Checklists: A Blogger`s Second Best Friend - All the Details
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I know you think we should be done by now, but there are a few more details you'll need to look over. You know enough to put your article into an appropriate category, but did you remember to tag the entry? It's just another way of getting spotted by the search engines, and, by extension, searchers who'd be interested in what you have to say. So pick a few choice words that cover the topic of your blog post, and tag appropriately.
As to the blog post's category...well, you did remember to put it in the right category, didn't you? If not, you're missing out – or more precisely, your visitors are. It's not unusual for someone visiting a blog to read the current post, see its category, and then click on the link that leads to a list of all entries within that category. And if they're interested in other categories, you can figure that they'll check those out as well. In short, use your categories properly and you might find that your visitors hang around for a while.
Now take a look at your post slug. This isn't the title of your post; in Wordpress 2.5, it appears underneath the title and is highlighted to help you remember. Keep it short, and include keywords from the title. This is another chance to help your post get spotted appropriately.
Finally, are you including an image in your blog post? If so, you should look at its alt tags. Search engines can't read images, remember, so you have to tell them what it is. Yes, this is another chance for your post to come up on the search engine results page for a relevant search. Yes, you can use a keyword here if it's appropriate. You should NOT, however, engage in keyword stuffing. The search engines will catch it, and anyone who uses a program that actually reads web page content to them (as is typical for blind web surfers) will be bored to tears by the sheer repetitiveness of it – and they won't come back.
Now you know why you shouldn't jump immediately from typing the last word in your post to hitting “publish” on your blogging software. Take your time with checking your post; a little work here goes a long way toward making you a better blogger. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to set this aside for a while before I look it over. Good luck!
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