It is truly amazing how much goes into blogging. If you are just a casual reader, trust me when I say that you have no idea. My background is in manufacturing and years ago I was hired to work at a steel pole manufacturing company. I had been in manufacturing for over a decade at that point but when I interviewed for a pole company, I thought "how hard can it be to make steel poles?"
It turns out that it is literally equal to rocket science.
It was an amazing experience to be part of something so incredibly intricate. Well, blogging is not rocket since but it sure can be intricate.
We recently launched a new blog about things to do in DFW. Andi is the primary on the blog, meaning it is her blog. However, I am the tech gal on the blog meaning, I built it and make sure that it runs smoothly. One of my jobs on the project is to help her load content.
We have a team of writers for this blog, which means that we have to deal with content loading. When Andi gets a new blog post she will send me the info and do a spot of SEO work, image work and put the content in WordPress.
Below is a rough checklist of what I do to get the blog post ready for publish.
Note: Be sure to listen to the podcast episode to hear more details on the steps.
Figure out what the post is about so that I can do keyword research
- Google Keyword Planner Keyword Research
In this example, it is about Farmers Market in the DFW area. My first keyword is "dfw farmers market" and I found that only 70 people search that exact phrase.
Next up, I did a Google Adwords Search on "Coppell Farmers Market" and found that 880 people search that phrase.
This blog post is a list post of 10 Farmers Markets in the area, so I am going to SEO around each one of them.
- Long Tail Pro Research
- Resize and Rename Images
- Load Images to WordPress
- Use CoSchedule Headline Analyzer to Come up with Title
- Test Title in Headline Analyzer Emotional Tool
- Create Draft Blog Post in WordPress
- Change permalink
- Select category
- Add featured image
- Add tags
Edit with Thrive Content Builder
This is the point where I switch to the visual editor
- Input content
- Clean up spacing issues
- Add images
- Add any features such as location boxes or call outs
- Save work
Pass back to Andi
- Edits work
- Rearranges content for final design
- Enters Meta Info
- Changes Author
- Releases post
As you can see, there are a lot of steps involved in just getting a blog post loaded into WordPress. This is just an overview snapshot of our process. What is your process?
Hi, Renee,
Great post and podcast!
Would you tell me what location boxes and call outs are and what they’re used for?
Thanks for generously sharing your knowledge!
Brenna
Brenna,
Thank you so much and I am grateful that you enjoyed it. In the case of this blog FunCityStuff: http://funcitystuff.com/dallas-heritage-village-a-trip-back-through-time/ click on the link and scroll to the bottom. You will see a box that has the location information and a bit about what makes it fun. We use these boxes to add a bit of flair and info about the places that we blog about. A call out box could also be something like on this post: https://www.iteachblogging.com/leverage-browser-caching/ I added a green box with content that I wanted to emphasize.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions.
-Renee’
I blog frequently and I seriously thank you for your information. The article has really peaked my interest. I am going to take a note of your site and keep checking for new information about once a week. I opted in for your RSS feed as well.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I hope that you continue to benefit from the blog.
-Renee’
This post provides clear idea designed for the new viewers of blogging, that really how to do running a blog.
Oh my goodness! an amazing article dude. Thank you for sharing it.
Awesome and thank you!
Your style is really unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from. Many thanks for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess I will just bookmark this page.
I am glad that it helped you. Let me know if you have any questions.