Blog Post Mechanic

5 Things You Can Do RIGHT NOW

To Help a Stalled (or totally Broken Down) Blog Post

From: PotPieGirl Have you ever had a blog post that just seems stuck ­ as if it has stalled in its ability to rank in Google and just won’t get better no matter WHAT you do? FRUSTRATING, isn’t it?!?!

Happens to me quite often. I’ll make a new review/blog post and it’ll be doing great. I’m just cruising along and slowly making my way to Page 1 of Google for my target keyword(s) and then…. :::insert sound of screeching brakes here::: It just stops and never seems to rank any better in Google.

I’d like to share with you five things you can do RIGHT NOW that will help that stalled out page of yours to get back on the road to Page 1. Best of all, ALL 5 things are steps you can take ON your site. No need to go running off trying to create backlinks (tho backlinks done properly could certainly help) ­ these 5 techniques are all ON SITE tactics. And they’re all pretty darn easy to do.

Alrighty, let’s dig in. #1 Use a Table of Contents plugin If you’ve read my What Works Now guide, you know just how much I LOVE using a Table of Contents plugin. I use the Table Of Contents Plus plugin… https://wordpress.org/plugins/table­of­contents­plus/ And it makes a list like this on my posts:

Each of those phrases is a link to somewhere ON my blog post.

For example, if you landed on that page and looked at the Table of Contents and clicked the “Where to Buy” link, it would scroll you down that same page to the section that talks about where to buy that thing. Cool, right? It really IS cool...and Google sure likes it, too!

See where that red arrow is pointing? I call that a “Jump Link” because it lets a Google searcher click to that SPECIFIC part of my web page.

It’s GREAT for getting more click­thrus from Google ­ heck, it’s like getting TWO links to your page from one ranking! PLUS, it really stands out to searchers who are looking for that exact information your “Jump Link” takes them to on your page. It’s an easy­enough plugin to use. It works off your H (Header) tags. You know, your <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc tags used to break up your content. I have the TOC plugin on that site set to only make Table of Content links from my <h2> and my <h3> tags.

The red arrow is a <h2> header and then I break it up with sub­headlines below by using <h3> headers. Here’s how it looks in edit mode of my post:

To adjust the settings of your Table of Contents plugin, just look down the left side of your wp­admin area… look under Settings for TOC+ There are lots of nifty things you can do with it so take a few minutes and play around with it. But to tell the plug in which <H> tags to use, look at the bottom of the settings page for “Advanced” and then click “show”:

You’ll then see “Heading Levels” ­ from there you can check with <h> tags you want to use.

You can set the plugin to ALWAYS make a Table of Contents ­ and if you have a page you do NOT want it on, just use the shortcode [no_toc] on that page and it won’t show a Table of Contents. Or, you can set the plugin to only show a Table of Contents when you tell it to. Then, just add [toc] in your post where you DO want a Table of Contents to appear. You’ll also want to make sure these settings are adjusted as well:

If you want to adjust the size of the table of contents, and/or have it wrap to the left or the right… just look down on that settings page for the Appearance section. This is how mine is set on that site:

This is a very helpful plugin to have. You can find it on the free wordpress directory here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/table­of­contents­plus/ Or just search for ‘table of contents plus’ from inside your wp­admin area like you would to add a new plugin from wordpress.org. Another great thing about that plugin is that it makes internal links from your page TO the same page. Sounds weird, but it works well.

AND….. If you ever decide to post about your post from ANOTHER site (ie, for backlinks), you can just copy/paste that list of TOC links. It’s a great way to get additional backlinks to your page AND round out your anchor text ratio. Note: if that totally went over your head, just ignore it, ok? Speaking of internal links… #2 Link It Up! Internal links are the bomb­diggity these days for helping your pages rank better. (ie, they’re EXCELLENT) What are internal links? That’s when OTHER posts of yours on the same site link TO that post you’re trying to improve. This is super powerful and YOU have complete control over it. If you think about it, it just makes sense that a site owner would link to his/her other pages in his/her other pages, right? Of course! So, if you have a post on your site that has stalled, link TO it from OTHER pages on your site.

Not from the side bar or as a “related post” at the bottom ­ link to it from IN the CONTENT of your other pages. On another page of my site:

And then on another page of my site:

And then there’s more like that. Each time, I TRY to link to my stalled post with a different phrase (meaning, NOT all the SAME phrase). HOW do I pick WHICH other pages to use to link to my stalled post? Simple, I ask Google =)

I go to Google and do a site:MyDomain.com search and then type a relevant word after that. In this case, I wanted to see what pages on my Involvery site that Google thinks are related to ice. Hopefully, the first result Google gives me will be the stalled post itself, but then after that, Google will show me other pages on my site that GOOGLE thinks are related to ice. Then, I’ll open to edit each one and add a link to my stalled post from IN the content. Then, republish it. Done. Again, links in your sidebar or in your header or in your footer or in your Related Posts area really don’t count. These types of internal links need to be IN the post content. And speaking of republishing…. #3 Freshen That Post! I’m sure you’ve heard lots of people telling you that Google loves fresh content. You’ve probably also been told to update your content from time to time and republish it. Thing is ­ they’re forgetting to tell you an important part of that technique.

JUST clicking to republish (“update”) isn’t gonna do what you hope it’s going to do. You need to change the published on date as well! For example, this post of mine when I open the edit screen says:

That post was published almost 3 YEARs ago. If all I did was make a change to “freshen” that post and then only click “update”... well, all I did was update the page. BUT, if I truly want GOOGLE to care, I need to change the Published On date to reflect WHEN it was last updated. Have you ever seen a date near a result in Google?

Now dates don’t show all the time, but Google does show those dates. And PEOPLE see those dates and will scroll right on past an “old” result. We need to fix that. Click “edit” next to the Published On date… and change it.

Then, click “ok” to save that new date… and THEN republish it. And then do whatever you do to get Google BACK to that page to recrawl it. After Google gets it all, you’ll notice that the date has changed, or ­ sometimes it stops showing a date at all. In my case, just a few minutes after I sent Google back to that post, they just removed the date (and I have a much better description snippet now as well):

Here’s another cool thing that happens when you republish AND change the Published On date… Your Wordpress site thinks the post is NEW so it puts it at the top of your recent posts widget in your sidebar. That helps as well because now, each time Google comes crawling through your site, they will see the link to that “new” post. And Google L­O­V­E­S new stuff ;) So let’s give Google something else new… #4 Round ‘Em Up! Think of a couple posts on your site that all have a similar theme to them. Not really similar keywords, but a similar theme. For example… On my test site, I have a post about how drinking wine before bed is supposed to help you lose weight. Another about a blender that is great for making smoothies. And another post about low­carb spaghetti. What do those posts all have in common? Let’s brainstorm… First thing that comes to my mind is ‘weight loss’. Another is healthy eating. Then I think of something like ‘healthy eating for busy moms’.

I think I’ll use that idea. Then I’ll do a little keyword research to see if I can find an easy keyword phrase to target. I use this keyword tool (I LOVE it!)

There’s not a lot of search volume for that, but that’s ok… I’m not trying to get rich with this, I just want to take an extra step to check and see if there is a phrase I can rank well for. So, I’m going to stick with my ‘Healthy Eating for Busy Moms’ theme… And then, I’m going to do a Round Up Post. I am going to make a new post about healthy eating tips for busy moms and I am going to link TO my other content on my site that fits this topic. What would make it even BETTER is if I find a few web pages from OTHER people who have something that would fit in well with my Round Up post. Yes, you heard me… I’m going to find OTHER people’s content to share and link to from MY post.

How Do I Find this Other Content? Lately, I’ve been seriously loving this new tool I’m using that helps me find REALLY popular NEW content online. The kind of content that people SHARE like crazy. I get the BEST ideas for Round Up Posts from that tool. I just typed in ‘healthy’ to see what content has been really popular this week:

So I would check those popular content pieces to see if there is an “angle” that makes it relevant to my new Round Up post.

If so, I’ll talk a little about their post and then link out to it as well as talk about my OWN other posts and link to them as well. Another good tool to use to find relevant content is ­ Pinterest. One quick Pinterest search for ‘busy moms’ and I found this:

That fits PERFECTLY! Then I immediately found another one:

This Round Up post sure is taking shape… can you see it? I’ll be telling them how to make smoothies faster in the morning ­ and then link to my smoothie blender review. Then I’ll tell them about healthy meals they can make in 10 minutes ­ and link them to that page on the other person’s site. Then, I’ll talk about low­carb spaghetti (busy moms should like that idea ­ low carb for them and heck, it’s spaghetti so the kids should like it, too) ­ and I’ll link to that page on my site. Then I’ll mention the Healthy Hacks for Busy Moms… and link over to the page on that site. Then I’ll close with the wine thing. I imagine most busy moms would be VERY happy to hear that their nighttime glass of wine might actually be HELPING them lose weight <grin> ­ then I’ll link to THAT page on my site. Now… can you see it coming together? That Round Up post will…

­ Be great for internal links to my OTHER pages ­ Be great for getting more traffic ­ Be great for attracting SOCIAL shares and traffic ­ And maybe, attract the attention of those other bloggers I linked to

who might want to share my post with THEIR readers and/or social followers.

See how that works? Nice, right? Just be sure to make the Round Post look good and flow well.

Round Up posts aren’t really for selling, but if you’re writing and you find a perfect spot to link out to something on Amazon or use another affiliate link, by all means, do it. For example, when I start talking about making smoothies more quickly with the blender I reviewed, I’d link to the blender on Amazon as well as link to my review post about it. And don’t forget to use images. Speaking of images…

#5 Pin Me, Baby! I’m sure you’ve heard that those big, tall images on Pinterest get a lot of attention. They are very eye­catching and get clicked and re­pinned a lot. BUT, personally, I can’t STAND having an image that tall on my blog posts. So that meant I had to go TO Pinterest and manually upload my image I made for that post and do it that way.

But doing it that way meant that anyone who pinned my post from my site would NOT have that tall image to use. That frustrated me so… I just didn’t do either of those things at all. Thing is, traffic HELPS your posts and I knew missing out by not doing my best to pin my posts well AND give my readers a great image to use when pinning. Good news ­ I’ve got a solution. I’m about to tell you how to have that big, tall, awesome image on your post, BUT no one will be able to see it on your post. Yet, someone who uses their Pin It browser button WILL see it as an image choice. Cool, right? It’s just a matter of code. Go ahead and upload your Pinterest image to your site as your normally would. Only difference is, you are going to add a little bit of code AROUND the image code. It looks like this:

(note: that is a screenshot of the code I have in a txt file. I’m afraid the code won’t paste or render properly in this document.) I just put that code with my Pinterest image url at the end of my post. No one sees it ­ it’s just there to help me out AND make my life happier by NOT having those big honkin’ images showing on my posts. So there ya go… 5 things you can do RIGHT NOW to help a stalled (or totally broken down) post on your site.

1. Use a TOC plugin 2. Create internal links TO your stalled post 3. Edit and Republish with a new/more recent date 4. Do a Round Up Post 5. Don’t skip Pinterest ­ just hide your big image

Now, YOU are a Blog Mechanic! Hope this helps! Jennifer ~PotPieGirl

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