An eCommerce store needs a formidable online presence—of which a good website and quality products are just the beginning. The real challenge lies in letting probable customers know that your brand exists amidst the digital racket. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing come in.
While SEO lays a foundation for organic traffic through search engines, social media is what fosters brand awareness and allows for engagement or direct interaction with consumers. Both components of an ecommerce strategy are very relevant, but it’s paramount to strike the perfect balance.
This article will take a closer look into the balancing of the two for a better online presence.
Understanding E-commerce SEO
SEO serves as the virtual compass guiding potential customers to your online storefront. It encompasses a set of strategies aimed at improving your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). By optimizing various elements of your site, you can increase the likelihood of appearing prominently when users search for products or services related to your business.
But effective eCommerce SEO isn’t merely about driving traffic; it’s about attracting the right traffic. This involves targeting keywords that align with user intent, ensuring that your website caters to the needs of those actively seeking the products you offer.
It’s always advisable to work withtop ecommerce SEO agenciesthat have an effective approach for eCommerce SEO through on-page and off-page optimization. This can include techniques such as technical SEO, content creation, distribution, and backlink building.
Elements of E-commerce SEO
To achieve success in eCommerce SEO, it’s essential to master a variety of interconnected strategies. These core elements work together to enhance your website’s visibility, usability, and overall appeal to both search engines and potential customers.
Keyword Research
First, any search engine optimization plan starts with keyword research, which determines the exact terms and phrases your target is using to conduct their searches. For eCommerce businesses, it means a high focus on product-based keywords, such as “women’s running shoes,” and long-tail keywords capturing more specific Product intent, like “best lightweight running shoes for women.”
On-Page Optimization
This is about creating compelling product descriptions, keyword-rich titles, and meta tags, and ensuring that product images are properly labeled and optimized. It’s also about well-structured, readable, scannable content, which ensures great user experience—a criterion indirectly boosting SEO rankings.
Technical SEO
While content is king, the technical aspects of your website play a crucial role in SEO. These include optimizing site speed as a slow-loading website can deter users and negatively impact rankings. Additionally, you should ensure mobile friendliness as around60% of online searchesare now conducted on mobile devices. Finally, address any crawl errors or broken links that could hinder search engine bots from indexing your site.
Content Marketing
Beyond product pages, creating informative and engaging content such as blog posts, buying guides, and how-to articles can attract potential customers and establish your brand as an authority in your niche. This can also be optimized for relevant keywords, further expanding your reach in search results.
Link Building
Earning backlinks from reputable websites is a powerful way to signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and relevant. This can be achieved through guest blogging, creating shareable content, and building relationships with industry influencers. While link building can be a long-term endeavor, it’s an essential component of a comprehensive eCommerce SEO strategy.
Harnessing the Power of Social Media
Social media enhances the way eCommerce businesses connect with their customers, offering a dynamic platform to amplify brand visibility and drive sales. It’s more than just posting pretty pictures; it’s about strategically leveraging various platforms to achieve specific marketing goals.
Brand Awareness
Establishinga strong brand identityis essential for your business’s digital campaign. Social media platforms provide a visual and interactive space to showcase your brand’s personality, values, and unique selling propositions. Through eye-catching visuals, compelling storytelling, and consistent messaging, you can leave a lasting impression on your target audience.
Community Building
Unlike traditional channels of marketing, social media makes provisions for easier communication. These platforms put brands and consumers in close contact, opening special chances for building a community around your brand.
You can start by engaging active customers, either by responding to comments, having live Q&A sessions, or simply interacting with them to make them feel really attached to the brand on a personal level. Another major payoff of having a strong online community is that it can be an extremely rich source of user-generated content in the form of reviews, testimonials, and more.
Driving Traffic to Product Pages
While social media can be a powerful tool for brand building and engagement, it’s equally important to leverage it to drive traffic to your product pages and ultimately generate sales. Strategic placement of links in your social media posts, as well as shoppable posts on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, can create a seamless path for users to explore and purchase your products.
Integrating SEO and Social Media Strategies
Social media SEO can be used to create a powerful marketing strategy that boosts traffic and sales. Through this, eCommerce businesses can amplify their reach, engagement, and, ultimately, their conversions. Here’s how:
Promote SEO-Optimized Content
Your nicely written, SEO-optimized blog posts and product descriptions are better than simply holding a place on your website. Social media offers the perfect platform where this content should be shared in front of many.
Sharing links to pages, whether those are of articles, product pages, or landing pages, across multiple social channels can help drive huge traffic to a website. Moreover, social media posts are perfect in arousing interest and enticing your audience to click through to your site.
Market Research and Keyword Insights
Social media isn’t just a broadcasting platform; it’s a goldmine of valuable insights into your target audience. By monitoring conversations, hashtags, and trends related to your industry, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ preferences, pain points, and interests.
These insights can help you identify trending topics and popular keywords, allowing you to tailor your content to align with user intent and drive more targeted traffic to your website.
Creating Shoppable Posts on Social Media Platforms
Several social media platforms now offer features that allow users to directly purchase products without leaving the app. Shoppable posts on Instagram and Facebook, for instance, make it incredibly convenient for users to browse and buy products they discover while strolling through their feeds.
Running Social Media Contests
Social media contests and giveaways are proven methods for boosting engagement and attracting new followers. By linking these promotions to specific product pages, you can direct a surge of traffic to your website.
To maximize the social SEO benefits of these campaigns, consider incorporating relevant keywords into the contest rules or descriptions. Moreover, encourage participants to share the contest on their own profiles, thereby extending your reach and potentially earning backlinks to your product pages.
Conclusion
The interplay between SEO and social media in eCommerce can’t be stressed enough. Knowing and putting into practice those strategies discussed in this article will yield full power over both channels in attracting customers for conversion.
As a result, an eCommerce business can execute long-lasting growth and create a firm position within the competitive online marketplace.
Digital Agency Network is a global network of carefully selected, highly talented, independently operated marketing and advertising agencies. We offer advertising and membership options, bridging digital agencies, SaaS tools, and brands. DAN’s mission is to support member agencies by enhancing their intelligence, expertise, reach, and effectiveness through knowledge sharing and collaboration.
When a client asks, “Why aren’t we gaining more followers?” or “How do our social channels increase our revenue?” it’s a signal to revisit your social media goals.
Goals are no longer vanity targets like hitting 10,000 followers. They’ve become the foundation for meaningful results and client satisfaction. Whether it’s growing brand awareness, increasing website traffic, or boosting conversions, clear, actionable goals make it easier to prove the value of your agency’s work.
Consider this scenario, for example: You’re managing social media for a local retail client. They want more likes on Instagram, but their ultimate priority is driving in-store sales. Without a clear goal, you might focus on creating content that racks up engagement metrics—shares, likes, and comments—but doesn’t motivate customers to visit the store. If your agency has aligned with the right goal (in-store traffic), your team will shift to strategies like promoting time-sensitive offers or showcasing customer testimonials that encourage action. Suddenly, your efforts have measurable value tied to their bottom line.
Setting and achieving social media goals requires defining objectives that align with broader business priorities, breaking goals into achievable steps, and choosing the right metrics to track progress. At the end of the day, it’s all about communication. Clear updates on what’s working, why it matters, and how it impacts the client’s success help build trust and demonstrate your agency’s expertise.
In this guide, we’ll cover how to define specific social media goals, develop strategies to meet them, and report on results in a way clients can easily understand.
Let’s get started!
What Are Social Media Goals?
Social media goals are specific, measurable objectives that align your clients’ business priorities with their social media strategy. These goals provide a clear direction for campaigns, helping you focus on what matters most—driving results that impact the bottom line.
Instead of vague aspirations like “getting more likes” or “posting consistently,” social media goals should be tied to outcomes such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, driving website traffic, or boosting conversions.
For example, if a client runs an ecommerce business, a social media goal might be: “Drive a 15% increase in website traffic from Instagram over the next three months.” This goal is tied to a real business outcome and gives your team a measurable target to work toward.
Setting these goals also ensures alignment between your agency and your clients. This cannot be understated.
Defining clear objectives from the outset helps set realistic expectations and shows how social media efforts contribute to overall business success. Ultimately, well-defined goals give campaigns purpose, allow for performance tracking, and make it easier to adjust strategies for better results.
Track your clients’ social media performance with a real-time dashboard that ties metrics directly to their goals. Simplify reporting and prove your value effortlessly.
Why Do Social Media Marketing Goals Matter?
Social media marketing goals matter because they align efforts with measurable outcomes. For social media managers, goals provide a roadmap for campaigns, guiding content creation, ad strategies, and performance tracking. Without defined objectives, you risk spreading your efforts thin and delivering results that lack context or impact.
From the client’s perspective, clear goals ensure their investment ties back to real business priorities. A restaurant owner, for example, doesn’t just want “more engagement” on Facebook. They want that engagement to translate into reservations or event bookings. When goals like “Increase reservations by 20% through Facebook promotions over three months” are established, both your agency and the client know what success looks like and how to measure it.
Goals also help agencies communicate value to clients. By connecting metrics—like reach, click-through rates, or sales conversions—to predefined goals, agencies show exactly how social media impacts their bottom line. This transparency builds trust, positions your agency as a strategic partner, and helps clients understand the return on their investment.
3 Examples of Social Media Goals
Connecting a client’s goals to business outcomes builds trust and demonstrates the true impact of an SMM’s work. Below are three practical examples of common social media goals, along with actionable steps for achieving, tracking, and communicating success.
1. Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness increases your client’s visibility and introduces their business to a larger audience. This is especially important for clients looking to grow their market presence or launch new products. Agencies can amplify a client’s reach by creating engaging content and leveraging paid promotions.
Goal:Increase brand visibility among a target audience.
How to Achieve It:Social media managers can use a combination of engaging organic content and targeted paid ads to expand reach. This includes using video content, branded hashtags, and collaborations with influencers.
How to Track It:Metrics like impressions, reach, follower growth, and branded hashtag performance provide a clear picture of progress. Tools likesocial media dashboardshelp consolidate these metrics for easy tracking.
How to Communicate Results:Show clients how increased impressions and reach align with their goal of brand visibility. For example, “Your Instagram ad campaign reached 50,000 unique users this month, increasing your brand exposure by 25% compared to last month.”
2. Organic Website Traffic
Driving organic traffic to a client’s website ensures their audience takes meaningful actions beyond social platforms. Increasing social-driven traffic can directly impact revenue for businesses that rely on blog readership, online sales, or product discovery.
Goal:Drive more visitors to the client’s website through social media.
How to Achieve It:Share blog posts, product pages, or promotions with strong CTAs that direct users to the website. Optimize social media bios with links and use platform-specific tools like Instagram Stories’ link stickers or Facebook posts.
How to Track It:Use UTM parameters and tools like Google Analytics to track social media-driven website traffic. Focus on sessions, bounce rates, and specific traffic sources.
How to Communicate Results:Highlight the increase in traffic and tie it to conversions if possible. For example, “Social media drove 3,500 visitors to your website this month, a 15% increase, with a notable spike from Facebook posts linking to your fall sale.”
3. Generate New Leads
Generating leads helps clients connect with potential customers who are ready to learn more about their offerings. Social media platforms offer great tools for capturing leads, from targeted ads to gated content.
Goal:Capture leads that can be nurtured into customers.
How to Achieve It:Create lead generation campaigns using gated content like eBooks, webinars, or giveaways. To streamline the process, use lead forms on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
How to Track It:Monitor form submissions, sign-ups, and cost-per-lead. Platforms like AgencyAnalytics with CRM integrations help capture and track lead data.
How to Communicate Results:Demonstrate lead volume and value. For example, “Your LinkedIn ad campaign generated 150 leads at a cost of $8 per lead, giving you a solid pool to nurture into potential clients.”
5 Steps To Set Up Social Media Goals
Step 1: Align Goals with Business Objectives
The first step to setting social media goals is ensuring they align with a client’s overall business objectives. Whether the focus is increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, or generating leads, your social media strategy should support their bigger-picture goals.
If a client’s objective is to grow online sales, a relevant goal could be “Increase website traffic from social media by 20% over three months.”
Step 2: Use the SMART Framework with MASTER Goals
Use the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound to ensure your goals are actionable.
For social media managers looking to take it a step further, consider the MASTER method: Measurable, Achievable, Specific, Transforming, Evolving, and Reassessed.
MASTER goals ensure consistent tracking, evaluation, and optimization. For example, rather than “get more followers,” a MASTER goal would be “Gain 1,000 new Instagram followers in 60 days by running a targeted giveaway campaign.”
Step 3: Identify Key Metrics and KPIs
Once goals are set, determine the metrics and KPIs that will measure success. For example, impressions and reach align with brand awareness, while traffic and conversions measure website performance. To streamline this process, use tools like AgencyAnalytics’ social media report templates to track KPIs in one place.
These templates consolidate key social media metrics, making it easier to monitor progress and confidently report back to clients.
Step 4: Execute the Plan
With goals and KPIs in place, it’s time to execute. This includes scheduling posts, engaging with the audience, and testing content types to see what resonates best.
Use A/B testing to identify top-performing content, whether it’s videos, carousel posts, or ads. Staying consistent and responsive during this phase ensures strategies remain aligned with client goals.
Step 5: Track, Report, and Optimize
Tracking performance is essential to improving outcomes over time. Use a real-time social media dashboard from AgencyAnalytics to monitor performance across platforms, identify trends, and make data-driven adjustments.
For example, if engagement on Instagram Stories outperforms posts, focus efforts there. Presenting up-to-date insights clearly demonstrates how your agency’s social media efforts are driving progress toward client goals.
Clients want to know how their social media performance stacks up against their competition. With Agency Analytics’ newInsights feature, compare your client’s social metrics against data from other businesses in the same industry.
Summary & Key Takeaways
Setting clear social media goals and tracking performance doesn’t have to be complicated. Reporting will be a breeze if your agency starts with well-defined objectives from the beginning.
Use tools like AgencyAnalytics as your secret weapon to simplify reporting and deliver impressive results for your clients. With customizable report templates and over 80 marketing platform integrations, your team will skip the hassle of switching between different tools and spreadsheets and be able to focus on optimizing campaigns.
Establishing goals from the beginning ensures that you and your clients are aligned on expectations, making it easier to measure, refine, and overachieve their targets. When your agency consistently delivers on goals, you become the strategic partner your clients can trust.
Here are some key takeaways to remember:
Start with SMART or MASTER goalsto create measurable, actionable targets that align with business objectives.
Track key metrics and KPIsusing real-time dashboards to measure performance and identify opportunities for optimization.
Leverage customizable reporting toolslike Agency Analytics to communicate results clearly and make your agency shine.
Defining goals, tracking progress, and optimizing strategies means that your agency meets client expectations and consistently exceeds them—proving your value every step of the way.
Richelle Peace is a joyful writer with a degree in Journalism. She loves writing web content, blogs, and social media posts. Whatever the topic, she’s fascinated by learning and sharing.
Wondering how Google decides which reviews show up first in search results? Here’s a breakdown of the factors that determine “most relevant.”
Google does not show reviews based on chronological order but by “Most Relevant.” This is called dynamic review, as it is based on specific criteria. So, what criteria are used by Google to decide if a review is more relevant?
Top Factors
Length
Word count significantly impacts how relevant Google considers the review. Generally, the longer the review, the more relevant.
Keywords
When a customer uses the business’s name in the review, it can increase the relevancy of the review.
Specificity
Customers who tell their story or example with the product or service rank higher for relevancy than generic text.
Local
Customers who have done reviews in the local area in the past are more relevant than customers with no review history or customers who reside in a different location than the business.
Time
The more time that goes by, the less relevant the review.
Top Nonfactors
Likes
Unless the review becomes viral, the likes it receives will not impact the relevancy.
Responses from Owners
Even though it is considered good business, owners responding to reviews do not impact the relevancy of reviews.
Negative Reviews
Google does not rank negative reviews higher than positive reviews. They both rank on the criteria listed above.
Google’s automated ranking systems are designed to present helpful, reliable information that’s primarily created to benefit people, not to gain search engine rankings, in the top Search results. This page is designed to help creators evaluate if they’re producing such content.
Self-assess your content
Evaluating your own content against these questions can help you gauge if the content you’re making is helpful and reliable. Beyond asking yourself these questions, consider having others you trust but who are unaffiliated with your site provide an honest assessment.
Also consider an audit of the drops you may have experienced. What pages were most impacted and for what types of searches? Look closely at these to understand how they’re assessed against some of the questions outlined here.
Content and quality questions
Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
Does the content provide a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic?
Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond the obvious?
If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources, and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
Does the main heading or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
Does the main heading or page title avoid exaggerating or being shocking in nature?
Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia, or book?
Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
Does the content have any spelling or stylistic issues?
Is the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
Expertise questions
Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?
If someone researched the site producing the content, would they come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?
Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
Does the content have any easily-verified factual errors?
Provide a great page experience
Google’s core ranking systems look to reward content that provides a good page experience. Site owners seeking to be successful with our systems should not focus on only one or two aspects of page experience. Instead, check if you’re providing an overall great page experience across many aspects. For more advice, see our page, Understanding page experience in Google Search results.
Focus on people-first content
People-first content means content that’s created primarily for people, and not to manipulate search engine rankings. How can you evaluate if you’re creating people-first content? Answering yes to the questions below means you’re probably on the right track with a people-first approach:
Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?
Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service, or visiting a place)?
Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?
After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?
Will someone reading your content leave feeling like they’ve had a satisfying experience?
Avoid creating search engine-first content
We recommend that you focus on creating people-first content to be successful with Google Search, rather than search engine-first content made primarily to gain search engine rankings. Answering yes to some or all of the questions below is a warning sign that you should reevaluate how you’re creating content:
Is the content primarily made to attract visits from search engines?
Are you producing lots of content on many different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well in search results?
Are you using extensive automation to produce content on many topics?
Are you mainly summarizing what others have to say without adding much value?
Are you writing about things simply because they seem trending and not because you’d write about them otherwise for your existing audience?
Does your content leave readers feeling like they need to search again to get better information from other sources?
Are you writing to a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (No, we don’t.)
Did you decide to enter some niche topic area without any real expertise, but instead mainly because you thought you’d get search traffic?
Does your content promise to answer a question that actually has no answer, such as suggesting there’s a release date for a product, movie, or TV show when one isn’t confirmed?
Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?
Are you adding a lot of new content or removing a lot of older content primarily because you believe it will help your search rankings overall by somehow making your site seem “fresh?” (No, it won’t)
What about SEO? Isn’t that search engine-first?
There are some things you could do that are specifically meant to help search engines better discover and understand your content. Collectively, this is called “search engine optimization” or SEO, for short. Google’s own SEO guide covers best practices to consider. SEO can be a helpful activity when it is applied to people-first content, rather than search engine-first content.
Get to know E-E-A-T and the quality rater guidelines
Google’s automated systems are designed to use many different factors to rank great content. After identifying relevant content, our systems aim to prioritize those that seem most helpful. To do this, they identify a mix of factors that can help determine which content demonstrates aspects of experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, or what we call E-E-A-T.
Of these aspects, trust is most important. The others contribute to trust, but content doesn’t necessarily have to demonstrate all of them. For example, some content might be helpful based on the experience it demonstrates, while other content might be helpful because of the expertise it shares.
While E-E-A-T itself isn’t a specific ranking factor, using a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T is useful. For example, our systems give even more weight to content that aligns with strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people, or the welfare or well-being of society. We call these “Your Money or Your Life” topics, or YMYL for short.
Search quality raters are people who give us insights on if our algorithms seem to be providing good results, a way to help confirm our changes are working well. In particular, raters are trained to understand if content has strong E-E-A-T. The criteria they use to do this is outlined in our search quality rater guidelines.
Search raters have no control over how pages rank. Rater data is not used directly in our ranking algorithms. Rather, we use them as a restaurant might get feedback cards from diners. The feedback helps us know if our systems seem to be working.
Reading the guidelines may help you self-assess how your content is doing from an E-E-A-T perspective, improvements to consider, and help align it conceptually with the different signals that our automated systems use to rank content.
Ask “Who, How, and Why” about your content
Consider evaluating your content in terms of “Who, How, and Why” as a way to stay on course with what our systems seek to reward.
Who (created the content)
Something that helps people intuitively understand the E-E-A-T of content is when it’s clear who created it. That’s the “Who” to consider. When creating content, here are some who-related questions to ask yourself:
Is it self-evident to your visitors who authored your content?
Do pages carry a byline, where one might be expected?
Do bylines lead to further information about the author or authors involved, giving background about them and the areas they write about?
If you’re clearly indicating who created the content, you’re likely aligned with the concepts of E-E-A-T and on a path to success. We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it.
How (the content was created)
It’s helpful to readers to know how a piece of content was produced: this is the “How” to consider including in your content.
For example, with product reviews, it can build trust with readers when they understand the number of products that were tested, what the test results were, and how the tests were conducted, all accompanied by evidence of the work involved, such as photographs. It’s advice we share more about in our Write high quality product reviews help page.
Many types of content may have a “How” component to them. That can include automated, AI-generated, and AI-assisted content. Sharing details about the processes involved can help readers and visitors better understand any unique and useful role automation may have served.
If automation is used to substantially generate content, here are some questions to ask yourself:
Is the use of automation, including AI-generation, self-evident to visitors through disclosures or in other ways?
Are you providing background about how automation or AI-generation was used to create content?
Are you explaining why automation or AI was seen as useful to produce content?
Overall, AI or automation disclosures are useful for content where someone might think “How was this created?” Consider adding these when it would be reasonably expected. For more, see our blog post and FAQ: How Google Search views AI-generated content.
Why (was the content created)
“Why” is perhaps the most important question to answer about your content. Why is it being created in the first place?
The “why” should be that you’re creating content primarily to help people, content that is useful to visitors if they come to your site directly. If you’re doing this, you’re aligning with E-E-A-T generally and what our core ranking systems seek to reward.
If the “why” is that you’re primarily making content to attract search engine visits, that’s not aligned with what our systems seek to reward. If you use automation, including AI-generation, to produce content for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, that’s a violation of our spam policies.
by Mariska Wiese-Schalekamp – Website Developer at Glixie Media t/u House of Pixels (Pty) Ltd
Log into your WordPress Dashboard.
Go to Posts.
Select Add New.
Use the screen provided to create your post as desired.
Click Publish when you are done creating your post. The post will display on the blogging page of your website.
Add content
You’ve arrived on the blank canvas where you’ll add your masterpiece (AKA your content). But before starting this process, we have a few pointers. First, be sure to save your work frequently or write it in a separate Google or Word document and copy it over to the content management systems (CMS). This is a wise idea because,
while WordPress does save your progress automatically, it might not pick up on changes made if you lose your internet connection. Not to mention, drafting your content in a separate document is good idea so you don’t get overwhelmed by simultaneously formatting, editing, and writing.
Click the “Save draft” button in the upper right-hand corner to save.
Now, it’s time to add your content. To do so, copy-paste your original text directly into WordPress.
WordPress uses a block editor, which works exactly as you’d imagine — by creating blocks for each section of content you add. For example, paragraphs will be separated into blocks, as will images and headings.
Uploading Images
Once you’ve written your first piece, you’ll need to add images to your WordPress blog post. Adding images can make your content more digestible and visually engaging. To begin uploading a picture, press “enter” on your keyboard to create a new block. Then, click the “+” button in the top left corner to view the different blocks. Select the “Image” block.
Now, upload your image. You can either upload one from your computer, select one from the WordPress media library, or insert an image with a URL from a site like Flickr. Dont forget to add alt text to your image for accessibility and search engine optimization.
Once you’ve completed this step, your image should be visible in the block. You can repeat this process as necessary — if your article is long, we suggest adding a few images to break up the text and make it more readable.
Pro Tip: People recall 65% of the information they see presented visually — so don’t forget to use infographics on your blog!
Adding Links
Adding internal and external links is an essential way to boost your blog post quality.
The anchor text is also crucial for SEO as it indicates to site crawlers what the page you’re linking to is about. It’s easy to add hyperlinks to your content in WordPress. You can do so in two ways. The first way is to select the text you want to hyperlink. Then, find the floating menu box and select the link icon highlighted in blue below.
Add a URL in the box that appears.
Click “Enter” to insert the URL. And ta-da, you’ve done it!
The more straightforward way to add hyperlinks is by using a keyboard shortcut. Start by selecting the text you want to hyperlink.
Then, press Control+K (PC) to bring up the box and add your URL on your keyboard.
Pro Tip: Its up to you to decide whether youd like your links to open in a new tab. Generally speaking, if a link is external, or youd like the visitor to stay on the page theyre currently on, turn on the option to open in a new tab.
Format the post
Spoiler alert: It’s just as important that your content is organized as it is well-written. Without formatting in place, your audience is more likely to get overwhelmed by massive blocks of text and leave the page quickly (therefore impacting your bounce rate). Here’s how to format your post.
Pro Tip: Readers don’t want to spend time figuring out how to navigate your post, so make it easy for them with clear formatting. We’ll dive into how you can do so now.
Headings
To organize a blog post, use headings. Headings tell the reader (and the search engines) what is essential on the page using a hierarchy. It’s a win-win: Your readers know what to expect, and your site is more findable for search engines. Plus, it allows your readers to better pace their reading experience. And that’s not to mention how it makes your blog post look better aesthetically speaking.
Here’s how it works: An H1 is the title of a page and lives at the top of the hierarchy and the top of the page. A blog post only has one H1. If you add more, you risk confusing Google — and your reader. In other words, don’t do it.
H2s are subheadings. You might have one, two, or more of these in your post. H2s are next in line in the hierarchy of a blog post. They always go below an H1, and if you’re trying to rank for a keyword on Google, it’s a good idea to try to include it in at least a few H2s — without keyword stuffing, of course. H3s follow a similar order — they always go below H2s. Think of an H3 as a subcategory. All subsequent headings follow the same pattern.
Let’s walk through an example. Say you’re writing a blog post about the best dog breeds for families. Your H1 could be: “The 10 Best Dog Breeds for Families.” Your H2s could be: “Why choose a family-friendly dog breed?” and “What are the best dog breeds for families?” Under the second H2, you could elaborate on breeds that are recommended. To do this, add H3s such as “Golden Retriever,” “Labrador Retriever,” “Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.” And under each H3 you may add an H4s such as “Why Choose This Breed” where you can provide additional information.
This results in a more digestible experience for readers and search engines.
To change a heading in a WordPress blog post, find the menu box and select the paragraph button highlighted in blue.
Select “Heading.” Depending on the CSS settings your site has set up, you’ll see your text change in size and even color. To edit the type of heading, click the “H2” button in the menu box and select the appropriate heading.
Pro Tip: Use headings strategically; they should reveal to your readers what to expect in the following copy.
Images
Images also help readers navigate your blog post, so remember to format them properly. Formatting images in WordPress is easy. Here’s how.
Select your image and find the floating menu box. Next, select the format button — the one with three horizontal lines. Next, choose the alignment you’d like for your image. Here, let’s stick with a center alignment for the photos in our blog post.
Pro Tip: Stay consistent with your alignment so readers don’t get confused when reading your blog posts. If you use center alignment for one photo, commit to it throughout the post so readers know what to expect.
Preview the post.
Youve added content, images, links, and formatting for an optimal user experience. Now, it’s time to preview your post before it goes live. You’re almost there. See? Learning how to create a blog on WordPress isn’t as difficult as it may seem! First, select the “Preview” button in the top right corner. Then choose whether you want to preview a desktop, tablet, or mobile version of the post. We chose “Desktop” here. Finally, select the “Preview in a new tab” option.
Take a look at your post for any errors. If you see any, simply return to the editor tab and adjust as necessary.
Once everything looks good, congratulations! You are ready to publish your first WordPress blog post. Now its time to preview your post before it goes live.
Pro Tip: Don’t skip the preview step! It can be tempting to rush through to get your post to go live, but resist the urge. Previewing allows you to check for any issues with the content, formatting, or user experience.
Publish the Post
To publish the post, select “Publish” in the top right corner. You’ll see a few different options for publishing, but if you want this post to be available to anyone on the internet, select “Public.”
Add Tags & Categories
Finally, you’ll have the opportunity to add tags to your post. These help readers navigate your posts by similar topics. This is optional, so you can leave them blank if you don’t yet have a process to organize tags.
Your blog post is now live on the web!
Pro Tip: As your blog grows and you publish more articles, you’ll find it’s increasingly important you add tags so visitors can easily peruse your content. It will also be helpful for you as you navigate through your content and add related links. And once you figure out how you’d like to organize tags, don’t forget to go back and add them to older content.
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