SEO: 6 Things You Must Do Before Publishing Your Articles

This is a guest post by Emmanuel Obarhua.

There are some simple, yet imperative practices bloggers ought to put to work on their articles after writing and before publishing them, these practices aren’t compulsive but are essential for SEO. It is advised that bloggers should make sure their articles are search engine optimized, but this has never been compulsive, implementation of SEO is always by choice – but to a goal oriented blogger, these SEO practices should be compulsory. SEO tips are advice (no two ways about it) but are always rendered as recommendations, you may or may have not been putting these SEO tips to work, but if you start utilizing them, your posts may start doing better on SERPs and on the long run, your site will grow better in Google PageRank.

must do before publish post

There’re several on-page SEO factors to put to work before publishing your articles, and what I’ll be covering here are certainly not all but are very crucial to a blog’s growth. That said, let’s run through the guide.


1)  Your title

Every blogger fights to get to Google’s first result page, but even on Google's first result page there’s still competition? It’s not enough to get up there on the top of a SERP but one still have to attract searchers’ clicks. Your title is the key thing that attracts clicks on SERPs, in other-words, driving traffic to your site. Someone else may have written about what you want to publish, so it’s important to add more techniques to your titles.

Let’s take an example, let's assume there are two headlines on Google’s result page and these two are containing the same information but are titled: 

1)  “Recent Posts Widget for Blogger”

2) “Professional Recent Posts Widget for Blogger”

Between these two headlines, more people will go for the second choice which is tagged: “Professional Recent Posts Widget for Blogger” because they already perceive that the widget is not just a related posts widget for blogger, but also a professional one at that. 

This also implies to making your titles catchy (simple but detailed, interesting but short – not just a broad title or a set of keywords), that way, internet surfers will likely hit your posts’ titles on search engine result pages cos it will become appealing by then. It is best to maintain a short title even as you implement this insight.


2) URLs (Permalink) optimization

Google pays attention to URLs; as a matter of fact, Blogger launched permalink sometime in 2012, so that blogspot bloggers can edit their posts’ URLs. After you must have written your title, the relevant words might not be there on the permalink (post’s URL), so in this case, it is important to optimize the URL, but as you do so it is best you follow good guidelines to optimize URLs. Blogger does a good job in choosing a URL for you automatically, that may save time but then Blogger might omit the relevant words (keywords) on your URL, as it generates the URL with the first thirty characters of the title. See example

Title: “Guest Post: How to Make Money via PTC” 

Blogger may generate URL this way: http://worldwebsurers.com/2013/2/guest-post-how-to-make.html

Note: This was just an example for clarity.

What we are focusing on up there is the string of texts with yellow background. When blogger generates a permalink for you, it will work just fine but then it may not contain the most relevant words or the target keywords which are “make money” and “PTC”. Now, if I was to optimize this URL, here’s what I’ll do: 

Permalink: http://worldwebsurers.com/2013/2/make-money-via-ptc.html

You see? Short but contains my target keywords, which are make money and PTC leaving out Guest Post and How To. Note that in some cases “How to” could be a keyword. Optimization of URLs depends on the keyword you’re targeting. See a live example from a Blogger Sentral post:

Title: “How To Use Effective Blogging Strategies in Place of Professional SEO Services?

URL: “http://www.bloggersentral.com/2013/01/effective-blogging-seo-strategies.html”

URL optimization summary: Always make sure to keep URLs short, plus you should make sure they contain the target keywords of the topic.


3) Interlink to old posts

Every blogger who cares about growth must build a good habit of Internal Linking and should always put it to work – This practice is way too powerful to be neglected. Check out every pro-blog, you’ll see a related posts widget implemented under the posts – it is never omitted on potential sites, cos it actually adds value to a blog as it reduces bounce rate and increases pageviews, but it will surprise you that internal linking is 5 times (or even more) more powerful than related posts widget. It is a better way to recommend something to your readers – something related to what they’re reading, it serves as a map for Google to crawl through your site, it promotes other contents, it connects your whole blog, it passes the reputation of one page to the other, and it is closer to readers compare to related posts.


4) Make sure to set location

Setting the location of a post is a good thing to do in outsmarting your competitors on SERP, blogger.com gives you an option used by Google to detect the location where a particular piece of information (article) is meant for or would be more useful, and you surely rank better on that particular keyword in that chosen region. Google trends is good for checking where keywords are most popular, but may not always show location which sometimes results from low search volume. To set Location on blogger; click on Location under Post Settings on the right side of blogger editor, type in a region into the field provided and click Search (do not press enter, else it will publish the article), blogger will then fetch a recognized region on the field below the map. Click Done and that’s it.


5) Let your images do more

Using image on every blog post is a very good way to drive extra traffic, people use Google Image Search in searching for images day in day out, and Google does a good job in fetching images from websites to visitors and also drives traffic to the sites by providing means that searchers could use in getting to image source. But if your post images have no alt text, Google cannot tell what the image is, and that means it may not fetch the image to visitors. So it is important to write a short description of your uploaded images on the image alt attribute.


6) Grammar check

If you don’t normally go back to review your work before publishing them, I’d advise that you start doing that henceforth. Wrong spellings tarnishes your site’s image, trust me! If you are selling, this might cause buyers not to trust you enough to buy your stuff. It brings respect to naught; it divulges unreliability and gives you a poor reputation unless the reader has known you before. If you've made a mistake on spellings on previous articles, don’t sweat yourself over it, everyone, I mean everyone makes mistakes. But henceforth, make sure to check your grammar and spellings if they are correct before you publish your articles.


Bonus tip

If you are really bent on outsmarting your competitors on SERPs, then you’d want to start building your AuthorRank which is a new way Google uses in determining good content by judging its writer. Make sure to read a guide on it:


Take-home

If you've not been putting all these practices to work, then this is the best time to start utilizing the mentioned. It is not advisable that you go back to articles you’ve already published and start editing them, most especially not the URLs. For those who’d want to learn a complete on-page SEO, I recommend the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide for you, it’s resourceful.

What do you think about the tips? Tell us on the comments. Happy blogging!

About the author
Emmanuel Obarhua is a friendly blogger who finds pleasure in helping fellow bloggers. He loves spending time in web designing and writing about the things he loves. Make sure to check his blog: World Web Surfers. Follow him on Twitter (@worldwebsurfers) Google+.

36 comments to "SEO: 6 Things You Must Do Before Publishing Your Articles"

Widget For Blogger April 12, 2013 at 12:28 AM    

Nice one ...you can see now a days title are making difference as we all know there are lots of post on recent post widget and popular post widget but using the post title with Marvellous,Dashing Awesome,Unique New will get the readers attention.user will appreciate your content only when he visits your site so titles along with all the tips mentioned by you will get the traffic.

Anonymous,  April 12, 2013 at 3:35 AM    

This pretty nice bro, am gonna implement these and see how it works for me..Blogger Tips And Tricks | Make Money Online Tips | SEO Thanks for sharing.

kfein April 12, 2013 at 4:24 AM    

thanks for the tips. i already implemented all of those tips, except for the location setting. never knew it also contributed to the serp

Emmanuel Obarhua April 12, 2013 at 7:41 AM    

Widget For Blogger, I completely agree with you. Recent and popular posts widget are everywhere on the internet, so making emphasis will be best to make your content unique. And thus; give users a reason to click your headline.

Hello Victor, its good to have you here. If you are that result oriented blogger I referred to then it'll be best you start utilizing the mentioned.

Hey Hfein, the location feature rocks, go put it to work and see for yourself. #Happy blogging sir.

Click Here April 12, 2013 at 7:57 AM    

Awesome guide. This is the best detailed post i have read on optimizing your title before publishing. Will work on that.. Thanks Emmanuel.

Kanyi Okeke April 12, 2013 at 7:58 AM    

Nice one. Keep it up.

Emmanuel Obarhua April 12, 2013 at 11:25 AM    

Hello Click here, you're welcome sir and I am glad you found some new insight for optimizing your titles.

Hello Kanyi, how are you? I am glad you deemed this article nice, and I will keep it going. Thanks for the compliment.

KamilSalleh April 12, 2013 at 7:52 PM    

Good article for SEO. I like it. It is very great. Many people are waiting this new entry.

Modge Mango April 12, 2013 at 9:52 PM    

This was a really good article. As a newer blogger there are several points I had never considered. I am going to keep these strategies in mind from now on. Thanks for the information!

Mak April 12, 2013 at 11:10 PM    

Really a great post. I loved this. Actually I have a blog and I do take care of these things ! This post remembered me those tips again. Thanks anyway

Adib Site April 13, 2013 at 3:21 PM    

thanks for the information,, its really help me.

Rujacksalad Blog April 13, 2013 at 3:31 PM    

Well done , really nice tips for seo before publishing article.

Mary April 14, 2013 at 4:34 AM    

I'm sorry, but I don't see the point of adding a location if the post is not particularly located to any one location. For example - what is the relationship between location and this current post?

WRizuan April 15, 2013 at 11:37 AM    

nice tips, :)

Hafizul April 15, 2013 at 12:07 PM    

Artikel yang sangat menarik..walaupun susah untuk saya faham namun saya cuba juga baca sampai habis..hehe

Myhox Network April 17, 2013 at 11:33 PM    

Thank you for sharing these all tips. It is really important to optimize the blog.

Yash April 19, 2013 at 5:30 AM    

Author rank tip was great. I did not know Author rank counted so much. I have been following other tips too. Thanks for this article.

Nice tips for blogging. These tips really helpful to publish your posts more effectively. Sometimes bloggers ignor these basic tips and when they check again they have to update their post again and have to wait for index again .

Learn SEO April 19, 2013 at 6:56 PM    

Very nice tips for blogging. Thanks for sharing .

Bihar Board Results April 20, 2013 at 2:25 AM    

Great tips. Great point you have shared here via the above post. These are really helpful. Thanks for sharing.

samsung galaxy review April 24, 2013 at 1:25 AM    

Emmanuel, the tip on creating catchy headlines is great. I honestly had not thought about this one before. Will implement this as soon as possible. Thanks.

Unknown April 24, 2013 at 4:29 PM    

How to slove this problem

http://www.tecwab.com/2013/04/first-post-about-tecwab.html#.UXeXN6LU_xA

url lost show this taxt #.UXeXN6LU_xA

EduPub April 24, 2013 at 6:01 PM    

Nice tips for optimising the blog posts.

titan April 24, 2013 at 10:34 PM    

grammar? haiya..thats too hard for me.

Ide Blogging April 25, 2013 at 11:59 PM    

Very good. I also use your instruction on this article before publishing article in my blog. Maybe it's not simple, but have big advantage.

Kool Design Maker April 29, 2013 at 1:58 PM    

Article title and URLs (permalink) optimization both are very important points because without posting a nice title post will not get good response and permalink is very helpful to get fast indexing. Your all shared points are very important to understand the technicalities or article posting.

Rida Ali Khan April 29, 2013 at 2:26 PM    

Nice tips for blogging.Its really helpful to optimize the blog.Thanks

Anonymous,  April 30, 2013 at 6:14 AM    

nice article . thank you so much for sharing. really helpful.

Vishnu May 11, 2013 at 9:06 PM    

Thanks for the tip..Will make sure I use these in my blog for sure :) Keep writing

trueinternetworld blogger May 12, 2013 at 8:58 AM    

Awesome Emmanuel, i love the way you express yourself on your article, thumbs up brother.

Unknown May 19, 2013 at 12:28 AM    

Thanks for these tips. I've identified 3 that I didn't use in the past, but will be sure to do it from now on. However is setting a location really neccessary?

Solutions Manual Test Bank June 4, 2013 at 3:01 PM    

Thanks for your info, a wealth of god stuff here!

EBIMABLOG June 20, 2013 at 7:06 PM    

Nice tips for blogging.Its really helpful to optimize the blog.Thanks

Unknown July 2, 2013 at 1:29 AM    

Praise lord brother. your article simple good good, here on words ill be daily reader of this blog

Professional Photo Editing September 29, 2013 at 4:15 AM    

nicely written and informative aswell. there are lot of confusions among the users about publishing articles. This will help to resolve many of them I hope. thank you.

Satbir Patial February 17, 2014 at 12:55 AM    

Really these steps are must do..!!

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