2011/266: Bonus – Freshly Pressed!
Oh my goodness, one of my posts was chosen for WordPress’ Freshly Pressed!!
Seeee???!!!! đ
I am honored…. Thank you, WordPress! â„
Wanted to add the following from the WP Support page, for my fellow WP bloggers:
Five Ways to Get Featured on Freshly Pressed
Each weekday, we hand-pick and promote approximately ten new blog posts to the Freshly Pressed section of the WordPress.com homepage. These posts represent how WordPress.com can be used to entertain, enlighten or inspire.
Why should you care about being featured? Well, letâs put it this way: Getting promoted to Freshly Pressed is a major traffic win because WordPress.com receives a high volume of page views. And, we have a feed set up so people can subscribe to Freshly Pressed. Why do we do all this? Itâs our way of saying we like you. We really like you.
So, by now you might be wondering how to get featured. Itâs all about the content. Letâs look at five guidelines that will increase your chances of landing on the homepage:
1. Write unique content thatâs free of bad stuff.
Each post that makes it to Freshly Pressed contains original content created by the user. Bad stuff includes (but isnât limited to) plagiarism, hate speech, fear-mongering, adult/mature content, copyrighted images that belong to someone else, spam or content thatâs primarily advertorial in nature.
If you reference material from other sites, be sure to give credit where credit is due. Use quotation marks or block quotes when quoting others, and include links to any articles you mention.
2. Make posts visually appealing.
Although not every topic can be illustrated, we believe most blog posts can and should have a visual element. We love original photos (the bigger the better!), but if you donât have any of your own, be sure to properly credit the original source (Zemanta takes care of this for you). Video rocks, too.
Itâs also a good idea to keep paragraphs short so that readers wonât feel overwhelmed by huge chunks of text. Breaking up your content with headings is another way to make lengthy posts less daunting.
3. Add relevant tags.
We find new posts by surfing the tag pages. If you donât use tags, we canât find you and how sad would that be? Also, donât use tags that are too obscure (âbeauty tips from the ancient worldâ) but rather more general tags (âbeauty,â âhistoryâ).
4. Cap off your post with a compelling headline.
Your headline needs to stand out. Avoid swear words, excessive punctuation or vague statements. We love a clever headline, and thatâs often the reason we click on your article in the first place.
Examples:
Good headline: I Won the Lottery And You Didnât!
Bad headline: U Loserz, i WON!!!!!11!
5. Aim for typo-free content.
We know, weâre human, too â errors happen. We recommend using our proofreading feature before publishing posts. If youâve got a few typos but we really like your post, we may ask you to fix them first.
So, thatâs it! Once youâve been promoted, youâll receive an email from us, and youâll also notice your page views and comments increasing. Enjoy the ride! You deserve it!
The Daily Click 