7,612
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
'''To place a photo within the blog Related post,''' click on : 140x80 [[File:PhotoDimensions.png|1000px]] Use the "ad media" button on the top toolbar in WordPress for the post. Upload your image. Once it is visual above to keep in mind how the content, photos you can move it around as you please within choose will be cropped into the postdifferent dimensions. If you click on a graphic it will let you align it left, right, or center within a paragraph, Set photos that are 1200x600 as well as a standalone image. It is probably best to put a graphic at the very start of a paragraph. Every post should have at least one graphicyour featured photo for optimal display.
→Slider/Thumbnails Comparison
This page is useful to those [[Writing Blog Posts]] at the McNair Center.
<onlyinclude>Producing a good blog post means [[Working with Wordpress]] to set up your blog post effectively. Our guide will help you [[Working with Wordpress#Creating a post|create a post]] and use the [[Working with Wordpress#Yoast SEO|Yoast SEO]] tools to optimize your post so that it will be found by search engines. The [[Blog Team]]'s online editor is there to help you but following the best practices will make us all more effective.</onlyinclude>
You can copy and paste your post's contents directly into wordpress's post editor. There are two ways to view your post - visual or text. Remember to check that there are no annoying tags in your post by checking the text view.
*'''No Span Tags''': If the post is copied and pasted out of Google docs, there will HTML span tags everywhere that can cause problems. The best way to avoid these tags is to copy and paste into a text editor (like Textpad on the RDP), . Delete all of the span tags that are visible in the text editor and then copy and paste out of textpad into the blog.*'''First 260 characters (includes spaces)''': The first 260 characters of your post, including spaces, will appear in the featured box when the blog post is promoted on mcnaircenter.org. Make sure these first few words are compelling. Do not use a heading for the first section.
===Sources===
All graphics must be licensed for reuse. Contact the Graphics Editor for help choosing and citing graphics.
'''To set the photo icon for the blog post,''' click on the "featured image" link on the left toolbar in WordPress for the post. Upload your chosen image. Make sure this is a photo which will entice viewers to click on the post!Be aware that this is the photo that will appear in the slider, featured posts, related posts and the inline image in the list of blog posts. '''To place a photo within the blog post,''' click on the "add media" button on the top toolbar in WordPress for the post. Upload your image. Once it is in the content, you can move it around as you please within the post. If you click on a graphic it will let you align it left, right, or center within a paragraph, as well as a standalone image. It is probably best to put a graphic at the very start of a paragraph. Every post should have at least one graphic. ====Dimensions of photos==== Slider: 1200x600 Inline image: 200x150 Featured post: 355x250
===Categories and Tags===
Although we don't need to satisfy all of the plugin's standards for readability, we do want to make sure that our posts are not so high-level or unreadable that people will not want to read our pieces.
*Reading ease: The Flesch reading ease test is used to determine what kind of reading level is necessary to read your post. Although we do not need to reach he the plugin's standards for reading ease, try to keep your reading score to about 25-50. For reference, anything below 30 is meant for college graduates; 25-50 is approximately high school or college reading level [https://yoast.com/flesch-reading-ease-score/].
*Passive voice: The plugin specifies 10%; this is a good goal.
*Sentence length: You should try to get your percentage of sentences with more than 20 words to approximately 40% or less. Click on the eye symbol next to the bullet point in the plugin to see which sentences are too long, and use this feature to find sentences which may be too complex or have too many points.
''Search for the title of your blog post, with stop words and without them. If the results are different in both the cases, then it is clear that Google is considering the stop words. So, it makes sense for you to retain stop words in your title'' [http://www.gobloggingtips.com/stop-words/].
==Settings==
===Sliders===
The slider uses the featured images of posts. Therefore, these images can vary wildly in size.
The current size of the sliders on the rotator are 1200x371 at 300dpi. This is a double golden ratio, and the psd file used to make new ones is:
E:\McNair\GraphicsAndWeb\Graphics Development\Double Golden Slider.psd
===Thumbnails===
The dimensions of thumbnails for the list of blog posts can be changed in Settings > Media > General. As of 1/30/2017, thumbnails for these posts are 200x150 (confirmed with inspection).
Changing the thumbnail size for images in related posts is possible under Appearance > Widgets > Right Sidebar/Blog Right Sidebar > Yuzo: Related Post(s) > Style > Height & Width image (relative). However, as of now, it is not possible to change the proportions of these images. Currently the dimensions are supposed to be 140x80 (1.75:1 ratio) but are actually 138x78 (confirmed with inspection).
==Slider/Thumbnails Comparison==
The main thumbnails are squarer than the sidebar thumbnails, which show 133% more content width-wise.
A bigger issue is that the main and slider thumbnails are cut out of the middle of the sliders, when a slider is used as a featured image. Thus a slider actually breaks down as: 29.4% - 42.2% - 29.4% (352.5px - 495px - 352.5px) width-wise for the main thumbnail and 22.6% - 54.7% - 22.6% (272px - 656px - 272px) for the side thumbnail.
Currently, using the double golden ratio for the grey text box on the slider, the edge of the grey text box will appear in both the main and side thumbnails.
==Other Resources for Search Optimization==
This link has some details on how to tag your blog posts for Google search optimization through meta tags: [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en]
[[Category:McNair Admin]]
