Remembering to do all of these can be daunting so I’ve created a list below of things to do and check before publishing your blog post.

Post Title

The title of the post should be engaging and contain keywords that are also in the content. Keep in mind that it will most likely be the post title that appears in social media when your post is shared so you want the title to be enticing enough for people to click.

Content

Your content should be well written, free of errors, and properly formatted.

Headings

Ideally, your post’s content should be divided into sections by using the appropriate Heading tags (ie. h1, h2, h3, etc.). Generally, the post title is h1 so you should use h2 or lower, depending if they are sub categories or beyond.

Bullets

To properly use bullets, you should be using the icon options in the editor. A common mistake is to use hyphens but using the editor tools ensures the content is properly coded in HTML, making it easier for search engines to read.

Images

Whether the photos you use are inserted into the Posts themselves or you’re using a Gallery or Featured Image, you should always make sure that your images have proper ALT tags with a brief description of the photo. This description helps the search engines understand what the photo is about and how to index it in their search results. The description should contain keywords that match the keywords in the content of the post.

Also, it is best-practice for images within posts to have a Caption, or a brief description that appears on the webpage under the photo. It just helps the reader to know where the photo was taken and connects that photo back to the content in the post. The Caption can be similar to the Alt tag.

Categories

Assigning your post to one or more Categories is a great way to organize your content. It may not be clear when you first start your blog but after you’ve got a large number of posts, you can start using Categories by linking directory to those posts of a certain topic. Using Categories at the start saves you a lot of hassle in the long run.

Tags

Tags are often forgotten about and left blank but they’re important because they offer another way of organizing your content. By applying tags, you can add a large list of keywords and, as your blog grows, using tools such as a Tag Cloud will help identify the popular content on your site for your users. Tags can sometimes be thought of as similar to Categories, although with Categories, you will tend to add a post to 1-5 Categories, with Tags, you can easily add a dozen or more.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The SEO elements to check on your blog post are ensuring your Page Titles, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords contain proper keywords that match those in the content of your post. WordPress tends to auto generate Page Titles and will not automatically add in Meta Tags, so best practice is to review these elements and customize them so they compliment the content.

I’ve found either the All In One SEO Pack or WordPress SEO by Yoast to  be the most useful plugins. Both plugins add options directly onto the Post Editing Page below the content field for you to customize Page Titles and Meta Tags. If you decide not to, they will also automatically generate Page Titles based on the Post Title and a Meta Description Tag based on the first sentence of the post.

Facebook Open Graph

Facebook uses a number of Open Graph Tags to understand the content on a page that is Shared or Liked. You can customize this content by using a simple plugin, like WP Open Graph Meta, so that the Title, Description, and, in some cases, the image that appears in Facebook is what you want it to be.

Final Tasks

Once you’ve pressed the Published Button, double check your blog post for all of the above and make sure it appears correctly. Make any changes to the post quickly. Once your confident everything has been done properly, share your post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any other social media networks where you have built your audience.

What I got at the Learn With Google For Publishers was an opportunity to meet lots of other publishers of content, and while they were running websites on a whole variety of topics, they were essentially doing what I was. This group had spent a lot of time on their sites and also learning the ins-and-outs of Google and how to optimize and drive traffic to their sites. Talking with this group over lunch and in between sessions was the best part of the event as it gave me ideas on how to improve my sites and my content.

The setting sun from Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles

Sessions

The day was divided up into several sessions with 2 running simultaneously which gave us the chance to pick and choose what we wanted to go to. The first session I attended was UX and Site Design Strategies and Understanding Performance Reports. The presenter stressed the follow design strategies that Google likes to see for all websites:

1. Focus on user’s goals and your goal
2. Employ a clear structure to guide the user
3. Ensure that users know what actions to take
4. Tailor your site experience to the user’s situation
5. Turn casual visitors into loyal users

For the the Performance Reports in Google Adsense, all of the typical key performance indicators were mentioned, like looking at the new vs. returning visitors report, social media reports. What was an interesting tip was the presenter mentioned that sites that have an Enewsletter are typically growing.

The second session I attend was one on Google Analytics. I found this session to be quite basic, although I’ve been working with Google Analytics for years and try to stay on top of the latest features they roll out. The main ideas that I took from this session were:

• creating and monitoring your website goals
• customizing the dashboard
• looking at the top landing pages
• looking at pages with high bounce rates
• try running Content Experiments via Google Analytics

The third breakout session I attend was Growing with DFP for Small Business. DFP refers to DoubleClick for Publishers and is a system where you can run Adsense Ads as well as other advertising network’s ads or your own ads you negotiation with advertisers. The DFP system has lots of advanced features that will compare the CPM of ads from different networks and choose to run ads that yield higher revenue or run ads during timeframes that you specify. I haven’t used DFP yet and I found this session to be pretty advanced, which seemed to be the general feeling amongst the class. However, I will be taking a look at DFP and I do believe that many of the others who were in the session were interested in some of the features offered as well.

The day ended with sessions for everyone on Mobile and Social Media. The Mobile session felt a bit weak and a lot of people’s questions were given answers that Google Engineer’s are looking into these issues and recognize there’s room for development / improvement. It sums up what I’ve been seeing and talking to people about with mobile where they recognize there’s opportunity but there’s so many solutions and which one works best is still being determined.

The one key tip that I did get from the Mobile Session was the total number of ads you are running in a Responsive Design includes both the mobile and desktops ads. If you are running 4 desktops ads on your homepage for desktop users and 3 mobile ads on your homepage for mobile users in a responsive web design, you’re over your limit of ads per page and breaching the Adsense Terms and Conditions. This was one of the issues the Adsense team is aware of and working but I would suspect there are lots of publishers unaware of this issue.

The Social Media Session was strictly Google+ and the key recommendation mentioned by the presenter was to:

1. Set up a Google+ Page for your business
2. Add a Google+ button to your website
3. Get followers for your Google+ page
4. Get your Google+ page verified

Conclusion

I felt the Learn With Google For Publishers in Los Angeles event was worthwhile to attend and I got some good tips from the sessions and a list of things to look into more in-depth. However, it was talking to the other publishers, hearing their stories, and their successes and failures, that was the most valuable. Knowing this group is out there, I will be looking at following the Adsense Google+ page and attending one of their Hangouts in the future.

The current search function simply allows you to search for other people’s names, business pages, or groups on the social network. Graph Search makes the search functionality much more advanced, allowing you to search for things like:

• My friends who like camping
• People who live in My Hometown that like camping
• People who live in Germany who like camping
• Campsites My Friends have been to
• Photos My Friends took Camping

A Whole New World of Search

What makes Graph Search interesting is that Facebook has an enormously large and active user-base, with years of data. In creating a new search, it’s as if there will become a competing pool of search data against Google’s search results. While businesses are investing and focussed on search engine optimization (SEO), those not actively pushing resources to their Facebook Pages may start to find themselves missing an entire audience of potential customers. This means that investing time into your Facebook Page is going to be very important.

What Should Businesses Do

As of January 2013, the Facebook Graph Search is still in beta and being rolled out slowly to people who have signed up to be on the waiting list.

Likes

If you don’t have a Facebook Page or you’ve been neglecting it for years, you’re way behind. Get one and starting building the number of Likes for your page because this number is going to really matter when it comes to Graph Search Results. If you’ve been building the number of Likes on your Page, keep going.

Engagement

Make sure you are engaging with your Fans by posting on your page, responding to fan comments, and adding additional, relevant content that your fan base will find useful enough to share. If your business has a physical location, then Checkins will become important in Graph Search Results when users search for “Pubs My Friends Have Been To”.

Optimize

Go through your page and make sure it’s optimized and includes keywords in the About Us text, has an address if applicable, and links to your website. Add photos that show the various aspects of your business, what it does, the inside, the outside, etc. etc.

Learn

As Facebook rolls out its Graph Search, try it and learn from it. Use this learning as an opportunity to get a jump on your competitors.

Profile Photo: 250px X 250px
Cover Photo: 890px X 180px

Google+ Page Photo Dimensions

When changing your Google+ Photos, you are able to upload larger photos and then drag and crop them using Google’s tools. However knowing these dimensions in advance let’s you pre-plan what photos to use and to make images the correct proportions, especially for logos that are often wider than they are high.

Lastly, make sure to choose captivating and attention grabbing images for your business. Google is already displaying Google+ images in their search results and using the appropriate imagery can grab the searching user’s attention and lead to an increased click-thru rate.

I created an Enewsletter Signup Form as a Tab on this Facebook Page.

The confusing part is the Tab is a type of App and often these two terms are interchanged with each other. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get started.

Minimum Requirements

Check through the following requirements before you get started:

• A webhosting account with SSL. Since the Fall of 2011, Facebook has been requiring links to an SSL and non-SSL script for users using their Facebook accounts securely.
• Administrator Access to a Facebook Page. If you don’t have Administrator Access to the Facebook Page you are developing for, you can get the Administrator to install the App.
• A Facebook Developer’s Account. More information can be found here. https://developers.facebook.com/

The Concept

The idea behind creating a Facebook App is the code sits on your web server and Facebook accesses that code through an iFrame, displaying it within the Facebook Template. You code regular HTML and Server-side Scripts (ie. PHP, .NET, etc.) and provide Facebook with 2 URLs to access the code, one SSL and one non-SSL.

Page Tab Widths can either be set to 510px (Narrow) or 810px (Wide) and this has to be done in the settings below. For this example, we’ll use the Narrow width.

Create the Code

Start by creating a new directory on your web server called “facebook-apps” and create 2 files, one index.html and styles.css.

Add the following to index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>
 <head>
 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
 <title>My Facebook App</title>
 <link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
 </head>

<body>
 <div id="fb-root"></div>
 <script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js"></script>
 <script>
 FB.init({appId: 'FACEBOOK_APP_ID', status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true});
 window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
 FB.Canvas.setSize({ width: 520, height: 1000 });
 }
 </script>

<p>Hello World!</p>

</body>

</html>

Add the following to styles.css:

p {
 font-family: arial, sans-serif;
 font-size: 20px;
 }

You can create whatever files you need or organize them into further sub directories to keep things organized.

Note: It is assumed that your “facebook-apps” directory can be accessed with both https and http URL requests.

Create New App in Facebook

We’ve created our the code for our Facebook Tab, now comes the hard part of setting up Facebook so it grabs our code and displays it within the Facebook Page. Here are the steps:

1. First, you need to make sure your Facebook Account is a Developer’s account by going to https://developers.facebook.com/
2. Once your account is a Developer’s account, go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps/ and click on the button in the top right titled “Create New App”. Give your App a Name and click Continue.
3. The following settings have worked best for me:
   • Give it a Display Name that people will notice and want to click on. (I used Enewsletter in the screenshot above)
   • For the App Domain, type in www.yourdomain.com (your website URL)
   • Choose a Category for your App / Tab
   • While you’re developing and testing your Facebook Tab, put it in Sandbox Mode so that only you, as an Administrator of the page you add the tab to, can see it. When you’re ready to go live, Disable Sandbox Mode.
   • Under Website with Facebook Login -> Site URL, put in the http://www.yourdomain.com/ (with the http:// this time)
   • Under the Page Tab section:
     • Give the Page Tab a Name
     • Specify the Page Tab URL (non-SSL)
     • Specify the Secure Page Tab URL (SSL)
     • Give it a Page Tab Image to look nice
     • Specify the Page Tab Width you are using (520px for our example code above)

     Click Save Changes at the bottom and move onto the next step of Installing Your Facebook Tab.

Install the Tab on your Facebook Page

The Administrator for the Facebook Page will need to install the App / Tab. To do so, they have to:

1. Log into Facebook
2. Load a URL similar to this, changing the YOUR_APP_ID and YOUR_URL to the information in the Developer’s area: http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL
3. A page will be displayed with a Dropdown menu of Pages you are the Administrator for. Choose the one you want to add the App to.
4. The App should now appear in the Tabs area of your Facebook Page.

Editing / Reorganizing / Ordering / Deleting a Tab

Edit a Facebook Tab by putting your mouse over the image and clicking on the pencil.

To reorganize where the Tab appears or to Delete a tab, simply put your mouse over the Tab’s Image and a Pencil will appear in the top right corner. Click on this pencil and you will see a number of options appear. The Edit Settings option in the dropdown, you can change the Tab Name and the Image without having to go back into the Developers section of Facebook. Finally, if you want to Share A Link so users can go directly to your Facebook Tab, you can click the Link To This Tab option to get the URL.

Size Issue

If you don’t want to specify a size in your code, change the following in index.html

FB.Canvas.setSize({ width: 520, height: 1000 });

to this:

FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow(true);

Conclusion

This covers the basics of setting up a Facebook Tab and there are endless possibilities on how to use them within your marketing strategies. One word of caution is to keep in mind that things like this connected to Facebook change and expect that one day, your Tab’s code may need to be modified to work with a future version of Facebook.

Adding the functionality to your WordPress site will add a sub menu under Appearance called Header. Here you will be able to:

1. Choose an image to upload.
2. Choose an image currently in your Media Library.
3. Choose an image that you have previously used as a header image.

To add functionality for Custom Header Images, add the following bit of code to your functions.php file:

// Custom Header Image
$args = array(
'flex-width'    =>; true,
'width'         =>; 980,
'flex-height'    =>; true,
'height'        =>; 300,
'default-image' =>; get_template_directory_uri() . '/images/default-header.jpg',
'uploads'       =>; true,
);
add_theme_support( 'custom-header', $args );

In your theme file where your header image is displayed (probably header.php), replace the image code with the following:

<img src="<?php header_image(); ?>" height="<?php echo get_custom_header()->height; ?>" width="<?php echo get_custom_header()->width; ?>" alt="" />

The above example allows for flexible dimensions. If you want to set the width and height to a fixed number, simply remove the flex-width and flex-height from the array in functions.php and width and height from your image tag.

For more information on this feature and additional parameters, visit the Custom Headers docs.

Check If You Have Duplicate Content

You can check to see if your site has duplicate content by entering a page from your site into Copyscape. Copyscape will analyze the text on your page and search its index to determine if there is a match with any other websites. If there is, you should edit and change the copied content immediately.

The only exception is if the content copied from your site and you are certain you were the original writer. If you have a popular website that is a resource of information for a particular topic, you will often come across content that has been 100% copied from your site. A suggestion is to contact the site’s operator by email and kindly request they change their text and even mention that it is affecting the site’s performance in the search engines.

Common Pitfalls of Duplicate Content

Common duplicate content issues include:

1. Multiple domains with the exact same site. This will almost certainly get your site blacklisted. Often this occurs when a second domain is purchased and that domain is not properly 301 redirected to the main domain, so the same website ends up loading on 2 domains. This can be fixed by simply 301 redirecting one domain to the other.
2. Blogs that post the entire post on their homepageas well as on a unique URL. This is quite common and is not wrong, however it’s useful to include the canonical link on the post URL like the following:
3.  Ecommerce sites often sell the exact same products as competitor sites and have the exact same description of the items for sale. This can also be a problem in how the site is developed as product description can appear on pages that list products by category, by price, by rating, etc. Avoid these issues by writing unique product descriptions and using canonical link tags.
4. Print pages with the same content is a duplication of text on your website. Use a meta tag on the print page that prevents the search engine robots from indexing the page, such as this:
5. Mobile sites with the same content as the main site can be a concern for search engines looking at duplicate content. Use the canonical link tag for specifying the main URL for the posted content.
6. www vs. non-www URLs give the search engines the impression that each is a different site. For example, www.domain.com loads the same content as just domain.com. Simply 301 redirect non-www traffic to the www version of the URL.

These are the most common areas of duplicate content that I come across, however there are more. With a good website structure and close attention to what is being written for your website, the benefits of avoiding duplicate content will result in solid results in the search engines.

Canvas Photo: 850px X 315px
Facebook Page Icon: 125px X 125px

Facebook allows you to use larger photos and provides an option to select the area of the larger photo that you want displayed, however these dimensions will help those pre-plan their images before posting them live.

Keep in mind that the Canvas Photo is intended for just a photo and not for adding logos to. Doing so may be in violation of Facebook’s Terms and Services agreement.

Photo Width and Height

The image width and height and what will be viewable really depends on the size of the screen viewing the page. I prefer to use a really large image in the hope that nobody is viewing on a device large enough that they will see the end of the photo. Therefore, I recommend a photo size that is at least 1800 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high. The trick is getting the image size down to the allowable 800k maximum of Twitter but this pretty much guarantees that 99% of site visitors will not see the end of the photo.

Add Your Brand Information

The Twitter Image is “pegged” to the top left corner of the viewing area of your browser, which allows you to add in a logo and some other brand information to your graphic. Most browser sizes today are 1280px wide or larger, so with this in mind, the optimal width of the left column that will fit your logo is about 200 pixels wide.

Anyone viewing the site at less tan 1280px will not see your logo as it will slide over and be hidden by some of the Twitter content areas but this is unavoidable and one of the realities of designing on the web. At least the majority will see it and it will not ruin other visitor’s experiences at all.

Fancy Design

The trick to a great Twitter background design is to integrate it with the limitations presented above. Using Photoshop techniques like fading to a solid background colour or tiling to repeat backgrounds can really improve the overall look of ones Twitter page. These techniques will also allow you to use smaller images for the background, which will load quicker than large photos.

Remember to also adapt to changes as Twitter will undoubtedly change their design, which might affect your backgrounds and require you to adjust your design as well.