SEO Tricks for Bloggers 1: What are SEO Keywords and How to Use Them

By Karina Fabian

In November, after my husband retired from the military and was looking for work while contemplating being a stay-home dad, I took a writing job for http://toptenreviews.com. I review Small-Medium Business Services, mostly for features and performance, and write the reviews for our website. It’s one of the top review websites in the world for technical news. One of the reasons for our success is we write our reviews for the reader, but with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind.

Simply put, SEO is writing your article in a way that makes search engines like Google or Bing notice your work. The better your SEO, the more likely your article will be on the top listings of a search result, even if your blog does not have a huge following. As a blogger, I’d heard about the importance of SEO, but never gave it much attention. It seemed artificial, complex, and time consuming. At Top Ten Reviews, however, I had to get past my preconceptions to do my job. Fortunately, that wasn’t hard to do; not only was it easier than I’d originally thought, but the changing technology of search engines has resulted in natural writing winning out over the artificial keyword-loading of past SEO practices.

I’d like to share with you some of the things I’ve learned. These tricks are easy to put into your blogs and once you get the hang of them, they are easy to write.

#1 Begin and End with Keywords: It’s important that your writing be conversational and natural in a blog, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan ahead. Google updates like Panda have meant that content writing has more weight than keyword-laden writing, but you still need those important keywords. After all, if I am writing a blog about my dragon detective Vern and I never use the common words someone might use if searching for a good story about a dragon, then they’ll never see me.

Once you have your topic in mind, think of some words or phrases someone looking for such an article might use. Quickly scribble them down. Brainstorm as many as you like, but you don’t really need more than five. For example, in this article, keywords might be:

  • SEO
  • Search engine optimization
  • Google adwords
  • Blogging
  • Effective blogging
  • How to improve blogging
  • Blogging tricks
  • SEO tricks
  • Increase blog hits
  • Keywords
  • How to research keywords
  • How to use keywords

 

Next, go to Google Adwords, and put these into the keyword search. It will show you which are the most popular. Google Adwords is a free service that tells you the popularity of keywords, and it can suggest other related words. It shows you how often a word or phrase has been searched plus whether it’s popular for use in ads. While this last isn’t as important to blogging, it can give you an idea about whether your post will end up competing against commercial websites.

Using this information, pick the top three or five keywords or phrases that get the best SEO. They don’t have to command the top three spots, but something that has a score of 10 is not worth your time as much as one that scored 1000, unless it very specifically addresses your blog – Catholic blogging tips, for example. It’s a good idea to also toss in a long-tail keyword. This is usually a three-to-five-word phrase and is good because people often type in sentences or phrases rather than single words. So, if you are writing about Marian devotions for Advent, you might include that as a keyword. Other ideas might be “praising Mary during Advent” or “Advent prayers and devotions to Mary.” If you don’t see them in Google Analytics, just pick the ones that are most natural to write.

That’s a lot for today. Next time, we’ll talk about how to use these SEO keywords to improve your blog standing.

 

Editor’s Note:  Stay tuned the next two Monday’s for more “wisdom” from our seasoned and published author Karina Fabian.

 

 

Kathryn is a retired junior high teacher. A convert with a love for the Church she believes that its teachings have a more than viable application for today's world. She writes practical theological for the people in the pews believing that they have as much right to good catechesis as our youth and converts. Her writings appear on Catholic web sites and local Church publications. She has even been published in the diocese of Australia and most recemtly Zenit. Kathryn holds a Master's in Theology and is a certified spiritual director. Learn more about Kathryn at: www.atravelersview.org

3 Replies to “Tricks for Bloggers – SEOs????”

  1. Thanks Karina!
    Keywords used to sound so artificial. I’m glad to hear that Google has updated the indexing method. I’m willing to use them if they won’t affect my story writing. This is great info! Family History and Genealogy pages are really competitive, and so are Writing pages…so I compete in a tough pool and this helps 🙂
    Kassie
    http://youwhoineverknew.wordpress.com

  2. Thanks Karina–I have always tortured myself over “keywords”. You presented this nicely, it was concise and direct and, bottom line, it was very helpful. Thanks for posting.

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