Quick, what are the three words or phrases you think best sum up your blog?
Maybe:
- healthy eating
- easy recipes
- vegetarian dinner ideas
or perhaps:
- strength training exercises
- quick workouts
- fitness for busy people
Now go do an experiment. Do a Web search for those phrases. Is your blog in the first few pages of results?
The problem is, just like the Bing commercials, there is search overload — and with so many things being added to the Internet every day, it can be hard to get your awesome content to cut through the clutter and crap.
OK, back to the dilemma. Enter SEO — search engine optimization.
SEO is one of those jargon-y phrases that a lot of people like to throw around, but few really understand. And that’s because while there are some tricks and tips you can do to increase how well your blog does with search engine traffic, there’s no magic formula. Frustrating, huh?
I learned so much during Matt (No Meat Athlete‘s) Fitbloggin’ presentation, and later, the webinar he gave on SEO for bloggers. I realized that I had all the tools to help boost my search results, but I wasn’t using them.
Duh.
I have a premium theme (it’s a Studiopress child theme on the Genesis framework), and it comes with some special fields that allow me to give an alternate title and short description for search engines. They allow me to have a fun title for you, and an SEO-friendly title for Google.
For example:
My recent post on using StumbleUpon to promote your blog is called “The Most Important Sharing Tool You’re Not Using.” I called it that because I thought it was a good tease for the content inside — and, to be frank, I thought it might entice some people to click through their feed readers.
But for SEO, I gave it an alternate title: “How To Use StumbleUpon To Increase Blog Traffic.”
Not cute, but better for people who might search for that phrase.
In the month that I’ve been diligent about filling out the custom fields, my search results — and overall traffic — have increased in a significant way. And that’s only for about 50 posts!
So, I’m assigning myself some homework. I’m going to take Matt’s advice and go back to older posts, especially the ones that have a lot of information in them, and adding in new SEO titles and keywords. I’m getting rid of posts that are no longer relevant or may be draining my results.
And you, my dear readers, get some homework too.
If you are self-hosted and have a premium theme:
Use the tools that your theme offers — from SEO titles, keywords, descriptions and more. From this day forward, take some time and fill each section out, and see how it affects your search engine traffic. How are people finding you? Are your SEO tweaks working:
If you are self-hosted and don’t have a premium theme:
Consider adding a plugin to unlock some SEO features — I have heard good things about the All in One SEO Pack and WordPress SEO by Yoast. Each allows you to do some of the same things that a premium theme is designed to do, but are free!
If you are not self-hosted:
Go back to some of the posts that you think could do well in search engine results. Maybe it’s a post with tips that you gave for picking the best running shoes, or one where you talked about how to order healthy meals while in restaurants. Re-read your work and see if you can update it at all. Make sure that it’s still accurate, and if you have information to add, do it. If it’s a hot mess, consider unpublishing it and starting from scratch.
And since I’m by no means the expert in SEO, here is some additional reading for you to do.
- SEO Copywriting (via Copyblogger)
- 4 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts (via Mashable)
- How to Improve Your Writing and SEO for Better Blogging (via Kikolani)
OK, the teacher has spoken. Now go out and get your work done!
About Katy
Great info, Katy! I’m going to look into this a little more today
Courtney @ Sweet Tooth, Sweet Life recently posted..Lunchbox Dinner
Thanks for the tips. Any extra info for those of us still lingering on Blogger?
Vinobaby (aka Kerry Ann) recently posted..Summer Smashed at the Shore
Switch to WordPress and self-host
I’ll help ya!!
-Michelle
Michelle @ Crazy*Running*Legs recently posted..A Healthy and Safe Lunch {A Call For Suggestions}
Haha. I agree. Move to wordpress! It’s actually really easy. Here are some instructions: http://amerrylife.com/how-to-start-a-weight-loss-blog/
Mary (A Merry Life) recently posted..Weekly Food Prep
Hee hee … well, if you are sticking with Blogger (and it’s OK if you are!), here are some tips:
http://blog.diyseo.com/2011/03/simple-seo-tips-for-blogger-blogspot-blogs/
You have some options on your Design tab that should help. And of course, Blogger is a Google product, so you probably get some help from that.
I try and fill out my SEO descriptons on every post and since I have been, my hits from google searches have gone way up!
Eventually I’ll go back to my “How To” posts and recode them.
I have trouble optimizing my diary type posts, like posts that don’t answer any questions or posts that don’t contain anything people would search for but explain my day or eats or something.
How would I go about that if it’s worth it?
Val @ Balancing Val recently posted..Random Part I
Val, I think it would be worth optimizing those posts – after all, someone might google and click your blog about something you think is helpful/relevant and then bounce because they’re looking for something else. But if you wrote about your day and mentioned anything random – a new pair of shoes, maybe – and I was interested in that pair of shoes I might not just come to your blog but I’d also click around to see if you mentioned more about the shoes and maybe even send you an email to ask what you were thinking now that you’ve been wearing them a while. I think in some ways it’s a guessing game as to what people might find useful but if you’re trying to pull out keywords you just never know what might spark someone’s interest! Look at some of the seemingly random search strings that bring people to your blog already.
Kate recently posted..Pinterest Comes True: Pomegranate-Orange Glazed Salmon
Val — I would spend more time optimizing your most searchable posts (the how tos, etc.) and also optimizing all posts from here forward. If/when you have time, do the rest, but don’t stress about it too much.
Thanks!
Have you seen any increase in traffic from old posts that you have gone back and optimized?
Val @ Balancing Val recently posted..How To Repurpose Food
Brilliant tips! As a librarian who does a lot of cataloguing I was pretty confident about my SEO but I definitely learned something here. Thanks Katy!
Aine @ Something to Chew Over recently posted..Brownie Cake
You are so stinkin’ smart. Thanks for the tips!
Callie @ The Wannabe Athlete recently posted..How to Return to Work After Having a Baby (Without Losing Your Mind)
Great post–way to make it simple and digestable. I’ve been blogging for 4+ years, and only really started to pay attention to SEO this year. I’ve been lucky to have a great search engine ranking before now (I’m the first or second link on the first page of Google) because I got linked to a couple times by rabid bloggers who sent a lot of traffic my way.
I’m still small time traffic wise, but it’s good to be very findable. I’ve found that since I’ve started working on my SEO stuff, I’ve found my bounce rates are going down, and I’m getting more interaction and fan email than before, which means (I’m thinking) people are finding what they’re looking for.
However, I’m still learning a lot about this, so thank you for the “further reading” links.
NFPworks recently posted..Sugar & Spice Caption Contest
Wow…what great luck you had! Well, you had to have great content first, so I guess luck didn’t have all that much to do with it. So, instead — congratulations!
As usual, awesome info! I’m already using the All In One SEO pack and have seen some great results from it!
Brittany @ Itty Bits of Balance recently posted..Little White Booty
At Techmunch last month, Lori from Recipe Girl gave a good tip that you should google what you’re going to name a post or page beforehand to get an idea of how popular it is so that you can aim to get on the front page. For instance NEVER name something “chicken recipes” because it’s bound to go straight to the 11th page.
Evan Thomas recently posted..Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies
Ooooh, I’d never thought of that trick for specific post titles. I’m going to play around with that.
I literally burst out laughing at that video. hahahaha. But, this post is spot on. I try really hard to tag and label my posts so that they result in a higher search engine optimization. And luckily, maybe it’s because my name and “brand” (it’s in quotiation marks because it’s slowly getting there, haha) are somewhat unique, but I’m the first thing that pops up when you type in “realistic nutritionist, realistic wedding, realistic nutrition” so that’s good. I just know I need to really pay more attention to my tagging and labeling, especially when I’m posting foodie recipes.
As always, new bloggy BFF, you rock and I love this post
claire recently posted..HLS Day 2: Holy Quinoa, Batman! Plus the 4 Things I Learned That Changed Me
Once again — thank you for this info! I’ve noticed the SEO plugins and wondered – what the HELL do they do?? Plus all of my Spam I get is about installing an SEO plugin. Ha ha. I’ll play with this tonight!
Michelle @ Crazy*Running*Legs recently posted..A Healthy and Safe Lunch {A Call For Suggestions}
Really great tips! Now I actually know what SEO means for my blog! I’ll definitely use it more now!
Alexa @ Simple Eats recently posted..Running Rut
Thank you for writing about SEO without it being spamalicious. I will admit I raised my eyebrow when I saw the title of this post as so much of SEO is just awful.
Also, another interesting tip is right clicking on the page and hitting “view source info”. If you look at the “title” field, you can see what SEO title someone has used. Like “Easy Tips for Getting Better SEO With Your Blog,” for example
Theodora recently posted..Making the Best of It
Or you can just skip viewing the source code and look at the top of the browser you are using. If someone has changed the title for SEO benefits the one the search engine sees will be shown at the top of the browser even if you don’t see it on page. Much easier than looking at source code, although looking at that can be helpful for finding other things!
Mary (A Merry Life) recently posted..Weekly Food Prep
I’m really good at making things harder for myself than necessary
Theodora recently posted..Making the Best of It
Haha, I know how that goes.
Mary (A Merry Life) recently posted..Fear and Motivation
Good post! I find most people get overwhelmed with SEO because there is so much they *can* do, so they do nothing. That’s the worst idea ever so just focusing on one thing – like making better titles – is a great way to start improving rankings until you learn more about SEO.
Mary (A Merry Life) recently posted..Weekly Food Prep
And that’s definitely what I did — I also got annoyed at the thought of taking even more time for each post when it was already taking fooorrrrrrever. But now that I see the results, it’s totally worth it.
Awesome info Katy! You make complicated things seem so approachable.
Beth @ Beth’s Journey recently posted..The Numbers Game
I have been self-hosting for about 6 weeks now and have been completely overwhelmed by the options I now have! My theme has some SEO options I have yet to touch.
Thanks for this reminder to get on the ball. I seriously need a vacation to just figure out my blog all week!
Holly @ RUST BELT RUNNER recently posted..Race Recap: Anthony Wayne Rotary 5K (2011)
That’s kind of a genius idea. Wouldn’t it be cool for us all to get together for a long weekend, just to work on our blogs? No seminars, just sitting down and actually implementing some of these tools?
Love this idea!
Like a blog optimizing retreat.
We all have so many great tips to share, could you imagine if a lot of us were all together just implemeting them?
We would rise to the top so quickly.
Val @ Balancing Val recently posted..How To Repurpose Food
This is awesome Katy. I installed the SEO plug-in after fitbloggin and played with it a bit but got lazy about using it. I need to go back and fill it in for the important ones to increase traffic. So simple and easy.
Cynthia (It All Changes) recently posted..Honest Tea–Six Word Memoirs on Love
Thanks for the tips Katy, I am always looking for tips to increase my blog traffic. I am also convinced that I need to meet Matt @ No Meat Athlete in person, because I found out last night (via Tina’s post to promote community in the blogging world) that he lives in Dallas.
I will make sure that when I sit down tonight after dinner with my computer that I tell my husband I am doing homework assigned by Katy, and I am not just wasting time in the blogosphere.
Stephanie @ Food and Fitness 4 Real recently posted..Back to Reality
YAY! If you need me to send you a gold star to show your husband when you’re done, I will
You’ve done it again. I never mess with those features below my post and now I will! Thank you!
so…how do you know if you have a premium theme and have the function to add custom fields? *hangs head in shame*
No shame necessary
The quick answer is — did you pay for it? (Or, if someone did the design of your site…did he/she pay for it?)
The premium themes are called that because they have additional features built in — SEO friendly code, special options and features for design, etc. Free themes are fine, so don’t worry if you don’t have one. But the premiums can be very inexpensive (and now that I’ve used them, I’ll never go back).
These are awesome tips for using SEO more effectively! I’ve only recently started to take that part of my blog seriously, but once I did it really made a difference. People search for the darnest things, but hopefully some of those searches lead them my way! Thanks!
I’m going back to some old posts and adding SEO titles now! My only problem is that the SEO title shows up on the heading bar of my browser, rather than the cute original title. Any way to change that?
KaraHadley recently posted..Beyond Bitchtastic Brownies
Kara,
That’s tricky — when you are adding SEO titles, you’re actually changing the title tag (which is what search engines look for), so you really can’t prevent it from changing it on the tab.
Had to tell you that after I went back through a couple of posts to add SEO to them, I came up on the FIRST PAGE of a Google Search! Hoping it increases my traffic a little bit! Thanks for posting this! It motivated me to actually do something about it!
Kristen recently posted..baby bump: week 33
Katy to the rescue again! I was looking for this exact topic and decided to check your blog first. From here on out, I’m checking your site for all my social networky and tech news— oh, all right I’ll admit it, I already check your site first, then if it’s not here, google. This is very helpful as I want to get serious as a blogger in 2012. Thanks for this awesome content.
Calvin recently posted..Christmas Week – Give Love on Christmas Day
Calvin, you’re awesome. Thanks so much for your kind words. And if you ever search my site and can’t find a topic, let me know so I can fill in the gaps!
I use the All in One SEO Pack and I LOVE it! It has definitely helped me to increase my search engine traffic. I would definitely recommend it–it gives you the same options that you mentioned with your premium theme.
Jessica Morrison recently posted..Active Release Technique (ART)