General Blog Guidelines for WordPress Sites

This doc will help you understand all the necessary fields and requirements for a blog post on WordPress, as well as other fields and settings to really make a blog post special!

Basic Anatomy of a WordPress Blog #

All WordPress blog posts that are managed by Argyle Interactive will have the following fields set up:

• Title
• Excerpt
• Post Body
• Author

Additionally, the below fields may also be used but are not always needed or required:

• Featured image
• Category(ies)
• Tag(s)
• Custom Fields

Title #

The title of a blog post is the first main headline you see on the blog post itself, and likely the string of text used throughout websites and promotions. Titles in WordPress blog posts are generally always set to a Heading 1 (H1), with headings in the body set to a Heading 2 (H2) or lower.

Titles are set as the default SEO setting for search result titles. This means we want to keep titles concise, and cover the main topic or question being covered by the blog. Don’t compromise creativity however – a catchy, engaging title paired with a well targeted excerpt is just as good as a concise title with a targeted keyword front-loaded at the beginning of the text.

*Recommended characters: between 50 to 60 characters

The above examples use this doc’s content to illustrate a good title with an accompanying excerpt, and a bad title with a bad excerpt.

Excerpt #

The excerpt is arguably even more important than a blog’s title. This provides initial context to users and gives them a glimpse at what to expect when they click to read more. Excerpts must be concise, yet include the most important and valuable details as needed in order to prompt a user to click to read more.

Excerpts should always be front-loaded, making sure targeted keywords and topics are mentioned at the beginning of the excerpt. This is to make sure these important points are conveyed to readers when they are on mobile devices (smaller screens = less space = shorter window of opportunity to show important points/topics/keywords!)

*Recommended characters: between 120 and 158 characters, but sometimes there are exceptions!

Post Body #

This is where a majority of blog content will be added when making a WordPress post. The post body can be fully text-based, include images, and even have shopping carousels, embedded widgets and more. But at a bare minimum, the post body will include the full text of a blog post.

It’s important to maintain consistent heading hierarchy when adding content into the post body. If there are sporadically set headings, the content outline will look jumbled and not make sense to readers and search bots. Below are two examples of Good and Bad heading hierarchy. When headings get jumbled and do not follow a logical order, the content outline suffers and you can even accidentially indicate there are 2 different topics being discussed (two H1s indicates two different topics – that’s not the case!)

Conflicts with heading hierarchy typically occur when heading styles are used to style text content instead of indicating text/content hierarchy. If a blog appears to be suffering from heading hierarchy confusion, it may be a good idea to reach out to Account Owner to review with the client and determine heading styles for blog content moving forward.

Post Author #

We want to credit client blog posts with a client user profile on their wordpress site. This is for SEO purposes, and generally it looks better when the listed post author is set to the client instead of something like “Argyle Admin” or an email address to a developer helping to manage the site.

This is critically important when working on an influencer’s site, as their SEO depends on their site content attributing the author to their profile!

Additional Fields for WordPress blog posts #

Featured Image #

The main image for the blog post. This is typically used at the top of posts, and as the post’s accompanying image in online listings and promotions, including throughout the blog.

Featured images need to strike a balance between quality and performance. Usually, around a 16:9 aspect ratio is preferred for featured images, with widths being no larger than 1200px. WebP image formats are the best (smaller file size, faster load times) but as long as the image file is not too large JPG (JPEG) and PNGs are also acceptable and perfectly fine to use.

It’s important not to make image file sizes larger than necessary. A file over 1MB in size is too large and will not add much to the blog, other than longer load times (which we don’t want!). Before compressing a larger image, it’s best to see if the dimensions can first be sized down, as that’s usually why an image file size is large.

• Dimensions: 1200 x 675 pixels
• File size: ~150KB
• File types: WebP, JPG, PNG, JPEG
• PPI – 72

Category #

The category field in WordPress is a way to organize content based on the main topics discussed on a blogging site. Generally, blog posts should be set with only 1 category but you can set a blog to be categorized in as many categories as preferred. It’s generally best however to limit to just 1 category per post.

When posting a blog, you will know when it’s necessary to set a category if during a review of the draft post you see “Uncategorized” anywhere on the post. Blogs published by Argyle should never show as uncategorized.

Uncategorized blogs = Unprofessional blogs, and at Argyle we are professionals. Categorize accordingly!

Tags #

Adding a tag, or tags, to a blog post is an additional way to organize content and provide value to readers when organizing all of a website’s content. Tags are a great way to essentially provide an additional category, without actually setting an additional category. They are not as top-level as categories in terms of site structure and layout, but can allow users to filter down all site content by a specific tag, across all site categories.

For example, this help doc is categorized as “Marketing Specs and Requirements” – but there is an abundance of marketing media and system requirements to go through! If you’re looking for something specific to blog posting, you’d filter with the “blog posting” tag for all Marketing Specs and Requirements about blog posting.

Custom Fields #

Sometimes, sites are designed with customized post components where content is controlled through custom field settings. These can vary depending on the site a blog is being posted too, so before configuring any of these settings, it’s best to make sure you know how to use them. Reach out to a PM or developer for the site if you need further instruction or guidance on how to use the available custom fields on a post.

Using WordPress Fields Effectively #

Now that we understand the basic anatomy of a WordPress post, you can use the provided fields to effectively organize and optimize the content at the point of publishing! Our site SEO settings are set to always show the Title and Excerpt by default. Front-loading messaging and ensuring to stick within recommend character limits results in a post optimized for search results. Proper heading hierarchy ensures improved readability and makes it easer for users and search bots to find the specific content they are looking for. When categories and tags are set up, we provide further utility to end users.

By knowing how the tools of the trade are used, and how they work, you’ll be well on your way to posting optimized content for client blog posts.