We love reading your Thrive Global stories and want to help you reach as wide an audience as possible each time you post. Here are some easy tips to do just that.
How to Help People Find Your Stories
First thing’s first: When posting a piece to Thrive Global, be sure to fill out the available fields under the SEO (search engine optimization) tab below your story.
Here are some FAQs and best practices to set you up for success:
What is SEO and why should I care about it?
Good question! SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, refers to things you can do to increase your chances of appearing on search results pages, which means your piece will be more visible to people when they search online. So, the better your fantastic pieces are optimized, the more views you’ll get.
How do I best optimize my piece for SEO?
In WordPress, there are slots under Settings → SEO & Social in your draft that will allow you to fill in SEO and social-friendly fields. Here are the fields you’ll find and why they’re important:
SEO Title Tag: This should be the title of your piece in its most concise and literal form. Keep the most important keywords first, but make sure you still sound like a human — not an SEO keyword robot. Think: How would people search for this?
- Keep SEO title tags between 5-12 words
- Put the most important keywords first
- Avoid being vague, and skip puns; that’s not how someone searches in Google (but you can keep your wit in Social and the main headline!)
A great SEO Title Tag: Technology-Induced Anxiety is Real: Don’t Believe the Hype
A less-than-great SEO Title Tag: Don’t Believe the Hype: Tech-Induced Anxiety is Real
Even a small change in the order to prioritize keywords people search for (technology & anxiety), rather than phrases they likely aren’t (“Don’t Believe the Hype”), increases the SEO value!
SEO Meta Description: This is the blurb under the Headline that appears in search results. It’s important to include some keywords here too, but the main goal is to entice people to click on your content! If you don’t fill it in, it defaults to the first words in the body of your content.
- Keep to 1-2 sentences
- Use important keywords and phrases
- Consider a call to action: Watch, Read, Learn, etc.
A great SEO Meta Description: Jeff Bezos is first to admit that a thriving business comes from eight-plus hours of sleep at night. Curious about other thought leaders who are climbing into bed early? Read on.
A less-than-great SEO Meta Description: Other founders and entrepreneurs are flipping their mindset and following … Jeff Bezos Says Prioritizing This One Habit is Key to His Success …
This is what happens when the field isn’t filled out in the second example — it gets cut off and is definitely not a compelling sentence.
SEO Keywords: Skip ‘em!
What to know about choosing an image:
Also, now that you are able to post your own pieces, please note a few best practices about selecting your main image:
It’s important that you have permission for every image published in your story. Make sure not to steal anything from Google Images or another website; instead, check what kind of rights and licenses image and stock photo sites offer — and then source accordingly. (Or, to make it easier, just use one of the great image resources we’ve collected for you here!)