21 Ways To Create Better Content In WordPress And Spruce Up Design/SEO

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8. Working The Dimensions

Knowing your content dimensions (in pixels) helps you create graphics or find images that fit within those dimensions. I’m specifically referring to your content body and sidebar width. Since my content body is 680 width (pixels), I know that if I’m using 2 columns, each graphic should be around 340 width. I also know my sidebar widgets are 295 width.

9. Better Graphics

Start by redesigning graphics that appear in the most places (sitewide graphics): logo, footer images, sidebar images. Then move to individual pieces of content (content design graphics).

Sitewide Graphics

• Hire A Graphic Designer From Odesk (paid service I use, well worth it)

Content Design Graphics

• Pixlr Editor (free image editing)
• Clipular (free screenshots for Google Chrome)
• Google Advanced Image Search (free)
• Flickr Advanced Image Search (free)
• Morguefile (free)
• Everystockphoto (free)
• Graphic River (paid)
• Shutterstock (paid)

10. After Entry Widgets

These are the widgets people see after the end of your articles (located between the content body and comments section). They usually have a call to action. For me I’ve included a newsletter box and my author profile. “Related articles” is also a popular one.

In most WordPress themes you can find these under (Appearance –> Widgets –> After Entry). Decide what widgets you want to show here. But there should be something.

11. Image Styling

Style your images by adding borders, margins, padding, captions or other customizations. There’s 4 different places to edit images, all of which have different styling options…

• Media section
• Clicking on an image and finding the “edit” option
• Finding the insert/edit image icon in your visual editor
• The CSS editor

12. Font Styling

Are you getting any ideas yet?

13. Killer Headlines

It all starts with writing a great headline. The “perfect” headline includes:

• A number
• An adjective
• Your keyword

Here is a tutorial by Neil Patel that explains the formula for a perfect headline. He says 8/10 people will read your headline, but only 2/10 will read the rest of your post. Choose wisely.

14. Snippets

SEO Titles + Meta Descriptions

Your SEO title and meta descriptions are the forefront of your SEO – they’re the first thing people see in search results and on social networks. Writing descriptive, compelling snippets will increase your clickthrough rate and drive more visitors to your content.

Rich Snippets

Rich snippets enhance your search engine snippets with additional information about your content. It’s one of the best ways to stand out in search results and get more clicks.

Popular forms of rich snippets…

• Videos
• Reviews
• Recipes
• Events
• Audio

How to do it…

• All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets Plugin
• Yoast’s Video SEO Plugin
• Yoast’s Google News Plugin
• Yoast’s Local SEO Plugin Plugin
• Get more reviews on your Google My Business Page (review stars)
• Google Structured Data Markup Helper (for testing)

15. Social Optimization

Each social network formats your content differently, so you’ll want it optimized to format properly across the main social networks (your thumbnail image is the correct size and your titles and descriptions are tailored for each social network if you choose). The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin does a fantastic job with this and I will assume you’re using it.

Step 1: Go to the “Users” section in WordPress and make sure each person fills out their Facebook, Twitter and Google+ fields.

Step 2: Configure the Social Tab in Yoast:

Facebook OpenGraph

Twitter Cards (Remember To Validate Your Twitter Cards)

Google+ Meta Data

Pinterest (Located In Yoast’s “Dashboard” Settings)

You will need to verify your site with Pinterest and enter the code in this field.

Step 3: Optimize Content For Social Sharing

Once you’ve configured Yoast’s social settings, edit the page or post you want to optimize for social. Scroll down to the Yoast section and hit the “Social” tab…

Yoast gives you the option to display custom titles, descriptions, and properly formatted images for these main social networks. If you leave these blank then your SEO title, meta description, and your main content image (or featured image) will be used. It’s a good idea to at least upload an image for Facebook / Twitter / Google+ so the image formats properly when shared across these main social networks. Here are the correct dimensions…

• Facebook Image: 1200 x 630px
• Twitter Image: 1024 x 512px
• Google+ Image: 800 x 1200px

16. Show Yourself

That’s me!

You’ll see a cropped version in my right sidebar where I introduce myself. That’s where I would add your bio since people can immediately see you.

Add sidebar widget for single author…

First create your bio in HTML. You can create it in the Visual Editor which is easier. When you’re done, go to the Text Editor and copy your bio’s HTML. Now go to (Appearance –> Widgets) then add a “Text” widget to your blog sidebar. Paste the HTML and save.

Add sidebar widgets for multiple authors…

• Make sure each person has their own user profile
• Install the widget logic plugin so each person’s bio only shows on their posts
• If there’s 5 people, add 5 text widgets to your blog sidebar
• Paste each person’s bio HTML in their widget
• Locate the Widget Logic field at the bottom of each person’s widget
• Add this code, only replace my name with theirs: is_author( ‘tom-dupuis’ )
• Or use other conditional tags to control where each widget appears

If you use the Genesis Framework and have a newsletter like me, you can use the Genesis eNews Extended Plugin to create a widget with both your introduction and newsletter.

17. Signatures

You’ll see my signature at the bottom of each article I write. Adds a personal touch.

How to do it…

• Get a blank piece of computer paper
• Write your signature
• Take a close picture of it
• Crop your signature
• Add it to the end of your articles

18. Load Times

The easiest way to improve load times is through sitewide optimizations that affect your entire website (getting faster hosting, lightweight themes, cache plugins…). I cover all this in my WordPress speed guide. You can also improve load times for individual pages by using less videos, large photos, and code. Run the URL through GTmetrix for recommendations.

19. TinyMCE Advanced

Ever feel like you don’t have enough options in your visual editor? Install the TinyMCE Advanced Plugin to style your content with more advanced options.

20. TinyMCE Spellcheck

Before publishing an article, try running the TinyMCE Spellcheck Plugin. Select what type of errors it scans for in the “Users” section or add words to ignore…

21. Testing

Before you promote your content, it’s a good idea to do some testing…

Mobile Responsiveness – even if your WordPress theme is responsive, some content doesn’t always format correctly. Pull up it up on your phone/tablet to double check.

Table Of Contents (Step 1) – if you’ve setup a table of contents, always test each link.

Rich Snippets (step 14) – if your content includes rich snippets, use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool to make sure it’s working.

Social Responsiveness (step 15) – to test whether the main social networks will format your content properly, share the link to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Load Times (step 18) – once it’s published, run the URL through GTmetrix to get recommendations on improving the content’s load time.

Well I hope this was helpful! I know it’s a lot so if you have any questions at all, drop me a line in the comments section. And if you found my article helpful, please share. I appreciate it!

Cheers,