Step-by-step instructions on how to configure the SEO settings on your blog to attract the attention of the search engines.

1. How SEO can save your blog
bloglosophy.com/seo-can-save-blog/
how SEO can save your blog image
Several of my readers have asked about a simplif ied version of using SEO and here it is. I will try
not to use any language you won’t understand and if I do, you are welcome to smack my hand in
the comments.
Let’s go step by step, starting from the beginning.
Site Title and Tagline
1. Go to your dashboard and then to Settings/General. At the top, you will f ind Site Title and
Tagline. These are super important because these are what will show when a search f or your site
pulls up your homepage. Don’t just write any old thing here. This is where you can tell the world
exactly what your site is about. Paleo diet or basketball tips are not specif ic enough. There are
hundreds of thousands of blogs out there doing exactly the same thing so try to be quite
specif ic. For the Title, write your blog name and then a crucial keyword(s) f or your niche. For
example, f or my blog, Strands of My Lif e, I have written: Strands of My Life – Low FODMAP Diet.
For the Tagline, I have written: Low FODMAP Diet | gluten-free recipes | gluten-free diet | low
FODMAP recipes | irritable Bowel Syndrome. This covers all the major keywords f or my niche. And
do separate them out with the “|” symbol. Don’t use this in the title, just in the tagline.

2. how SEO can save your blog
Install WordPress SEO by Yoast
2. Next go to Plugins/Add New. Type in WordPress SEO by Yoast. Install it and activate it.
How to configure WordPress SEO by Yoast
3. Click on SEO in your side menu and you will see a whole heap of subtitles shoot out. These all
need to be conf igured. The best way to do this is to f ollow a tutorial by the man himself , Yoast.
https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ .
How to use WordPress SEO by Yoast
4. Once that is all set up, let’s have a look at what has changed underneath your posting area. Go
to Posts/Add New, then scroll down to beneath the editor area to where you can see WordPress
SEO by Yoast. That wasn’t there bef ore, was it? This now becomes one of the most precious
areas of your blog – neglect it at your peril.
Take a look at my SEO area f or my last post, Why decreasing your blog load time will get you
more traf f ic.

3. Let SEO can save your blog
a) The snippet preview at the top will show you exactly what will show in a Google search once
you have f illed in all the f ields below.
b) Choose your main keywords (it can be more than one word and actually should be to narrow it
down) and enter it/them in the Focus Keyword area. Use this tool to f ind good keywords:
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner. The Focus Keyword is put in there just to guide you
on what to write f or the SEO Title and Meta Description. You can see that I have put decreasing
your blog load time as my keyword(s). Decrease probably would have been better and hence a
couple of areas where my exact keywords are not duplicated perf ectly. But that doesn’t worry me
too much. It is just a guide f or you.
c) SEO Title will be populated automatically f rom your heading f or the post. That doesn’t mean it
has to stay that though. The purposes of a Heading that goes out to your public and the title f or
SEO of ten don’t coincide. The heading is so that you can catch the attention of your readers with
something clever or f unny. The SEO Title is to catch the attention of the search engines and
should be short and have your keywords in it with no extra words. In my case above, they
coincided but you always have to think about whether they should stay the same or not. You can
see that I have gone 4 words over the allowed amount of words bef ore Google cuts you of f .
d) Meta Description should also be rich with your keywords but does have to make sense and
encourage the person searching to choose your snippet in the search results over that of
another website.
See below to what showed up when I did a Google search. It is almost the same as the Snippet
Preview though the title has been cut a bit shorter.

4. SEO can save your blog image
Now that you know where your meta data ends up, hopef ully that will encourage you to f ill it in.
SEO for your Images
5. It is not all over yet. There’s something else you have to do with every new post. When you add
photos to a post or to your media f ile, you must enter all the meta data over on the right. That is
so important if you want the search engine to see them. Photos can lead people back to your site
but only if the search engine can see them and it can’t without that data f illed in. See a
screenshot of the area below.
how SEO can save your blog image
a. See at the top on the right there is the name of the photo. This is what you named it when you
saved it to your computer. Please, please name your photos and don’t let them remain a string of
numbers or the word image.
b. Title – this can be the title you used f or your post. The Alt Text can be the same but add the
word image or graphic at the end of it.
c. Caption - this is optional and I seldom use them but they actually can be quite helpf ul and
people do like to read them.
d. Meta Description – similar to the meta description on your post.
NOTE: it is best not to use the exact same meta data on all your images in the same post. Vary it
a bit.

5. e. Further down you have Alignment. If your image is the same size as your post area, then you
can leave this at the def ault None. If it is smaller, choose right or lef t so that the writing comes up
beside it and doesn’t leave it swimming about all alone.
f . Link to – it’s better to choose None here because otherwise if you put Media File in there,
people click on them and get the image alone by itself and that achieves nothing. The other two
are seldom relevant but could be in special circumstances.
g. Size – it is really a bad idea to use this f unction to downsize your large photo. Downsize it to
the exact right size bef ore uploading it and then choose Full Size. Now click onto Insert into Post.
h. Now go into Media Library in the menu and click on the photo. Look below and you will see the
f irst area is where you have f illed in the meta data as explained above. But scroll on down and
you will f ind the WordPress SEO by Yoast area. Complete this just as you did f or the post. Make
sure you click on Update bef ore leaving.
Use the<H1> and <H2> Tags
6. Another tip is to use the <h1> tags right at the top of the post and the <h2> tags as your
subheadings. See my article on creating pages to learn about these tags. It really is quite simple.
Those are the mechanics of it all and need to be done with every single post. It will give you a
boost in the SEO department but much of it depends on choosing good keywords which people
search f or but that don’t have a lot of competition f rom the big blogs. And never f orget that at
the end of the day, it’s all about writing great content that gives someone the solution to a
problem they have. And hopef ully it is a solution that they can’t f ind anywhere else.
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