All too many of us simply want to focus on what we love when it comes to blogging. When we first learn about how versatile blogging platforms like WordPress can be, we want to hop on and begin pouring our thoughts out to the world for all to see. Unfortunately, the age of the internet now requires that we also make investments in how that content is seen by search engines and how others share it. This can take time away from our true passion, and actually make the task of blogging less fun over time. To minimize this effect yet still provide basic benefits that any blogger will appreciate, we’ve outlined a few optimization tips below to help you get an added boost of power from your WordPress website, and get your message out to those who care.

Your Headlines

When crafting headlines for your blog posts and articles, how much thought do you really put into it? If you don’t consider using language that is both captivating and pertinent, then you may be falling short when it comes to exposure in search engines. There are several available plugins for WordPress that can help you determine whether your post titles are optimized properly or falling short in this regard. You also will want to give some thought to your titles as well – when you are pinging links and your blog post shows up in results, what is displayed? Using these two features to accurately convey what your posts contain will not only boost search engine ranking and performance, but also produce better titles that are more appealing to those who see them (which boosts readership and sharing).

Your Images

You are using images, aren’t you? Despite how well your content may be crafted, any blog post is doomed to fall short without the intelligent use of imagery. You want to feature at least two bold, crisp pictures or images that articulate elements of your post or article, or else, people won’t sit through long enough to read what you have to say. This can lead to higher bounce rates from those who find your site through search engines, and can result in even lower search rankings over time. You also want to take this as an opportunity to further optimize your website by adding appropriate meta data, alt text and file names to your images. Never upload images with a generic name – always name them something relevant to the photo itself, and provide a short description upon uploading each one.

Meta Data

This part can be confusing if you have just been pinging links via email and social media, or have no extensive SEO experience. Meta data is what is used to display descriptions in search results, as well as hidden data only read by search engines. This helps search engines determine how best to classify your content, so it’s important that you add this to each and every post. There are quite a number of SEO-related plugins available for WordPress that will walk you through the process of adding the right meta data to every post.