1. Better your WordPress blog
Mandy Webster M.S., M.A.
Writeontheworld.wordpress.com

2. What is the number one thing you hope to learn to do in this class?
Introductions
Your name
Tell us about your blog
What is the number one thing you hope to learn to do in this class?

3. Log In to your workstation
Username:
Password:
Feel free to use your own laptop if you have one!

4. Using the WP-Admin editor
Navigate to: yourblogname.WordPress.com/wp-admin
Log in to your WordPress account

5. Is your blog a reputable source?
How do readers know they can trust you?
What is your area of expertise?
How will readers know your information is reliable?

6. About & Contact Pages
Provide transparency: helps readers believe you are who you say you are
ABOUT page should:
Highlight your experience (as related to your blog content)
Provide background if necessary
CONTACT page should:
Provide a private contact method (other than commenting on a blog post)
Provide business and business address if you are selling anything or requesting money in any way
NOT include personal identifying information such as your personal or home address

7. Pages best practices No more than five pages
If you feel like you need more than five pages,
Choose only the top five for top navigation (including index, about, and contact as your first three)
Use CATEGORIES on individual blog posts to create a secondary navigation area
Add a CATEGORIES widget near the top of your side widgets
Pages are for content that doesn’t change very often (almost never!)
Everything else belongs in a blog post

8. Search engine optimization (SEO)
Tags and Categories
Alt tags and meta data
Sharing (social media, etc.)

9. Crossovers? Tags or categories? Frappe Iced Chocolate Mojito
Mango Smoothie
Coffee
Kiwi
Italian Soda
Hot Teas
Peach
Crossovers?

10. Metadata & alt tags
POST metadata includes post date, author, categories, and tags
BLOG metadata
Includes site-level titles, descriptions, keyword data, etc.
Is currently unavailable for you to customize in FREE version WordPress  (but look into this if you decide to upgrade later)
Alt Tags describe images and provide an opportunity to include additional keywords to help web crawlers categorize your images in the same way they categorize your text.

11. Alt Tags
Help with SEO and make your blog accessible to the visually impaired
Include alt tags with every image you put on your blog:
Title
Caption (optional but helpful for SEO purposes)
Description
Be sure to include KEYWORDS!
Example 

12. Keyword optimization Google Resources That’s a whole other class…
AdWords keyword planner: google-adwords-keyword-planner.html
Webmasters Tools:
Use excerpts
To increase keyword usage
To control what readers see in search results
SEO For Dummies
That’s a whole other class…

13. Submit your blog to search engines
Use the URL for your index page
Google, “submit website to search engines” –or- “submit URL to Google”
Submit your URL to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and any others that may come up
This should always be FREE!
NEVER let anyone talk you into paying for this!

14. Make your posts shareable
Include at least one image with every blog post
Use excerpts to control what shows up on social media when shared
Enable excerpts under Screen Options in post editor
Include a keyword-optimized description with a good “hook”
Test your posts on social media to see how they look
Share your own posts to your social media pages to increase your reach
If no image (or video, etc.) attaches to your shared post, be sure to add one!

15. Social media and your blog
Make it a two-way street
Link to your social media pages from your blog
Link to your blog from your social media pages
Mind your privacy
EX: Keep your Facebook profile private
Create a page for public interaction (if it’s relevant)
But share to both when relevant

16. How much social media do you need?
How relevant is it to your blog?
Image-heavy blog posts are great for sharing to Pinterest
For a professional blog that you are using to brand and market yourself in your industry, you need LinkedIn
If you’re bookish, you might link to your GoodReads profile (if you’re an author, you should have an author profile, too!)
How much do you use each platform?
If you use Twitter a lot, you may as well use it!
If you don’t have time to keep a particular platform updated regularly, don’t use it!

17. How to add social media to your blog
Sharing icons on individual posts
Make it easy for readers to share individual posts to their social media accounts
Go to Settings  Sharing
Linking to your social media pages
Some of your themes may have social media icons built in
If not, use the social widget to add links to your social media pages
Some sites, like GoodReads, do not have widgets built in to WordPress, but they do have widgets on their website that you can copy and paste into an html widget.

18. Check your stats Dashboard  View all
Keep an eye on your stats as you make these changes to your blog
The adjustments we have made so far should begin to increase your traffic within a couple of weeks
What I’m going to show you next can boost your traffic overnight once implemented across several blog posts…
And exponentially with each optimized blog post you publish!

19. Sovrn (formerly Zemanta) editorial assistant
Chrome extension: content-by-zemant/fejeknoakjeblidffkajbioncodnmhge
Firefox Add-On: US/firefox/addon/zemanta/

20. Easily add SEO content to each blog post
Images
Tags
Related content

21. Pingbacks What happens when you link to a related blog post?
Person A posts something on his blog.
Person B posts on her own blog, linking to Person A’s post. This automatically sends a pingback to Person A when both have pingback enabled blogs.
Person A’s blog receives the pingback, then automatically goes to Person B’s post to confirm that the pingback did, in fact, originate there.
PRACTICE THIS:
Pair up
Post a link to your partner’s blog post
Publish your posts and see what happens

22. Repurposing content
What are you writing elsewhere that you could repurpose into blog posts?
Your social media rants – if relevant to your blog content – could be edited and turned into blog posts
Did you take notes at a relevant event? Turn your notes into blog posts and share the info with your followers
Did you write a paper that could be broken down into several blog posts?
Other ideas?

23. Keyword: Relevant The best SEO efforts are organic
Write content that is:
Interesting
Engaging
Consistent
Relevant
Readers will find you, follow you, and share you with their friends!

24. Thanks for coming! Contact me: Mandy Webster
writeontheworld.wordpress.com/
contact/