. Try for the best possible balance and make sure the Yoast gives at least an ‘Ok’ if not good. Use Google trends to see which version of a query is searched for more often. For eg ‘Youtube Optimization’ vs ‘How to Optimize youtube’ vs ‘Optimizing Youtube’. https://www.google.co.in/trends/explore?q=Youtube%20optimization,How%20to%20Optimize%20Youtube,Optimizing%20Youtube We can clearly see that ‘Youtube Optimization’ is more popular. |
Title
- Blog Title : The blog title should preferably include the keyword and add something extra like – ‘How to perform YouTube Optimization’. It should give the reader a very clear idea about what the article is about.
- SEO Title: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag The SEO title should include the keyword and also the brand name if the size permits. 65 characters is the normal length. Keep the keyword at the start, because in case Google truncates it for some reason (mobile page, etc) the main keyword will still be visible to the reader. Eg
- Title format for pages: [Primary Keyword] – [Secondary Keyword] | [Brand Name]
- Title format for product pages: [Product Name] – [Product Category] | [Brand Name]
- Optimal title length: 50-60 characters
- avoid ALL-CAPS titles
- Eg. ‘Yoast’ is added at the end as a brand name.
Meta Description
https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description
Best length: 140-160 characters
Avoid duplicate meta description tags for various pages of same site
Don’t include double quotation marks
Adding Blog Tags
Important Points for Tags
- There are no more than 15 tags
- There are no less than 4 tags
- Tags are all lower case words like “example tag”
- Go the list of all blogs here www.website.com/wp-admin/edit.php
- Open the blog edit page
Copy Blog URL
Then Open http://www.webseoanalytics.com/free/seo-tools/page-analyzer-keyword-density-tool.php
And paste the copied blog URL in the tool box and click GO
Once the scan is done go down to find 2 WORD PHRASES
Copy each 2 word keyword one by one and go back to post edit page and put these in tags area. Seperate each “two word phrase” by comma for eg:-
And click add to attach them to the post
Click Publish once the 2 phrases are added.
Adding Blog Category
Look into the same page but in 3 word phrases? There may be multiple 3 word phrases Please add relevant but not more than 3
Important Points for categories
- There is no more than 3 category per blog/article
- Category has Capitalized words like “Example Category Here”
Blog URL
Add the shorter version of the focus keyword, without ‘and’, ‘for’ etc. Eg, if ‘Process for Adding Keyword’ is the blog title, just add ‘process-adding-keyword’. Try to avoid having more than 4-5 words as it may not be visible in Google search and can get truncated. Mention this in the ‘slug’ field.
Body
- Ensure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors. Google has human raters who check for quality of the article and even if the article has perfect SEO score as per Yoast, it will still rank low if the content is poor.This http://smallseotools.com/grammar-checker/ is one online grammar and spelling checker, and you can also add the Grammarly Chrome extension but use your own judgement.
- Check for plagiarism. http://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/ , https://www.plagiarismsoftware.net/.
- Ensure that the article is at least of 300 words. 500+ would be good.
- Add subheadings Header 2’, ‘Header 3’ etc and make sure that there is not more than 300 words under each subheading. If any subheading has more than 300 words, it means you have to split it.
- Use active voice as far as possible and write as if you are speaking to the reader. Write ‘You can use SEO plugin in wordpress’ instead of ‘SEO plugin for wordpress can be used’.
- If you are taking ideas from other sites, make sure you add some of your own and make it better. For eg, if the best site on Google search for YouTube Optimization is titled ‘10 ways for YouTube Optimization’, your article should be ‘15 new methods of YouTube Optimization’. Research on many websites.
- Try to be original and write in your own words
- Make sure the sentences are short as it affects readability. If you have a very long list separated by commas, make them a bulleted list.
- Try to include the focus keyword and other versions of it in a 2-3 places in the article, but not more as it will be considered as keyword stuffing’.
Thumbnail and Images
Creating Image Rules | SEO For Images | Organizing & Backups |
Sources – any free stock site Naming Colors Dimensions Size 1920×1080 Extensions | On Upload through Gallery After Upload through Yoast | Assets Management on PC Backup Image on Gdrive Backup PSD on Gdrive |
Creating/Designing New Image Process
Sources Assets to design new Images/covers
Images will be created for specific purpose and has some rules to it. If you are not sure please message @jassk on slack.
- Assets used to create image & the final Image created should be related to the subject
- Assets used in image should not copyrighted by someone else or copied from a competitor’s site. It would be best if created fresh or used from free stock image sites
- Check out pixabay.com, pexels.com, stocksnap.io, allthefreestock.com, unsplash.com
- Enter the subject or what you would like to see in the image.
- Download the image in best size that you need
- Don’t Use google Or competitor’s sites or copyrighted by someone else.
Naming Created Images
- If creating images for use on Website/Blog like in case of post thumbnails, in post content, as product image, product gallery we follow the instructions below
- Don’t use generic names like IMG_001.jpg
- Don’t use underscores or hyphens in image names
- Don’t JoinSeperateWords in image name
- Best to use title of post/product name as Image name
- “8 Benefits of YouTube for Business” = “8 Benefits of YouTube for Business.jpg”
- Some Marketing, Banners images hosted on webiste may not be linked to specific posts hence you can’t use post title in name. In this case when we follow the naming below.
- Eg 1: “Dimension Site Purpose Type.extension”
- Eg 2: “600×200 prefr.co Marketing Ads Banner.jpg”
- Eg 3: “500×400 flagtheory.com Subscrtption Box Background.png”
- If creating image for Social Media: Profile Image & Cover Image naming or SEO of image is not important
Design of a thumbnail of a blog
A lot of empty Space
Popular Colors for thumbnails of blog
Note how it looks to have a whitish tone (not saturated)
Flat Design
Internal Links
Know the site well and add links to other pages in the website whenever there is a mention of any other topic in the article. For example, if you are writing about Youtube optimization and you need to mention keyword research, add the link to the page on keyword research where you mention it. If there is no such article on your blog, consider writing one!
Make sure that the anchor text clearly explains where the link is going to take the user. A ‘Click here’ won’t help. Instead write ‘Click here to learn how to choose the right keywords’.
Make sure that the link opens in a new tab, because you don’t want to send your reader off to another page before they read the first one.
Limit the links to 5 from within the article. However, a blog can have a list of articles in a side menu.
External URLs
Only link to 2 or 3 authoritative pages which will add value to the user and are related to the topic. For example, if you are writing about ‘Immigration in Macedonia’, you can add a link to the government immigration and visa website. Again, make sure that the URL opens in a new page.
References
If you are quoting statistics or facts, it is good to mention where you have received this information from.It is optional, but if someone questions facts mentioned on the site, you have something to defend yourself.
Quick To do List
Make a Todo list that we can add to trello for a reminder on what needs to be done when we get articles or need to optimize older articles.
Task For the content manager Uploads/week for pre written Articles
Time Allotted: 1 hour 30 mins/day (7.5 hours/week)
- Go to https://prefr.skacl.com team channel
- Ask your manager for new articles copy
- Select a PDF document named [Draft]. It will be something you have not yet summarized
- Also NOTE – Some pdf files will be very large for one article hence such files can be split into multiple articles
- Create a summary document with [Draft] in the name
- One of our team members will check it and add improvements to the summary document.
- Look for documents named [Approved] proofread it, then Go to the website mentioned in the document
- Login with your editor details, you should receive them in your email
- Create a final post on the website but make sure it is in draft mode on the website. Don’t Publish it.
How to manage time?
You have to upload at least 3 articles in a week. This means you have a total of 7.5 hours/week to complete all three articles.Maybe you could take 5 hours/week to summarize 3 articles first, then 1.5 hour to read 3 approved articles, finally 1 hour to add them to the website. Manage your time as convenient to you.