(SEO) Search Engine Optimization

I finished the editorial process of my book Prayer, Faith, and 12 Kids. Then I read some articles about self-publishing. They brought to my attention that I needed an active website to market my book and interact with readers. My inactive site needed tweaking. I soon learned about search engine optimization (SEO).

Text Length

The first problem was that my blog posts were too short. I was using the front blog page more like a Facebook feed. Each writing reported progress on my book writing but was only a paragraph or two long. Below my post was a dropdown with the acronym SEO which means search engine optimization. My blog’s text length didn’t meet the minimum recommended length of 300 words noted in the text length under the analysis results. I extended one of the blog posts to 384 words and the SEO analysis under the readability section stated that my text length was too long and I needed to shorten it or add subheadings. I chose to add subheadings.

Internal and External Links

The next problem was my lack of connections. Google search engines like to see links in and out of the site as well as between pages within the site, for example, my blog post – Book Cover. I found this easy to do. I copied the link to the page I wanted to link to. Then I highlighted the words that seemed natural to click from, for example; Duggar. Finally, I clicked the icon of a chain link in the header and pasted the page link I had copied. In the process of writing this paragraph, I created an internal and an external link.

Adding Images

Another natural extension of linking is adding images to your blogs that link to another site. The biggest problem with this is making sure the site you borrow the picture from has a policy stating that they approve of linking out to other sites with their pictures. The other site controls that picture and can choose to eliminate it, so keep an eye on elements in your site like this that may need to be changed occasionally.

Adding Art

Adding original art items to a blog rates well with Google search engines too. Original photography and original script give your site credibility and value worthy of other sites linking. A photograph is placed as a block anywhere in the blog post that fits the script. One photograph chosen and uploaded to be the feature image will show up on the opening page of your blogging feed along with a short clip of your post’s script.

SEO Title, Meta Description, and Keyphrase

The SEO title shows up when your blog post comes up in a list of choices on a Google search. Underneath that title is a description called the Meta Description. The phrase you chose to be the key phrase is what Google uses to find your post.

The SEO liked it best when I used my focus keyphrase in my blog title, SEO title, meta description, and two times in my blog post. My focus keyphrase is SEO. I added it to the beginning of the blog title, my SEO title, and the end of the first paragraph. It was already in several places throughout the blog. The meta description is cut off at about 155 characters. That is equivalent to a long sentence or two short ones. A green bar shows below the sentence creation box when the ideal length is accomplished. The line is orange if the sentence is too short and red if it’s too long.

There are many other aspects of SEO. The other ones covered in the SEO at the bottom of a Word Press page include basic grammar and writing techniques. I leave that to you to explore. Follow their suggestions. They are very helpful. Happy blogging on Word Press!