SEO How To – Basics for Bloggers
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of the most important things for a blogger/writer to master. This list is a brief collection of my current learnings and experiences with SEO so far.
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| SEO How To - Basic for Bloggers |
With basic SEO tools (such as free plug-ins and SEO software) available online, you’d think this is a breeze. What I have often observed then is that a writer sacrifices story-telling and content quality for a ‘high SEO score’. This may be good for landing hits and pageviews - maybe getting on the first few pages of Google Search, even! - but a million pageviews a month is useless if no one’s coming back for quality content. The following list is your basic SEO how to for content that is less robot-like, and more you – human.
SEO How To #5: Proven Concepts
There is a reason why articles written in list form are so successful: they are reader-friendly, easy to digest, and you can get a lot of information in a relatively short period of time. A top five best of anything is interesting to read, loads fast, and also focuses on what the reader already wants to know – the best of something. A long, wordy article may be great for academic journals, but not very friendly for those on netbooks, tablets, and mobile phones. Short and sweet, lists work.
SEO How To #4: Quality Over Quantity
Are you proud of your 50,000 Twitter followers and/or 100,000 pageviews monthly? These numbers look great on paper (rather, your screen) but if they are not re-tweeting and/or sharing your posts, they aren’t helpful at all. Sign up for Google Analytics and study how much time readers spend on your blog, and find out if they are actually returning. Find out what posts get read the most and which ones bring readers back. A true high-value blog with great SEO is one that gets shared around!
SEO How To #3: SEO and Keyword Families
One of my pet peeves in reading many blogs and articles is the almost robotic repetition of keywords. While free SEO tools will advise you to repeatedly use a keyword several times in a post, this more often than not creates an inorganic and unnatural writing style. Shoot for keyword families – these make for better reading, and believe it or not, a much more effective SEO in-article technique. Check out my article on losing fat faster, and see how keyword families come alive in an organic and natural manner.
SEO How To #2: Links Are Useful
Sharing is caring, and more so in the world of blogging and online writing. You want your article to be linked by other, trustworthy blogs . This will not happen unless you’re a massive authority on a subject (which many of us aren’t) or you get noticed. Increase attention by linking relevant sources, websites, and blogs in your article. Is this self-serving? It’s not, as long as you believe the sites you’re linking gives your own post more credibility and clout. Word of advice: never expect, and never assume other bloggers will back-link to you. What matters more is what you do on your end.
SEO How To #1: Content is King
After all is said and done, a bad post is a bad post. You can ignore everything ever known and taught on SEO but if your article compels people to share it on Twitter or Facebook, and inspire, educate, inform, or motivate others, you are guaranteed to come up more often in search results. Increased quality traffic doesn’t happen overnight, so in the meantime, just keep writing – you will produce better content if you really want to. Quality content begets quality interaction, and in the end, this is what you should aim for.