Pilot- My First Blog

Hi, I'm Jack. I'm writing this blog to test my skills in multiple categories. like, blog writing, journal writing, and understanding how the online world works. So, today I'm gonna talk about what I am doing nowadays.

I joined a course in content marketing and advertising. Following are the topics that I learned so far.

• What is blogging?
• Domain and hosting.
• Freelancing and freelance platforms like fiver and Upwork.
• How to make a gig on fiver and rank it, like make an engaging banner and write a description, etc. 
• SEO and on and off-page SEO.
• Backlinking and some types of backlinks and how to make them. 
• WordPress, how to install and customize the theme.
• Plugins and their uses. 

What I Have learned today:-

Schema markup And WP themes.

So, what is Schema markup? 

Schema is a language to write structured data, it organizes the actual data on your website and makes it easier for google and user to understand. 

Now in this image above, no of steps provided or the rating and votes on that particular food and time to cook is actually schema markup. 

Like QA, software properties and size, video length, and some important points about the article is termed schema. 

Check this link for a better understanding of the schema.

Types of Schema markup:-

There are many types of Schemas, but we are gonna discuss the important ones only.

• Number of steps for a procedure.
• Rating, votes, comments, etc.
• Location and phone number.
• Services provided by a website.
• Q&A.

1. Number of steps for a procedure:-

This type of schema is used to provide no of steps for a procedure. Like in wikiHow they provide steps to do something, open an email account, steps to cook a special meal, steps to install software, and open an account somewhere. In cases like that, we use this type of schema.

2. Ratings, votes, comments, etc:-

This type of schema markup picks up data from your website/blog about ratings and properties of the product and displays it. This helps google to understand that your data is comprised of information and quality that a user wants, so google ranks your blog over others. This type of schema also impacts greatly your blog's SEO.

3. Location and contact info:-

This type of schema is helpful when you are doing local SEO. and you are running a blog for a company that provides physical services. Now schema helps google to understand that this site is open for business and where it is located. it also helps the client to make a decision by reading reviews and rating whether chose them or not.

4. Services:-

Now if you are working on a blog about services of some kind, like plumbing, you have to add what type of plumbing you do, either its whole work or only fixing some sinks and jam pipes, etc.  Another feature of this type of schema it looks better and impacts good on SEO and you get more engagement. 

5. Q&A:-

If you own a blog about anything, adding questions and providing viable answers always helps you increase traffic. But if you add these Q&As to your schema this will boost your traffic and takes more space on a page, as well as the impact on SERP. 

Schema For SEO:-

Why is schema so important? Does it help in SEO? And should we use it on our blogs? 

Well to answer these questions we need to understand what is the purpose of schema. like we wrote an article and we put a lot of research and details about a product. But no schema, now google will see it as an essay that has no headings and content that is boring readers. 

Now if you write an article and add schema about your product details. Google is gonna pick up those details easily and understand them, and show them to the reader.  now in the reader prospect, if he/she can see bullet points about the article or the question, or the properties he is looking for he can go ahead and read the full article but if you don't add schema you are wasting the reader's time.

So, the schema is important, with schema your blog looks beautiful on SERP. Now if it looks better on search engine ranking pages then surely it impacts a great deal in the optimization of your blog. to answer the last question, it's your choice to either use it or not. but it is recommended to use it.

WP Themes:-

Themes are the looks of a website, now whether you are using a WordPress, Wix, or blogger you have to use a theme.  What theme you should choose or which is better?

The answer to this question depends on you totally. if you are trying to make a store use an e-commerce theme and if you're trying to start a social or news blog, make sure you use a theme like newspapers, etc. 

Now whatever theme you use it's imperative that you use a theme that's user-friendly and SEO friendly.  Some important points you should know before choosing a theme.

1. Theme should be lighter. ( Not in color in size)
2. Should be new and still develop new upgrades. (Helps you up to date and solves bugs)
3. SEO friendly. 
4. Responsive. (Make sure the theme is responsive on mobile devices. because 57% of traffic nowadays comes from mobile devices.)
5. Plugin compatibility. (Most themes are compatible but the older ones are still not compatible with new plugins, so make sure it supports all new plugins and updates)
6. Cost. ( Now if you going for paid versions, make sure to check on different platforms first, check the demo thoroughly, and also prices from different platforms, like evanto and Theme Forest.

So, that is what I learned today. 

Task:- 

1. Go to Schema.org and read about how to add schema to your blog.
2. Go to my sample site by 000webhost and install multiple themes and plugins and see if they are responsive etc.