Questions About My Current Strategy
Emma | Feb 16, 2008 | Comments 15
I have a group of blogs that I’ve been reading for some time now. I always hate it when a blog I know and love announces that they are taking things in a complete different direction. Therefore I’m not going to do that. But as our knowledge grows, we also realize that there are some things we can improve upon.
I’ve realized that I’ve been missing out on a lot of free search engine traffic. Why? Because I hardly pay attention to keywords or do searches, to see what people are looking for, before I begin a post. I’m not saying to write more cheesy affiliate propaganda. But, just to find out what people want and then choose my topics to better serve and inform.
Last night I was reading Steve Pavlina’s blog and I came across this post “Blogging For Money“, I’m pretty sure that he found this phrase to be popular in keyword phrase searches. It’s a long read but he makes some good points, such as; ranking for search terms gives us free traffic and to make money you need traffic.
Finding keyword phrases and choosing keywords for your title, anchor text, and for sprinkling throughout the post, are an important feature of blogging, I’ve been overlooking. So it’s time for me to get back to basics and focus more on SEO and filling in the gaps in my knowledge.
Sometimes I feel like my blog is a race or a competition to get a higher ranking or more subscribers. I also, like everyone else, have time limitations. Each blogger is in a different place, some have more knowledge, luck, time or skill than others.
It’s time for me to stop looking at my blog like a competition and focus on using it as the learning tool it was intended to be. Filling in my gaps in knowledge while sharing what I do know with my readers. There may be some gaps in my posting while I complete some other projects.
My point with all of this is I want to focus on the core concepts of blogging, while learning and providing quality content. Slow and steady often wins the race. So for the time being I’m going to be taking my time learning things I feel I need to learn and trying to build some longer articles that will provide great value.
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Wow, you just articulated how I’ve been feeling for a couple of months now. I’ve not done anything with SEO on my BlogStruk blog because to be honest I’m not really sure how to optimize the site for the phrases “blog tips” or “blog humor.” I vascillate between wanting to do more with SEO vs. just writing about what comes to mind. The latter wins out every time and as a result the site doesn’t get much search traffic at all.
On the other hand I have been writing keyword rich posts on one of my other blogs. As such all of the traffic it gets is search traffic. And it’s organic traffic. I’m slowly understanding the difference between writing for readers and writing for search traffic.
Anyway, this a lengthy way of saying that I fully understand what you’re trying to accomplish. I need to do likewise.
Chanya
BlogStruk’s last blog post..You Finish The Blog Limerick!
Chanya, thanks for helping to validate how I’ve been feeling.
It’s a learning process. I think eventually incorporating this stuff into our regular writing will become second nature, once we’re used to it.
Plus not every post needs to be targeted for organic traffic but having some highly targeted pages would only increase traffic and probably get some more regular readers.
I find that a quick five minutes before I write to get an idea of what phrases surrounding the subject are popular searches does wonders for the SEO value of my posts. I like to use the keyword tool at SEO Book
It’s important to keep in mind as well that on page SEO is the smaller half of the pie. It’s what you do off page that will have a bigger impact with the SE’s in the end.
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Hi Emma,
Great blog you have, I will be reading more
I seem to treat things like a competition also. When I start thinking about my blogs and all the other blogs out there, my heart starts racing and I feel the need to take action.
Treating it like a competition can be a good thing as it is what motivates people, but, I have found that calming down, writing things down, evaluating my current situation, doing proper planning and research and then taking action is by far a better strategy.
Organization is key to a successful blog and can be a big help with time management.
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Thanks Gavin. I guess the motivation is a good factor. I agree with you about proper planning and research and then taking action. Yes organization is super important too.
You seem to be doing really well. Keep up the good work.
I think everyone should optimize their blog posts for the SERPS. The most effective skill that I have learnt is SEO, little on page tweaks and a few backlinks can make a hell of a difference to your ranking and income.
Thanks Thomas, that’s what I was thinking. For the next couple of months I think I’m going to be focusing on a lot of SEO.
SurveyBlogger made an important point here that distinguishes what s/he said from what this post seems to be saying. The post seems to lean toward finding out what key words are popular and using that to choose post topics; that’s unlikely to work very well for obvious reasons: you aren’t going to be an expert in an area or have some special insight into a topic or whatever makes a blog post special or compelling just because there are a lot of searches for that term.
Note that SurveyBlogger talks about looking for the popular keywords RELATING TO THE TOPIC S/HE ALREADY WANTS TO WRITE ABOUT. It’s a world of difference, and an important one.
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Actually I did mean keywords that were related to my post topics. I wouldn’t just post about Britney Spears or whatever on this site. But thanks for pointing that out. I guess I could have been more clear. It’s funny, this post was sort of written for myself just to express how I was feeling and yet it’s getting the most insightful comments. Very cool.
I know I should be researching keywords and trying to focus my blog in some direction. But it does such a good job of being a sounding board for my ideas, that I am reluctant to change it from my online memo pad.
I know the feeling.
It’s difficult to balance all the things you need to make a great blog – it’s like a one man business where you are responsible for design, content, vision, and marketing… You might be all up on SEO without having the right content or remembering to spend enough time driving in traffic. I think the most important thing to concentrate on is good content, everything else will follow in time…
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I know the feeling too
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Thanks for bringing up this point. Yes, I am competing with others, but all I can really control is what I do. I need to focus on what will make me a success.
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