SEO Tips for Bloggers

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SEO Blogging Tips

Thanks to Fran and Brynn, I found out about the Blog Every Day in May Challenge and wanted to join in today! I will skip day one for now (maybe I will tell my life story in under 250 words eventually, but honestly have no idea what to say). Today’s topic is something you know a lot about or are good at. Well today I wanted to share with you some SEO basics that might help you with your blog since I am the SEO Specialist at my company.

SEO is something you continuously build upon and I just started as the SEO Specialist along with my Copywriter duties at my company a year ago, so I have been building up from our existing online content and structure.  This past November I went to the big SES  Conference in Chicago, but aside from that and what I do for my blog, I try to keep up with it and how Google’s algorithm is changing as much as anyone else  does and can. I don’t want to go into the topic too much because I literally have read hundreds of pages from white papers/eBooks and have pages upon pages of notes on SEO, but I want to give you a few tips that I think each and every one of us can easily do on a daily basis for blogging purposes! Here we go:

First and foremost, SEO is not something you do and then set aside and never touch again. It is much like everything else you do with your blog, just as you are constantly updating your social media feeds and blog posts, you should always be thinking about SEO and how people in or outside of the blogging community might be searching for you.

You should always create unique page titles. Page titles are what appear in the search results, so you want it to tell people what it is they are going to be clicking into and you want to feed the bots your titles on pages. Ideally, each page of your blog should have a unique title. Although sometimes you want a creative title for a blog post, it is better to have a title with information. Titles should be 4-5 words max.

  • For example, one post I did was on different animal prints and what colors they go best with. The title for this page is “Animal Print & Color Combinations”– this clearly explains the page, which is good for bots crawling my page and people who are interested in this topic. I could have done a fun, creative title like “Wild Pairings,” but it would not provide the same benefit to driving traffic. 

Content is KING (or QUEEN if you prefer). It always has been and it always will be. Search engines want to direct people to websites that answer their questions or give them what they are looking for. This is why endless keywords AKA keyword stuffing is not the way to go anymore. People used to KEYWORD the crap outta their pages to show up at the top of search engines, but have poor content and bad websites. Not good. Do you like clicking through to uninformative or poorly designed sites? Nope. Neither do I. Keywords are still relevant, but must flow naturally with your content. Bots usually crawl the top of your page, so it is important to have your most relevant information at the top of the page.

  • I see a lot of room for improvement for this out in the blogging world if people are wanting to drive traffic organically. I LOVE reading about bloggers’ personal stories, I love reading about their weekends, etc. etc. and I write about it too, all the time. But I really think if you are wanting to drive more people to your blog, you should also be incorporating information about the outfit. I know it can be boring to talk about the step by step process of how you put an outfit together, but here is where you can get creative with your writing. YAY for creativity! I wish I could give you a good example, but this just has to come from what you know about your clothes, trends, shopping and what you are wanting to accomplish with each post. Make sense? E-mail me if you have specific questions about this.
  • Another GREAT tool if you are writing a review or a post that you think a lot of people would be interested in is Google’s Keyword Tool. Simply type in words or keywords you are currently incorporating in your post and BAM, you have a whole page of similar words and suggestions as well how many global monthly searches there are for that word.

And honestly, that’s it! Add some tags to your posts, but it that isn’t as important as it used to be. In fact, at the conference I went to, we were told to leave metatag fields blank. Useful, relevant content is key and you will be set to go!

Here are a couple of GREAT resources if you haven’t ever read into the topic and want to learn even more:

HubSpot White Papers & EBooks

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

HubSpot has everything you could possibly want to learn and a couple of great ones to download are “17 SEO Myths You Should Leave Behind in 2013” and “Learning SEO from the Experts: A Step-by-Step Guide.”  These are free, you just need to fill out a short form (name, e-mail, marketing challenges). All are saved on my desktop as a PDF so if you want, just e-mail me and I can get those to you without having to enter your information!

Hope you enjoyed the post. Let me know if you would like to see more posts like this in the future. I have a couple other ideas that I could talk about related to SEO, marketing and branding your blog.

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33 Comments

  • Reply
    Ashleigh
    May 2, 2013 at 6:36 AM

    Oh wow! These are great tips! I had started tagging and all that but I slowly just stopped. I’ll take your suggestion with the titles though. It would make it easier to find things I’m sure1

    • Reply
      Rachel
      May 2, 2013 at 11:02 AM

      Ashleigh! Definitely do this with the titles! It is by far the EASIEST way for you to incorporate some SEO-ness 🙂 I still do a creative title from time to time when I think it is worth being fun over driving more traffic, but at the end of the day Google doesn’t care about creativity. Bots don’t care about creativity. It is all about the information and relevant content! Hope it helps!

  • Reply
    Rachel
    May 2, 2013 at 7:02 AM

    As a fellow SEO nerd, AMEN! I know that working in SEO has greatly helped my blog. Honestly, it’s not hard at all, either. You just write better and things magically happen! haha just kidding, but it’s not hard! We’ll have to talk nerdy SEO talk someday!

    • Reply
      Rachel
      May 2, 2013 at 9:50 AM

      Rachel, YES! I love being a nerd and talking SEO! 🙂 We must talk sometime, I would really love to know more about what you’ve learned through where you work and through your blog! 🙂 And you’re right, it seems like a scary thing, but it is actually pretty simple! Just something that should always be on your mind 🙂

  • Reply
    Jackie l Food.Wine.Fashion
    May 2, 2013 at 9:24 AM

    Thank you!! I just read this from top to bottom and I learned a lot. I am a social media girl by profession, but my clients are always asking me about SEO so I need to get better at that

    xo Jackie

  • Reply
    Amy
    May 2, 2013 at 9:33 AM

    awesome tips – thank you for sharing. i don’t pay enough attention to SEO and i should so i can increase my blog traffic!
    xoamy
    http://www.cupcakesncouture.com

  • Reply
    Bethie the Boo
    May 2, 2013 at 10:19 AM

    Great tips! And it was interesting to learn more about what you do! You are right about keywords, I think that is something I could definitely improve on!

  • Reply
    Alyssa
    May 2, 2013 at 10:28 AM

    These are such awesome tips, Rachel! I have pretty decent basic knowledge of SEO from my blog and work, but a brush up is always useful. Loved this!

  • Reply
    two birds
    May 2, 2013 at 10:47 AM

    this is definitely something we never do. we just write and take pics and hope people enjoy!! great tips!

  • Reply
    Sharon
    May 2, 2013 at 11:00 AM

    Thanks for the tips! I do use Google Keywords but honestly I don’t always have the time to go through it with every single one of my planned posts. Something I definitely need to work on with my blog!

    -Sharon
    The Tiny Heart

  • Reply
    zahra
    May 2, 2013 at 11:09 AM

    Love this! I felt like there was so much more i could be doing in the realm of SEO and this is a nice concise list of what to do. I am glad I’m not making a big mistake by not doing all of the keywords and tags that so many people do – but really for me it is because I just don’t have the time!

    Zahra
    http://www.lovezahra.com

  • Reply
    Ashley
    May 2, 2013 at 1:02 PM

    Worlds collide- I’m a content strategist, so I’m forever trying to get my partners to think about SEO + quality content to get the best bang for their Google buck! Great post, doll! Geeks unite. 🙂

    -Ashley
    http://lestylorouge.com

    • Reply
      Rachel
      May 2, 2013 at 1:06 PM

      I knew there was something I liked about you 😉 OKAY I already loved you, now I just love you more! Geeks unite indeed! 🙂

  • Reply
    Leigh
    May 2, 2013 at 1:53 PM

    Awesome tips! I really need to work on my SEO skills haha.

  • Reply
    Antonella C'est moi
    May 2, 2013 at 3:11 PM

    Very interesting post kisses

  • Reply
    Kirsty
    May 2, 2013 at 7:46 PM

    Great tips Rachel! Really handy when putting together posts as well as knowing i sort of on the right track. Thank you.
    x Kirsty

  • Reply
    the clothing menu
    May 2, 2013 at 8:18 PM

    Great advice! Especially about incorporating keywords into outfit posts. Lots of bloggers rely on photos, which are definitely helpful, but the words, like you say, are important.

    Kristen

  • Reply
    Diana Marks
    May 3, 2013 at 1:13 AM

    thanks for sharing these amazingly useful tips with us
    LA By Diana Live Magazine

  • Reply
    Fabrizia
    May 3, 2013 at 10:42 AM

    Great tips!
    Come back soon to visit me on Cosa Mi Metto???
    Win an amazing and elegant Chicabiti dress!!

  • Reply
    Always Maylee
    May 3, 2013 at 1:09 PM

    Great tips for those who don’t know much about SEO!

    xo, Yi-chia
    Always Maylee

  • Reply
    Rena
    May 3, 2013 at 2:21 PM

    Dear Rachael, many thanks for this very important post for me! Just spent more than one hour to test something you have wrote and now I´m sure I will change my strategy regarding my blog! Especially in future I will use the titles much better. Your post was absoultely helpful for me and I wanna say thanks again.

    xx from Bavaria, Rena

    http://www.dressedwithsoul.blogspot.de

  • Reply
    Brynn
    May 4, 2013 at 10:17 AM

    Hey, thanks for the shout out 🙂 I’m glad you’re going to jump in on the Blog Every Day in May challenge! I am really happy you shared about SEO – I really know nothing about it, so what you wrote will be helpful for me!

    theoriginalbrynn.blogspot.com

  • Reply
    Jacy
    May 5, 2013 at 2:39 AM

    I’ve learned a little bit about SEO in my advertising classes, but I don’t really know how to implement it! One professor did say that it’s important that your ‘about me’ section succinctly describe your blog so that the description will all show up under the blog name. I think you implement this through the metatag?? I haven’t experimented with this yet but I need to!
    Thanks for the info 🙂

  • Reply
    stylishbynature
    May 5, 2013 at 2:55 AM

    Thats a great post dear !! Looking f/w for more 🙂

    ❤ StylishByNature.com

  • Reply
    H&K Style Journey
    May 6, 2013 at 2:48 PM

    Great post and really informative. I just read something about SEO (which I had no clue about until then) and writing those keys words in the first part of a post. I learned my lesson not to put “nude” heels in our Mother/Daughter posts anymore though. We get a lot of searches for “Mother Daughter Nude” GROSS!!! Heather

    • Reply
      Rachel
      May 6, 2013 at 4:08 PM

      OH NO! That’s not good!!!!! Good thing you figured it out!

  • Reply
    Nicoleta
    May 7, 2013 at 11:52 AM

    Awesome tips, my dear ^__^

    Kisses,

    Nico

    http://www.nicoleta.me

  • Reply
    Nicoleta Buru
    May 7, 2013 at 4:52 PM

    Awesome tips!

  • Reply
    Nicoleta Buru
    May 8, 2013 at 12:07 PM

    I come back 🙂 Your post is really useful and explained in a very easy words. Thanks for that and I really look forward for a new post related to SEO, maybe applicable for fashion bloggs ^_^.

  • Reply
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    Chk out theBillionairesBrain.com – worth every penny

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