Writing Your Blog with Search Engine Optimization in mind!

Many people start their blogs as a way to market either themselves, their company, or their product. It's a great idea, especially for us crafters, artists, and artisans. It opens up communication between buyers, sellers, friends, potential customers, and Aunt Mary. Often though we ask ourselves, "how do we get more people than mom and Aunt Mary reading my blog?"

There is of course the usual channels, such as commenting on other blogs, emailing out your blog link to your contacts, posting your blog link in related forums, etc. An these are all great, but how do we get our blog to show up when someone searches a relevant topic in Google? Well unfortunately there is no magic quick fix. It takes time, and effort. There are many professionals out there who work full-time jobs dedicated to doing just this, getting your site ranking high on Google, so please understand that there is no quick-fix, especially in such popular categories as craft blogs.

However, there are many thing you can do to help get your rankings higher, and help get your blog seen more through natural search. But first, lets start with the basics!

What is Search Engine Optimization!?
As defined on wikipedia:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

So basically what this means is bringing more traffic to your site through natural searches (ie. when someone searches a keyword in google, and lands on your blog!) The more times you get hits (people landing on your site) from searches of particular keywords, the higher you will rank in Google (your blog appears higher in the searches) when those words are searched.

So How do I get Myself to "Rank" Higher?
Here is the meat and potatoes you've all been waiting for!

1. Research your keywords. Before, or as you are writing an article or post, do a little research on relevant keywords. The goal is to find the best keyword phrases for a given topic. I suggest using Google Keyword Suggest. Here you can enter a keyword (ie. crafts) and the tool will return a long list of relevant keywords. Look for keywords that have LOW advertiser competition, and high Average Search Volume, then use these words through out your article and in titles and such. Low advertiser competition means there are less other people using this word as a keyword, and high average search volume, means lots of people are actually searching this keyword or phrase. This will increase your chances of ranking higher in searches for these less competitive, but highly searched terms.

2. The Title Tag. Depending on what tool you use to build your blog, you may have lots or little control over this. The title tag is the title of the page, as seen at the top of the Browser. If you can alter your title tag, do so! This is the single most important element on the page for search engine optimization. When writing your title tag, keep the following in mind:

• What would someone type into Google when searching for a blog like mine?
• Put your most important keywords first!
  
• Keep it short, tight, and direct. Don't include many fluff words here. 10-12 words MAX
  
• Does your title Tag tell what your blog is about, even if someone came across it out of context.
• Capitalize the First Letter of each word.
• Do not use puns or word plays here.
  
• Try to differentiate from your competitors title tags.

3. Meta Tags. Again depending on what you use as a tool to publish your blog, you may or may not have control over this. There is a misconception out there that your meta tags are the be all and end all of Search Engine Optimization. This is absolutely false. Years ago Meta Tags were very important, but due to excessive misuse of meta tags, google, and most other search engines pretty much ignore meta tags. So that being said, spend less than 2 minutes on your meta tags if you have control over them. Moving on.....

4. Headlines and Sub- Heads throughout your text. Headlines and sub-heads not only help break up your text and make articles more legible to readers, they also help with search engine optimization. Headlines should not match your title tag exactly, but again should use main Keywords. Keep it Literal and Straight forward. Use Sub-Headings through out your text to create a more editorial title. Breaking up your text, and organizing it well signals to Search Engines that the content is comprehensive and well organized. For an example of a really well organized and comprehensive page, check out Wikipedia. Some people say Wikipedia pages are the perfect example of a well structured page for search engine optimization.

5. Descriptions or "Alt" tags for all images! You know when you add an image to your blog and your blogging tool asks you for a description of the image, or sometimes what it calls an "alt" tag? Well this is actually very important. Search Engines like Google can't read images, but it can read descriptions that you add to images. Again, try to use keywords here, but keep it short, (4-5 words max) and direct.

6. Linking. Throughout your article, include links to other sites' relevant articles. Usually you would want to keep this to non- competitors' sites, although in the craft world, we are all friends, so this is not such a big deal. However, try to keep your links to relevant links, not near-identical articles. As well, if you yourself have previously posted a relevant article, link it within your own site. The more links really the better, and the more authoritative the link, the better (ie. government agencies, non-profits, educational institutions, leaders in the relevant industry). You can see many examples of words I have linked throughout this article. Anytime you are talking about something that could be of interest to people for more info, link the word to the relevant site. As well, at the end of your article, you could include a few links to relevant and related articles. you see sites like about.com doing this all the time.

7. Send your blog post to people you might not usually think of. You've just finished writing an informative article, well structured, lots of authoritative links, etc., now what do you do with it? Think of a site that might be interested in it, and email them and let them know about the article you have just written. In fact, think of at least 3 sites who are non-competitors, but might be interested in reading your article. The worst that can happen is they ignore you, the best that can happen is a big blog, or industry site links back to your blog, and sends their traffic, to your site!

I hope this helps you get started on priming your blog for search engine optimization. This is really just a starting point, but in time, implementing these tips will go a long way in helping your rankings. I know it's a lot to take in, and may seem overwhelming at first, but try implementing just a couple of these tips each week, every little bit helps!

I hope you find this article informative and easy to understand and follow, but if you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to leave a comment, for email me any questions at tanybug [at] gmail.com.