ALONG COMES MARY

It’s been awhile since my last Social Media Monday post. Partly since I’ve been extremely busy helping clients and continuing to launch my second website all about my services (I had a big unveil in mind for last month. But, the website just had to go awry on me.). Until that big other launch, something coming up ALL the time are these 3 dirty letters: SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is the buzz phrase if you are at all apart of the blogsphere and/or social media industry. It continues to baffle me. I have been surprised to read even very top social media managers and bloggers still continue to get stumped at SEO, too. Luckily, I have been researching for both myself and clients and, you know what I am finding? It’s not that intimidating, it just adds a bit more to your work load.

So, welcome to a 6 tips for how to learn SEO!

Did you know that are two main types of SEO. For the first, you actually are in the driver’s seat to make it or break it. I’m talking about on-page modifications. This is something you manipulate and create to make Google understand what your site or blog post is about. The other kind of SEO is off-page search engine optimization which involves building backlinks. This type you don’t have as much control over, which means it’s vital that if you want to rock at your website’s SEO, you will have to work at maximizing the former: On-page SEO.

#1: CONTENT.

I was surprised to learn this tid-bit throughout the tutorials I referenced: You need 1,000-2,000 words on your blog posts. I always thought under a 1,000 is best so your user does not get bored. Well, we need to keep writing, apparently! While under 1k is not horrible, articles with the higher word content tend to make Google’s first page of search results.

#2: URL’s.

Your URL address to your link should contain at-least one of the keywords to your article. Example, If I want Google users to easily find an article about date night in Los Angeles, make sure the title and URL contain: “Date Night in LA”. (If you are a WordPress user, simply look at the permalink when you are in editing. You can even change the URL title there.)

#3: SUBHEADINGS.

Subheadings should be your new BFF. Basically, this means utilizing subheading throughout your post and try to put the keyword or semantic equivalent in it. It will make your content easier to read, but, also signals Google that the words in the subheading are important. Example, making each idea in that “Date Night in LA” post contain the words “Los Angeles” or the related terms “date night”, “weekend in Los Angeles” and so on.

#4: BE BOLD.

Something you may be noticing a lot with my posts is that I am not afraid to highlight a phrase or keyword in bold. This is another hack to get your keywords noticed. Make sure it is a sentence that you want your audience to pay special attention to. Going back to my date night post example, something I would put in bold there may be “Voted best date night restaurant in LA”. It’s important to NOT over-do this tip as it can set off alarms at Google that you are going too crazy to be optimized on your page for a keyword. Two bold phrases at the most should improve your SEO.

#5: LINKS.

Something I know I struggle with as a blogger is feeling like so much goes into my articles, then, after I publish, I worry they will get buried and forgotten rather quickly. A solution to this is linking back to older, relevant articles of yours in the new post. An example could be, in “Date Night in LA”, if I have previously featured or mentioned one of my picks in the new post, include the link to that article so more eyes will get on that older post.

#6: BE PRESENT.

One of the biggest rule of thumbs with SEO is ensuring your keywords are present in the first three hundred paragraphs. Just once or twice is enough, any more can make Google think spammy. So, naturally put your keywords in those first few paragraphs.

I actually could go on, but, this is a lot of tips and tricks to process. I never want to overwhelm folks with my posts, so, alas, I will stop for now but will plan a part 2. If you would like to chat more about SEO and other social media services I offer, you can always find me at [email protected] or shoot me a tweet! xo