Many people rush to publish posts, only to realize later that they used the wrong keywords, forgot to proofread or included broken links. Therefore, before pressing the ‘publish’ button, the following are some of the things you need to consider.
1. Cohesiveness
Though this might seem as common sense, many people go ahead to publish posts without reading through. It is only when you read through the post that you will know if the arguments are convincing, if the sentences and paragraphs are in the proper order and if the whole post generally makes sense. After reading your post once and confirming that it makes sense, you should read it again to proofread it. Look out for spelling and grammar mistakes.
2. Completeness
If you are hoping to drive a lot of traffic to your blog, you must ensure that your post is complete. When you read through the post, you will be able to determine if it requires more explanations or sections. For instance, you might have written a post focused on the importance of blog networks. Which are some of the popular blog networks? How can one join? These are some of the aspects which would be of interest to prospective readers.
3. Keywords
To attract as much traffic as possible to your blog, you need to ensure that your post contains the most popular keywords in your niche. For example, you could be writing something about business mobile apps. For such a post, you could consider using either ‘business mobile apps’ or ‘mobile applications for business’ as keywords. After using a keyword tool, you might find out that each month, 5,000 people search for ‘business mobile apps’ while 40,000 search for ‘mobile applications for business’. In this case, it would make sense to go with the latter term.
4. Title
The most vital element of your post is the title. People will not read through your post unless the title generates interest. You could grab the attention of readers by making a strange statement such as ‘Blogging Lessons from Batman’. Alternatively, you could offer something valuable e.g. ’20 Tips to Become an Affiliate Champion’.
In addition, make sure your title contains the main keywords. This is very important for search engine optimization.
5. Linking to older posts
This is very important for search engine spiders as well as humans. It enables search engine spiders to crawl your site better, and encourages people to explore the rest of your site for further information. Therefore, before publishing your next post, find out if there are older posts you can link to.
6. Images
Using images in posts is very important. Relevant and catchy images can be very effective in getting people to read through your post. In addition, they can help attract traffic from Google image search.
7. Broken links
Visitors to your site will get frustrated if they come across a link which is broken. Therefore, before clicking on the publish button, use the ‘preview’ feature to look at your post. Click on all the links to find out if they are functional and leading to the right landing page.
8. Date of publishing
No matter how great your post is, you wouldn’t get much traffic if it goes live on a weekend. To attract the most traffic, it would be advisable to publish on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Check your traffic number to be sure which day would be the best to publish your post. In addition, you need to look out for international holidays. For instance, if you live in the US, look out for UK national holidays and avoid publishing your posts on these dates.
By Guest Author – Charles Mburugu has a great passion for sharing blogging and web development tips. He is currently writing for web design library. Click here to learn more.
