What is a blog?
Blog: noun: a personal web page on which you can write opinions, advice or factual information to share with others and then others can comment back on what you wrote and can share what you wrote with others through the use of social media links such as facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc. Example sentence: I created a blog to post opinions and facts about professional athletes.
Blog: verb: the action of writing on a blog such as updating with new material. Example sentence: You should blog every day. I blogged four times last week. He blogs sometimes twice a day.
Post: noun: the actual article or written material that you wrote on your blog. Example sentence: Did you see that post on Jerry’s blog about football? I am so excited about this good news, I have to write a post about it. verb: the action of putting material, content or something onto your blog. Example sentence: I have to post to my blog today. He posts every day to his blog. (the term “post” and “blog” can be synonymous when used in the form of a verb. Example: I have to blog today. I have to post to my blog today.)
How to Write & Post to a Blog…
- Login to dashboard with your username & passwor
username:
password:
2. Left hand side you will see a gray bar with white words “Dashboard”. Follow down the left hand side of the page and hover your mouse over “Posts”
–> Click Add New
(You can also click on Posts to open that tab and then click on “Add New” when the Posts tab has been opened.)
3. Write your blog’s Title in the Title box. Each blog post you write will have a keyword that you want to target in that blog. Use that keyword when possible, in your Title.
4. Place your cursor in the large content box below the title box and write your blog. Use the tool bar to change fonts, add bullet points, underline & bold text, copy and paste content from other documents on your computer and add pictures and links.
(For more details on adding live links, pictures and using the Paragraph and Headings formatter, see below in Advanced details.)
5. After you write your first paragraph or first few sentences,
–> Click “Insert More” icon, in tool bar.
a) When you click on this icon, your content box will divide
b) hit your “enter/return” key on your keyboard to bring the cursor to the far left hand side of the new text box and finish writing your content in this bottom section.
This will prevent your blog post from showing up in its entirety on a single page, when published. You want multiple posts to show up on each page of your blog so readers can see at a glance what other articles you’ve written and this function allows that to happen. You will see what I mean when you finish writing your post and then publish it. For now, just follow these steps.
6. Finish writing content, add any live links and photos. (Directions to follow).
7. Scroll down to the bottom right hand side of the page and look for the box labeled “Categories”. Check which category you want this blog post to show up under. You can check more than one category.
8. Scroll down below the Categories box to “Tags” and write in the keywords from your blog post. Separate with commas. Example: athletes, training, work outs, football
9. Scroll up to the box on the right hand side that says, “Published” .
–> Click Publish
or
–> Click Review
You can continue to make changes even after you publish your post.
10. Scroll up to the top of the page and on the black bar you will see “View Post”
—> Click View Post
11. Review post
a) check that links work
b) check that photos and content are aligned & not funky – this might take you a few trial and errors back and forth with your space bar
c) review for spelling & grammar
d) if video added, be sure videos play on command
12. Top black bar
—> Click Edit Post
13. Scroll page down to SEO Pressor Score box on right hand side of page
–> type your blog post’s primary keyword into the box
–> Hit Enter/ Return key on your keyboard to start up SEOPressor
(If you do not see a box in which to type the word, you will see a very small gray arrow next to the words SEOPressor Score – click that arrow and the box will appear.)
14. Follow the suggested checklist and make changes to your blog post.
Additional directions for meeting SEO Pressor recommendations are at the end of these directions.
15. Scroll page down to the box labeled “Publish”
–> Click Publish button
16. Logout at far right hand top black bar by clicking your sign in screen name
For Advanced Directions such as adding links, photos and using SEOPressor, click here …
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Advanced Details
Adding a Link to a Website or You Tube Site
- open up another tab or page in your internet browser and go to the exact web page you want to link your content to
- highlight and copy the url address from the url address bar at the top
- go back to your blog post & highlight the word or words you want to make into a link
- click –> chain link icon (in toolbar)
- paste the url address into the box that says “URL
- create a title (any title is fine, but recommend using keywords)
- click the box “Open link in a new window/tab) you ALWAYS want to do this!!
- click “Add Link” at bottom right
- use same directions to add a link to a photo or image in your blog post
Adding a Link to Another Blog Post That You Wrote
a) highlight the word or words in your new blog post that you want to link
b) click –> chain link icon (in tool bar)
c) click –> Or link to existing content (gray letters at bottom left of box)
d) if no blog posts show up in a list, type in a keyword or a title of a blog post that you wrote in the Search box
e) highlight and click on your blog post of choice
e) click –> Add Link
Adding a Photo or Video to your Blog Post
There are 2 ways to add a photo:
1) add a photo saved on your computer
2) add a photo that has a url weblink
Adding a Photo Saved on Your Computer
a) put your cursor where you want your photo to appear in your content
b) at the top right of the blog post content box
–> Click Upload/Insert icon
it defaults to adding a photo from your computer
c) –> Click Select Files button in center of the dotted box
d) select the photo from your computer
e) if you want to edit the image such as size or crop it –> Click edit image
f)edit image then
g)–> Click Save button below the image
h) title your image
i) give it any alternate text (not seen in public, but in google searches)
j) caption – this is seen by the public, its the words that will appear below your photo
k) description – not seen by public but by google searches
l) use the existing url or change it if you want to – I usually keep it the same or click “attachment post URL”
m) click how you want your image to be aligned to your text
n) click the size of your image if its not already pre-selected if you edited the photo I usually choose thumbnail for blog posts
0)–> Click Insert into Post
Add a Photo with a URL
a) create a free account with www.photobucket.com
b) follow the easy directions to add a photo into your photobucket libraray – the photo can be from your own computer or it can be from the internet using google images
c) below the photo in photobucket, you will see that it automatically creates a url link for that photo, you do not need to copy and paste the link like you normally would, simply hold your cursor over the url and click on it and the url is automatically copied and saved and ready to paste
d) go back to your blog post Click –> Upload/Insert icon
e) Click –> From URL
f) URL box –> place cursor in the box and paste as you normally would
g) fill out remaining boxes
h) –> Click Insert into Post
Easiest Way To Insert Video
Follow the directions for inserting a photo and then follow the directions for adding a web link to that photo. Let your readers know that my clicking on the photo they will be taken to a live video.
There are other ways to insert a video into a blog post, but this is the easiest for now.
Paragraph Headings
Google Search Engines recognize Paragraph Headings. They are typically labeled as H1, H2, H3. SEOPressor recognizes when you have used these headings so its important to use the Paragraph Formatting tool.
Don’t get too caught up in what is proper formatting and what isn’t as far as paragraphs go. Just be sure to highlight beginning sentences and click on the different Headings of 1,2,3 in the Paragraphs Formatting Tool. Play around with it in your content and just know you are using this primarily for google search rankings.
SEOPressor
- type your keyword into the search box and hit Return/Enter key on your keyboard
- using the Paragraph formatting tool, add headlines, if needed and add your keyword into these headlines if possible – but be cautious that you don’t sound “keyword awkward” which is using the keyword so much it sounds awkward
- Keyword Density – ideally between 2-4%
- “You do not have ALT tag set to your keyword” –> If you see this checked do the following:
a) Go to SEOPressor (left hand side of your page)
b) Click on Settings (for SEOPressor)
c) enable the checkbox that says “Automatically add ALT tag to images”
This will enable SEOPressor to automatically add ALT tag containing your keyword to the images. Specifically, when you load your page, you will see your image code added with ALT=”Your Keyword”.
(Don’t worry about what this means, just do it because it has to do with Google rankings)
After you make changes per the checklist, put you cursor inside the SEOPressor keyword search box and hit Return/Enter key on your keyboard to re-calculate your score
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’re not sure how to fix one of the “x’s” in the checklist, highlight it and copy and paste into google search and the answer will pop up for you!
Glossary
Blog: noun: a personal web page on which you can write opinions, advice or factual information to share with others and then others can comment back on what you wrote and can share what you wrote with others through the use of social media links such as facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc. Example sentence: I created a blog to post opinions and facts about professional athletes.
Blog: verb: the action of writing on a blog such as updating with new material. Example sentence: You should blog every day. I blogged four times last week. He blogs sometimes twice a day.
Post: noun: the actual article or written material that you wrote on your blog. Example sentence: Did you see that post on Jerry’s blog about football? I am so excited about this good news, I have to write a post about it. verb: the action of putting material, content or something onto your blog. Example sentence: I have to post to my blog today. He posts every day to his blog. (the term “post” and “blog” can be synonymous when used in the form of a verb. Example: I have to blog today. I have to post to my blog today.)
Plugin: noun: tools that are added on to your blog to give you more functions that you or your blog can perform, additional add-ons to your blog to improve its performance, increase its rankings on the search engines and increase the ease of use for you, the blogger and for your readers. some plugins are free and some cost money. Example sentence: I love the social media plugin that allows my readers to easily share my post on their Facebook page.