the ultimate guide to writing, formatting, and social sharing for wordpress
TRANSCRIPT
CREATING WITH WORDPRESS
The Ultimate Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Social Sharing
ABOUT ME
Marketing/International Business background
Founded Don’t Panic Management in 2011
Has worked with WordPress since 2009
Loves purple, live music, wine, and cheese
YAY!
ABOUT YOU
Why are you here?
KEEP IN MIND
You don’t have to be a designer or developer to do cool shit with WordPress.
WordPress was designed with the user in mind (that’s you!).
It doesn’t always work the way you want it to.
Be patient. Don’t Panic! (get it?)
A WORD TO THE WISEI will teach you general writing and formatting best practices
I will also recommend several plugins you can use on your site
Be careful about installing plugins - they can weigh your site down
There is no magic number of plugins, but less is more
If you’re going to install plugins, make sure you keep them up to date
HERE WE GO...
Writing & Idea Generation
Editing & Formatting
Using Photo & Video
Search Engine Optimization
Social Media Sharing
Winning
WRITING & IDEA GENERATION
Put your ideas in drafts
Use a content management system
DivvyHQ - http://divvyhq.com
WordPress Editorial Calendar - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/editorial-calendar/
Excel - You know, the one Microsoft makes
IDEA GENERATION
Categories
Less is more
Consider your target audience
Tags
Unlimited
Consider your keywords
Both help with search and make your site more user-friendly
IDEA GENERATION
Use one category at a time to identify the topic of the post
Use as many tags as are relevant to identify keywords in your post
Be careful not to misspell or misuse tags
WRITING
Use WordPress full screen mode
Use a text editor
Use Word
Save
Don’t forget to save
ALWAYS FREAKIN’ CLICK SAVE!
WRITING
If you write your post in a text editor (like Word), be sure to paste using the correct editor in WordPress to maintain formatting
Click to paste from Word
Click to paste from plain text
FORMATTING
Use the “kitchen sink”
Bold, italics, underlines, strikethroughs are cool (just don’t go crazy)
Use these to emphasize important points
FORMATTING
Use H2 or H3 tags for headlines
<h3>Headline</h3>
FORMATTING
Use the Block Quote option to highlight quoted text
Enter Full Screen mode for uninterrupted writing
TL;DRWASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text. Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words. "Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words." "Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about. At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words. Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on. Sources also reported a 450 percent rise in temple rubbing and under-the-breath cursing around this time. "It demands so much of my time and concentration," said Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it." "I've never seen anything like it," said Mark Shelton, a high school teacher from St. Paul, MN who stared blankly at the page in front of him for several minutes before finally holding it up to his ear. "What does it want from us?" As the public grows more desperate, scholars are working to randomly italicize different sections of the text, hoping the italics will land on the important parts and allow everyone to go on with their day. For now, though, millions of panicked and exhausted Americans continue to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning or perhaps a blurb. Some have speculated that the never-ending flood of sentences may be a news article, medical study, urgent product recall notice, letter, user agreement, or even a binding contract of some kind. But until the news does a segment in which they take sections of the text and read them aloud in a slow, calm voice while highlighting those same words on the screen, no one can say for sure. There are some, however, who remain
TL;DR
Don’t be that guy.
IMAGESWhere to find them:
Flickr - user submitted photos
iStockPhoto, BigStockPhoto, Shutterstock, etc.
SXC.HU - free stock photos
Photodropper - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/photo-dropper/
Screenshots - note the source
Always give credit where credit is due!
IMAGES
When in doubt, purchase images
Download and keep them on file for future use
IMAGES
Drag files or Select Files from your computerUse a URL of a file elsewhere on the WebChoose from your Media Library (images that you’ve already uploaded to WordPress)
IMAGES
Format your images from the Upload screen
Title (important for things like Pinterest)Alt text (for SEO)Caption (for image credit)Description (for internal use)Link URL (if you want to link elsewhere)Alignment (it is what it sounds like)Size (pre-fixed sizing)
IMAGES
IMAGES
Click “Edit Media” for more advanced editing
SLIDEDECKAn easy tool to create visually-appealing sliders
Embed sliders into your posts, pages, sidebars
Create sliders out of posts, RSS feed, images, videos, text, social content (like tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram, etc.), and much more
SLIDEDECK
Slidedeck 2 - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slidedeck2/
VIDEOS
Add videos LAST
Add videos using the HTML embed code from your video service of choice
YouTube is the most popular video service and is now owned by Google (helps with SEO)
VIDEOS
Click the “Share” button below the video you want to embed
VIDEOS
Sharing options will be available
The highlighted code is what you want to embed in your blog post
VIDEOS
Use one of their pre-determined sizes (which usually work) or set your own size parameters
Copy the code from YouTube and paste it into the HTML editor of your blog post
Click “Preview” after adding the HTML to make sure it shows up right
DON’T PANIC if it looks like a black box
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
“Black hat” SEO doesn’t work anymore
Google’s new algorithm focuses on consistent quality content
Image via BlackHatSEO.com
SEO
Choose keywords based on which topics you want to cover
Focus on using at least one of those keywords in each post you write
Write keyword rich posts/pages that stay somewhere within your site (not necessarily promoted)
Use internal links
SEO
SEO Tools for WordPress
Your theme’s built-in SEO fields
WordPress SEO by Yoast - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
All In One SEO Pack http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
INBOUND WRITER
Helps you write optimized content in real time
Offers related keywords as well as ways to improve your content as you go
Inbound Writer - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/inboundwriter/
SOCIAL SHARING
Don’t bombard people with 9 million ways to share your content
Choose the networks that are important to you and make it easy for people to share that way
Sharing is caring - If you’re asking others to share your content, make sure you reciprocate!
SHARING IS CARING
SOCIAL SHARING
Digg Digg - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/digg-digg/
SOCIAL SHARING
Facebook Social Plugins - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/
SOCIAL SHARING
HelloBar - http://www.hellobar.com/
SOCIAL SHARING
Native buttons
Twitter - https://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons
Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/
SOCIAL COMMENTING
Livefyre - http://www.livefyre.com/
Disqus - http://disqus.com/
Disqus also has a related posts plugin
If you don’t use your commenting system’s related posts plugin, try:
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/
FINAL WORDS
1. Write good content based on keywords
2. Edit and format
3. Include images
4. Have good meta data
5. Give people a reason to want to share your content
6. Give people a way to easily share your content
7. Be nice
8. Measure results
THANK YOU!
Jess Ostroff@[email protected] http://jessostroff.com http://dontpanicmgmt.com
Image via TriggersandSparks.com