SEO: More than Magic For Your Blog —
People used to search; how do I create an SEO? How do you do SEO for a website? How do you get SEO? What does mean by search engine optimization?
It feels like magic to many of us who aren’t SEO professionals. But in truth, it’s much more than magic. It’s a blend of technical and creatively focused use of language to help your blog reach many more readers than you have right now.
That might seem like magic, but it’s honestly not. It’s just a matter of understanding how search engines work in general and then using that understanding to work for you. Here are a few key concepts about search engines that will help you better create SEO for your blog.
Search Engines Don’t Care About Your Blog
That’s right. According to Statista, there were 30 million blogs in the United States alone. In just three years the number is expected to be closer to 32 million. So, search engines just don’t care about what you have to say. But, they do care about what people search for. Their bots are continuously combing the millions of blogs, looking for words and phrases that match the searches.
These search engines bots aren’t just engaged when someone searches a word or phrase, either. They are continuously cataloging blogs and caching them to make retrieval faster.
So, what does this mean to you? While search engines don’t care about your blog, they do care about what your readers might be searching for on your blog. So, using words and phrases that are what your readers search for will make your blog rank higher.
It’s not magic, it’s logic. But be very careful about how you use those words and phrases in your blog because you can end up at the bottom of the list if you break the rules. These rules are always changing but there are a few that will almost always keep you out of SEO jail if you follow them.
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Know the basic SEO rules
Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to keep the REAL blogs at the top of the search lists and the spammers at the bottom or blocked. If you’re going to try to raise your ranking with search engines you’ll want to follow some basic rules.
I highly suggest if you’re going to get serious, hire a professional or company to help you. But, if you don’t have the dough for that, these rules will help you keep out of SEO jail and might even raise your ranking:
- Don’t be a black hat SEOer. Blackhat SEO is a type of optimization that focuses solely on gaining lots of views very fast. It uses sketchy techniques and aggressive tactics that are keyed solely for search engines and not the human beings who are searching. It includes techniques like word stuffing, using invisible text, or creating gateway pages. Basically, it’s the equivalent to a slimy car salesman. They’ll do anything to sell the car, they don’t care about the person driving it.
- On Page and Off Page: Look at your blog both ways. On Page, analytics have to do with what’s on a particular blog or webpage you have. Off Page is how well your domain is known or ranks. Does your domain and your content match? That gives you an authority to the search engines.
- Links, links, and more links! No. Just no. Too many links in your content can put you on the black hat list. Unlike more cowbell, more links aren’t good for your blog. Your links should be natural and give your readers information they would enjoy or learn more information about your subject. It’s also important to use links that would reference other blogs on your website. But, again, don’t overdo it. The fact that your links need to be and feel natural can’t be overstated. Your anchor text should directly relate to the link you’re sending your reader to.
There are quite a few more rules that search engines use to rank blogs and websites, but if you follow the above suggestions, you’ll have a good start.
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Stay up to date on SEO techniques
Earlier, the Google rolled out a big change in their search algorithm. It was jokingly labeled “Fred” by Google’s Greg Illyes. It ended up shaking up the whole SEO community and was talked about right up to the end of the year. It had SEO experts and webmasters scrambling to understand the algorithm because web pages and blogs that normally ranked high were now lower.
The most affected were the smaller blogs and websites which effectively disappeared. The lesson learned from this for any blogger is to stay up to date on changes that happen every year. All the search engines, but particularly Google, regularly update their search algorithms to help search terms get better results. Your ranking could plummet if the changes affect your blog.
SEO is an integral part of your blog planning and it can seem like you just put some words together, add links, and magic happens. But in truth, it’s not magic at all, it’s a very technical and creative set of approaches that can be even be called an art.
If your SEO becomes too overwhelming or you just don’t want to spend the time learning the rules, find a reputable SEO marketing company or professional to help you navigate the search engines waters. But, realistically, you can rank quite high using your own style and brand and doing your research. Just like everyone else, you can just “Google it.”