Building an effective content creation strategy in 2018

HandsOnWP.com @nick_batik@sandi_batik
Effective Content Creation Stra
Austin WordPress Meetup
May 21, 2018

WordPress
Beginner Question
Do you understand
the difference
between a Page
and a Post?

THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN PAGES AND
POSTS
• The WordPress install
comes with two content
types — Posts and
Pages
• For those new to
WordPress it is easy to
get confused between
Posts and Pages

WHAT ARE POSTS?
• The entries into your WordPress
Blog are Posts
• Post content is listed in reverse
chronological order in your blog
• Post are meant to be timely so
the most current information is
listed first
• Older posts are archived based
on month and year
• All your Posts searchable by
Categories and Tags

HOW DO WE DISTRIBUTE
OUR POST CONTENT• Most Bloggers syndicate their
Posts through the RSS feeds
• RSS feeds lets Bloggers notify
readers about the most recent
Posts
• Bloggers can use the RSS feeds
to deliver email broadcasts
through services like Aweber or
MailChimp
• Using tools like MailChimp you
can invite your readers to
subscribe to a weekly newsletter
create weekly newsletters build
from your most recent Posts

HOW DO WE DISTRIBUTE
OUR POST CONTENT?
• Post Are Social
• Install one of the many
social sharing plugins to
encourage readers to
share your posts in
social media networks
like Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn or other venues
that fit your user profile

POSTS PROMPT
RESPONSE AND
CONVERSATION• Posts have a have a
built-in commenting
feature that allow users
to comment on a
particular topic
• You can control the
‘How, When and If’ of
Commenting through
your WordPress
Dashboard Settings

PAGES
• Page Content is not
meant to expire — but
Content on a Page can
easily be updated
• Pages are not intended
to be social — but some
will have Social Buttons
connecting readers to
the site’s Social Media
accounts to encourage
Follows or Likes

PAGES
• Unlike posts, pages are
hierarchical by nature
• You can have a sub
pages within a page —
allowing you to organize
your pages together, and
even assign a custom
template to them

PAGES VS. POSTS —
SUMMARY OF PRIMARY
DIFFERENCES• Posts are timely vs. Pages are timeless
• Posts are social vs. Pages are NOT
• Posts can be categorized vs. Pages are hierarchical
• Posts are included in RSS feed vs. Pages are not
• Pages have custom template feature vs. Posts do not
• Note “ Edge Case Exceptions”: You can use plugins or
code snippets to extend the functionality of both content types

Do You Understand How to Use
Categories to Guide
Your Content Strategy?

UNDERSTANDING
CATEGORIES AND TAGS• Categories and Tags are
both known as taxonomies in
the WordPress
nomenclature
• The sole purpose of
Categories and Tags are to
sort and organize your
content to improve the
usability of your site
• Sorting and organizing site
content helps the visitor
more easily browse content
by topic rather than
chronologically

CATEGORIES
• Categories are meant for broad
grouping of your posts
• Think of these as general topics
or the table of contents for your
site.
• Categories are there to help
identify what your blog is really
about.
• It is to assist readers finding the
right type of content on your
site.
• Categories are hierarchical, so
you can sub-categories

CATEGORIES
• Categories are meant for a
broad grouping of your posts
• Think of these as general topics
or the table of contents for your
site
• Categories are there to help
identify what your blog is really
about
• It is to assist readers finding the
right type of content on your site
• Categories are hierarchical, so
you can sub-categories

CATEGORIES
• Categories are meant for a broad
grouping of your posts
• No one can accurately predict all the
right categories
• A Best Practice is to start with five
generic categories
• Then become more specific using
subcategories
• Measure your site visitor’s reaction and
engagement
• Adjust and add Categories and
subcategories as dictated by
community interest and involvement

HOW TO USE GENERIC
CATEGORIES TO FUTURE-
PROOF YOUR BLOG
• Build a Primary
Category Structure with
generic categories like
—
• How-To’s
• News
• Case Studies
• Tools

WHEN TO ADD A
SUB-CATEGORY
• Whenever you find that you are writing about a Sub Topic topic
repeatedly…
• Example: Main Category “How To’s”
• Frequent sub-topic to “How To’s” topic — A/B Testing
• If you are focusing on A/B Testing more than five times — Make
it a Sub-Category to the Parent Category of “How To’s”
• Go back to the previous A/B Testing blogs and correct the
existing Category reference

ASSIGNING ONE POST
MULTIPLE CATEGORIES
• With the proper use of Parent and Sub-
Categories you shouldn’t need to classify one
post into multiple top-level categories
• Adding multiple categories to a post DOES
NOT benefit SEO
• Adding multiple categories to a post DOES
NOT benefit user experience

BEST PRACTICE FOR
MANAGING CATEGORIES• EXAMPLE —Your blog has three categories:
• Project Management
• Enterprise Resource Management
• Client Relationship Management
• You notice that your many of your posts can fit into all of these multiple
categories
• A Best Practice would be to identify an umbrella category for all three
• Maybe these posts should be Categorized under Business
Management with a sub-category of Project Management, ERP or
CRM?

BECAUSE YOU CAN —
DOES NOT MEAN YOU
SHOULD• WordPress ALLOWS you to add one post into as many
categories as you like
• Many Bloggers assign one post into multiple categories
because they THINK it helps your users
• However
• You should think of Categories as Table of Contents for your
blog
• Posts with the same Category are Chapters of your Blog

WHAT’S THE OPTIMAL
NUMBER OF WORDPRESS
CATEGORIES?• There are no specific optimal number of
categories
• It depends on the size and complexity of
your site
• For the sake of structure and usability a
Best Practice is to utilize Sub-categories and
Tags

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN CATEGORIES AND
TAGS• The biggest difference between Categories
and Tags is that you MUST categorize your
post
• If you do not categorize your post, then it will
be categorized under the “Uncategorized”
category
• You are not required to add any tags

Do You Understand the Purpose
of WordPress Tags?

TAGS
• Tags were added In WordPress 2.5 to improve the
usability of your site
• Tags are not hierarchical
• Tags are meant to describe specific details of your posts.
• Think of Tags as your Blogs Index words.
• Tags are the micro-data that you can use to describe your
content

SHOULD YOU LIMIT NUMBER
OF TAGS ASSIGNED TO
EACH POST?
• Think of Tags as an Index and Categories as being the
Table of Contents of your Blog
• Tags are popular keywords that loosely relate your posts
• Tags make it easy for users to find your Posts using the
WordPress search
• I don’t care What you are Blogging about —It is very
hard to justify more than Ten Tags for a Blog Post

DO TAGS WORK LIKE
META KEYWORDS?
• Rookie Mistake: Adding as many Tags as
possible thinking Tags are meta keywords
• Tags are NOT default meta keywords for your
blog
• Installing the ‘SEO by Yoast’ plugin enables
you to use your Tag structure in the meta
keywords template

SEO
CATEGORIES VS TAGS
• The question of using Categories over Tags
or vice versa for a SEO Advantage is a
NON-ISSUE
• Categories and Tags are just the two
default taxonomies, designed to work
together, that comes with WordPress

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• Your site’s Blog is an ever-evolving book
• Develop the Table of Content (categories)
carefully
• Chose broad topics — but be careful not to
be too vague
• Use Tags to generally relate multiple posts

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• If a specific Tag seems to be trending — give
some consideration making it a sub-category
• If the trending Tag would have to be added as a
subcategory to several multiple top-level
categories — leave it as a TAG
• The goal is always to make the site as user-
friendly as possible

LAST THOUGHTS ABOUT
CATEGORIES AND TAGS
• Most advanced sites use custom taxonomies
for sorting their content in addition to
categories and tags
• Custom Taxonomies will be addressed In a
future WordPress Practitioner’s Class

5-step System to Write Copy That
Consistently Attracts Your Target
Clients
and Organically Build SEO

STEP 1
Take the time to
analyze what
information your
target market is
looking for and why
What problems are
they trying to solve?

STEP 2
Set your Categories
to those high-level
topics that
represent the topics
your clients are
seeking

STEP 3
Turn on the Idea
machine
- look for ongoing topic
conversations-online & off
- Use your blog and
Cornerstone pages to
express your unique
value as an industry
expert

STEP 4
Tune Your
Idea Machine
Feedly
https://feedly.com/i/welcome
Goggle Alerts
https://www.wikihow.com/Use-Google-Alerts

STEP 5
• Use a Content
Framework
• Every thing I know
about writing I owe to:
• Mother Mary Gerald
• Copyblogger
• & Troy Dean

The WordPress Blogger
Six Step Framework

THE PROMISE
Your blog introduction should outline the promise of what you will deliver
The 'Big Why' someone invest their time with you
How will they benefit?

THE PROBLEM
Next — your content needs to outline the problem
your readers are facing - which reinforces why they
need read your article

MYTH BUSTING
This is the part of the Blog or Cornerstone copy you position
yourself as an expert by busting a common myth your
readers are likely to believe.

THE METHOD
In this section of your content you actually teach your
3 to 7 teaching points.

THE DO’S & DON’TS
In this section you outline the some of the tips
for advanced users and the mistakes
that newcomers make

NEXT STEPS
Finish off your piece of content with a call to action or
an action step. Give your readers something to do
and they are far more likely to remember you

Cool Tools To Help Build
Your Content Strategy

Edit Flow —An editorial workflow management system
Best Tutorial -
https://bobwp.com/how-to-manage-editorial-flow-wordpress-blog/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/edit-flow/

Table Press
allows you to add tables into your WordPress posts and pages
without writing any HTML or CSS.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tablepress/

Canva
intuitive drag and drop interface creates
beautiful graphic designs edit images
easy to use even for beginners
https://www.canva.com/

PiktoChart
create beautiful infographics charts and presentations
http://piktochart.com/

Navigation Tips and Tricks
What issues are tripping you up?

Navigation Resources
WordPress Cheat Sheet
https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/wordpress-cheat-sheet
30 Creative and Cleaver 404 Error Pages
https://www.solodev.com/blog/web-design/30-creative-and-clever-404-
error-pages.stml

CONTENT CREATION
CHECK LIST
• Check your “inspiration sources” for
content ideas
• Choose a headline
• Check keyword competition and edit
your headline as needed
• Research and plan your article
• Choose your category and add tags
• Fill in the SEO fields
• Write your first draft
• Go back and edit out cliches and add
keywords and phrases
• Add images, video, and/or other rich
content
• Re-read it. Edit.
• Add an excerpt
• Read it again
• Publish
• Check your editorial schedule for the
next article

WORDPRESS RESOURCES
GET CONNECTED — Join and contribute to the Austin WordPress
Tribe at: http://www.meetup.com/austinwordpress.
We look forward to seeing you at a #WPATX meetup soon

Sandi Batik
WordPress evangelist, consultant, trainer, curricula
developer, author, unapologetic geek, unrepentant
capitalist, lucky enough to do what I love everyday. I’ve
served as Austin WordPress Meetup co-organizer since
2010. With my husband Nick Batik, co-founded Pleiades
Publishing Services in 1992 and Hands-On WordPress
Training in 2010.
Follow me @sandi_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsandrachevalierbatik
Presenter

Nick Batik
Started in web development in 1994 and have been a
WordPress consultant, and web developer since 2007.
A WordPress evangelist, I’ve served as Austin
WordPress Meetup co-organizer since 2010. With my
partner, co-founded Pleiades Publishing Services in 1992
and Hands-On WordPress Training in 2010.
Follow me @nick_batik / @WPATX
Contact me at: handsonwp.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasbatik
Presenter

Building an effective content creation strategy in 2018

Building an effective content creation strategy in 2018

Recommended

More Related Content

More from HandsOnWP.com

More from HandsOnWP.com(10)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded(20)

Building an effective content creation strategy in 2018