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Starting a Post with an Image
If you start a post with an image even if it is just a small image to the side of the text the image code will be the first words of your post. To see this when composing your post click on the HTML tab and see the code at the beginning of your post. This is what the bots see.
If you aren’t using a plugin like All-In-One-SEO or you aren’t writing/pasting in your own excerpts more than likely your search results will show the image code and not the words you want people searching to see. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:
ReBlogWorld BlogWorld Take Away
caption id= align=aligncenter width=500 caption=REBlogWorld Conference Lift Off October 15, 2009][/caption] First, I don’t usually write this kind.
www.realestatebloglab.com/real-estate-blogging/
reblogworld-blogworld-take-away/ - 82k -
Not very interesting is it? This isn’t the information you want readers to see to entice them to click on your link.
On yesterdays post I filled in the excerpt and the indexed result for today is:
Latest PR Update Some Interesting Observations
www.realestatebloglab.com/blogging-in-general/
latest-pr-update-some-interesting-observations/ - 83k
This is what you want those searching to find, not caption information about the image that starts the post. It starts telling the story and leads the person searching to what to know more.
The easiest way to handle this is to use the All-In-One-SEO plugin and check “Autogenerate Descriptions”
I’ve just checked this option for the Lab so I don’t have to remember to do this on each post.
You want to make sure the excerpt included in the search results say what you want to convey to the potential reader or person conduction the search.
Sometimes I write a specific excerpt if the first sentence is not what I want as the “Auto generated Description”.
It pays to pay attention to the words in your excerpts. Getting your post indexed is the first step; getting it clicked is the next logical step. You can greatly increase the likelihood of that happening if you have interesting and targeted excerpts which support your Title and post topic.
