8 additional optimization steps for your WordPress blog

This is the fourth article in the series of all-WordPress beginner tips. If you missed the previous articles, see how to setup your domain/hosting/MySQL and install self-hosted WordPress blogging platform. Then check the 9 internal WordPress settings I always adjust right after installing a new blog. And then look at all the 24 WordPress plugins I recommend using on your blog.

Today I will take a look at additional optimization steps that are very important for successfully running a blog. Watch the video:

Setup RSS newsfeed

• WordPress has a default RSS Feed (http://www.yourdomain.com/feed/) but to be able to offer email subscriptions and to be able to track your feed stats, it is best to move to Google FeedBurner. Register for FeedBurner and move your default RSS Feed by installing a FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin.
• In Feedburner you can optimize your RSS footer to include links like Subscribe to comments, Tweet This, Stumble It, Digg It and much more  (Optimize – Feedflare).
• Many people still do not use RSS, so make sure to offer the email option via Feedburner (Publicize - Email Subscriptions). About 20% of my subscribers are subscribed via email option.
• Also when you have some 50 or so subscribers make sure to put the feedcounter in your blog sidebar as that will give incentive ti more people to subscribe (Publicize – FeedCount).

Additional reading:

• How to promote your RSS feed
• Ways to monetize your RSS feed

Track visitors

• Setup Google Analytics tracking for your new blog and add the tracking code to your blog with help of Google Analytics for WordPress plugin. It is very important to track your visitors, how they interact with your blog, how and where they find your content and much more.

Additional reading:

• A deeper look into your blog site visitor stats

Webmaster Tools

• Setting Google Webmaster Tools account and verify your domain name. This is a must for all bloggers. In Webmaster Tools Google gives you information they have on your site, on inbound links, on search engine rankings and much more.

Sitemap

• Having a Sitemap is very important if you want Google to be able to crawl, find, and index your articles. Google XML Sitemap Generator plugin makes the process of setting a sitemap simple.
• Submit your XML sitemap directly to Google via Webmaster Tools. By doing this Google will crawl your new site and index it within a day or so.

Additional reading:

• What is a Sitemap and why you need it

Preferred domain

• In Settings in your Google Webmaster Tools chose your site Preferred domain. I still use www version but have recently started liking no-www version so my blogs in future may be without www.

Traditional SEO

• If you want the traditional META-Tags added to your blog posts and pages, use All in one SEO plugin. I have recently stopped writing meta keywords and description for my posts. Google does not place much significance to meta tags anymore and is showing the content that is relevant to the search phrase in the description of your listing.

So now your blog is installed and ready. You have adjusted all the settings and optimized the blog. You have customized it by installing different plugins. Next step is writing content and promoting.

Write content

• Start writing content. Be very focused on your topic. Be useful to your tagret audience and readers. Write unique articles. Write new posts regularly.

Additional reading:

• Make your blog posts scannable and sticky
• Keyword optimize your blog posts

Promote your blog

• Join social media sites StumbleUpon and Twitter. They are the easiest to get started with and easiest to get instant traffic. Write useful comments on relevant blogs. Try to get a guest post spot in some of the biggest blogs in your niche.

Additional reading:

• How to get guest post spots on biggest blogs
• How commenting can bring you lots of visitors
• StumbleUpon 10-step Promotional Strategy
• How to make your blog go viral via Twitter

Hopefully this 4-article series has helped you in deciding to go with a self-hosted WordPress blog and showed you some optimization and customization options you have to make your blog unique. The best advice you probably can get is to just do it. Stop all the research, all the planning. Just get out there, get a domain name, get a WordPress hosting account and start blogging!