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The most difficult part of writing your first article or blog is finding the time to sit down, organize your thoughts, and put down into words what you are thinking. Carry around a notepad or keep notes on your phone to help you remember what exactly you were thinking and want to write about later. Once you have a train of thought of what direction you want to head, grab out your notes and get working on it! No, I will admit, 20 minutes is a tight time frame. Some subjects will definitely take longer than this. We are only referring to 600 words at most.
Focus Keywords
Narrow down a key focus word or phrase. This one word, or possibly a few, will be a key phrase in your article. Write this down next to you in big letters with a thick, black marker. You will be referring to this paper every once in a while. You will be using your keywords, a lot! Realistically, everywhere!
Slug
The ‘slug’ is the unique and identifying portion of the web address. This is a portion of the URL that is being displayed in your web address bar, typically the portion after the ‘.com/’ Each webpage is required to have its own unique slug and you cannot name multiple web pages the same. Toss in your keywords to hammer in exactly what your article is all about.
Article Meta Description
Those focus keywords we talked about above, guess what? We are going to use them again. Your meta description appears on the search page just below your article headline. If you do not specify one on your own, google will place the first few lines of your article here instead. The meta is your last chance to capture the reader and convince them your article has what they are looking for.
Headline
The top headline is called an H1, or Heading 1. You only get one of these per article. This headline should reflect a summary of what you are about to write. It should have a positive, or possibly negative, vibe to convey feelings to your reader. This is your first chance to capture your reader and convince them with one sentence that your article is the best.
Supporting Headlines
Supporting headlines are called H2. The H2 breaks down your article into smaller more easily digestable portions. Your H2s should support your general topic and flow nicely as your reader continues down the page.
Smaller Headings
Smaller sub-headings are H3 and H4, when necessary. Use these smaller headings to break up larger supporting headlines. These are especially helpful when you are trying to really dive into tons of information that needs to be broken down even further than once.
Write Article Content
In order to have a decent article that google can rank in the search engine results, you need to have something to read. Your readers need something long enough so they can get an idea of what you are referring to.
Aim for 300 Words
Your first article does not have to be 600 words. Honestly, it does not even have to be 200 words. But you have to start somewhere. You can always go back later today or tomorrow and add in a few things you might not have covered the first time around. There are plenty of articles that after seeing how they were performing I went back and edited. By going back later, you can make an underperforming page better or make a great page amazing!
Use Shorter paragraphs
You should only be using four or so sentences per paragraph on average. This breaks up your content and allows the reader to see that you are not force-feeding long and dry content. When I see a large block of words that take up a majority of my screen, especially on my computer, I am completely discouraged and no longer even want to read it at all. Not even skim any of it.
Include Your Keywords
Grab your keywords, this is about to get serious! Research has shown that you only need to use your focus keywords 1-2 times per 100 words, or 1-2%. Try to use this phrase 6-9 times in your first article. Make the words fit naturally, use plural and singular variations. Naturally writing and just thinking about these words occasionally will help you fit them in without even trying.
And just to make a point, by the end of this section, there are just under 300 words under this topic of ‘Write Content.’ Your content would now be halfway done!
Remember, Bad content + 10% more effort = Good Content.
Add Media
Pictures are worth a thousand words! Not all readers are able to visualize exactly what your words could be referring to. Give them a few solid examples of what your writing is referring to. I have skipped many articles talking about how to DIY and there are ZERO pictures on this page. Videos are another way to capture the attention of your reader and keep them on your page longer.
Size Matters
Most web graphics should be no larger than 300 kb. Resize your images for faster load times, which will give you a better user experience and SEO score. If your image editing software allows, always ‘save for web’ to ensure you have a webpage-friendly resolution.
Link to Articles
Link to other articles both within your website and other external websites. If you link to an internal article, this will keep the reader on your website longer. Also, make sources known and inform the reader where they can find more information on that particular portion if you are not willing to give it to them yourself. A wiki page works great, as any other website could be a potential competitor.
Use an SEO Plugin
What if I told you, everything can be monitored and checked off as you go via a plugin through WordPress? Would that make things much MUCH easier and you only have to pay attention to your writing? Glancing off to the side only to see green checks or red marks next to your to-do list. Watching your SEO score slowly make its way to 100 as you add and make corrections.
There are two primary SEO plugins that are competing for your attention. They both offer a completely free version and a version that utilizes a yearly subscription. There are some minor differences between them, but both do a very good job at making sure you learn to check all the boxes needed for your website to be successful.
Rank Math vs Yoast!
Rank Math and Yoast both do similar things in slightly different ways. Both have free versions along with a premium option to allow access to more features. Yoast has features that Rank Math does not have and the same can be said the other way around. See our full review below to see the ins and outs of both SEO plugins and find the one that is right for you.
See More: Rank Math vs Yoast! Review