After the hard work of writing engaging content that your readers will find helpful or interesting, there are a few things to consider and check-off before you hit that brave button, “Publish.”
1. Choose Title Well
It should be intriguing, easy to remember. Not terribly long. If you look carefully, you will see that your title automatically becomes your “permalink.” This can be changed, if you’d like. We recommend editing the permalink to just 1-3 words, as it is easier to share, see, and link to.
2. Headers & Links
You can either draft your articles right there within the post area, or copy and paste from somewhere else when complete. Just keep in mind, sometimes when copying and pasting, there may be some reformatting to do. As a best practice, try to have at least one header within your article. When you highlight something as an “h2” or “h3” header, those words become like keywords and have greater weight to searches. As another best practice, for every 100 words you write, try to link back to past articles of your own as it keeps people engaged on your site.
3. Read More
For some layouts, on your home page, the beginning of each article is shown with a “continue reading.” So, after a couple of your paragraphs, just insert the “read more” function by selecting location and clicking the icon button.
3. Categories and Tags
Once your article is complete, then select a category. Also, choose a few tags. These are just main words and ideas that are included in your article and that make it easy for someone to search your articles.
4. Publish
After you have reviewed your article one last time, you can publish immediately or set a future (or past) date to publish. It is now live on your site. If your systems are set up well, the article will be sent out to your database. Then, you will still want to share it with others via social media and consider sending it specifically to one or two people who would find it most relevant. This makes it more personal.
Sonya Dalrymple 