Sue Worthington

Is there such a thing as the perfect Wordpress blog post?

Your blog looks great – beautiful design, getting some traffic, opt in box on sidebar, the works.

You are posting regularly – but are you posting in the correct way?

In many cases I suspect new bloggers will simply get the inspiration and start writing.

However a few simple routine steps taken with each blog post will make a lot of difference to how many people read your posts, how much traffic your posts generate, who sees your posts, and ultimately how popular your blog becomes.

Here are my simple steps to writing the perfect Wordpress blog post:-

Research your content so that your post is accurate.

Use your favourite search engine, articles, news items, your favourite blogs.  Here is a link to the top 100 Internet Marketing blogs. But be warned clicking on that link will cost you a serious amount of reading time!

You could also set up Google alerts for your keywords.

Research your keywords

Use your favourite keyword tool and compile a list of appropriate keywords for your post.  Use the main keyword in your title, and in the body of the post at least twice. You can also use the main keyword(s) as anchor text, to an outgoing link.

Ensure your writing is grammatically correct.

This speaks for itself.  Although your writing should be simple and easily readable, it should also be correct grammatically and the spelling should be accurate. If your spelling is poor then use a spell checker every time.  Although having said that, a deliberate misspelling can aid your position in Google, because a lot of people misspell when searching Google.

Write interesting  / informative / funny content.

Your style will be very personal to you – everyone writes in a different way.  Try to tell a story.  Craft your post with a beginning, content, and then a conclusion.

Write about what is current.

Write to inform on relative, topical or interesting information and news, within your niche.

Create controversy.

Write about something which generates strong feelings in your readers.  Do not be offensive or too outspoken though!

Your Headline.

Create an eye catching headline.  Use your keywords in your title.  Research shows that asking a question, or using numbers in the title gets more attention.

Use a blog image

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Readers are often attracted by a blog  image rather than just pages of text. Always use an ‘alt’ tag to ensure that Google image search can find them, especially effective if your ‘alt’ tag is one of your keywords.

Include outgoing links.

People travel around the web using links and you should always use outgoing links in your posts. This helps your link building campaign.  If you have written other topics on the same subject, make sure you link to them internally.  It is good for SEO if you link to Wikipedia, Technorati or Digg etc., and you are also providing a service for your readers. One efficient way of getting backlinks is to find recently posted blog posts talking about the same topic as you. Leave a nice comment with your signature URL.  It is also useful to bookmark the blog post with your comment on it.

Use tags for your post.

Your tags are the keywords associated with the content of the post, and are used to categorize and file information.

Conclusion

Writing the perfect blog post is time consuming but will pay dividends in the long term.  It will become a routine.

Here is the condensed version of ‘Writing the Perfect Blog Post’

1. Research your content for accuracy, and interesting news.
2. Perform your keyword research and use keywords throughout your post
3. Write in your own style, and construct a story with a beginning, a middle and a conclusion.
4. Create an eye-catching headline, using your main keyword(s).
5. Use your main keyword as anchor text to link to another of your own posts (if any) and to an outgoing link.
6. Comment on a recently published post about your topic, bookmark it and link to it.

I hope you find this post an interesting read – if so, please Digg it, Stumbleupon it, Tweet it, or link it to any other bookmarking site of your choice!

Hereare some more links to this subject:-

http://www.mccordweb.com/weblogs/2009/03/27/tips-for-crafting-the-perfect-blog-post-title/

http://www.xarj.net/2008/seo-secrets-to-writing-the-perfect-blog-post-wordpress/

Related posts:

1. Traffic Generation Strategy – Part 5 – Blog Posts
2. 30 Essential Blog Plugins

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