I enjoy blogging. It’s a bit of a hobby – which is great, because I get to maintain this blog in my professional time. In my spare time, I write about whatever takes my fancy: everything from the fashion industry to the latest video games.
Getting your blog noticed on the internet is difficult. Large, well-known brands have a natural advantage in that people are already searching for them, but what can the rest of us do to put our words in front of the world?
Good SEO
We recently responded to an online debate about whether good SEO simply amounted to good web design. Blogs, however, can’t rely on good design alone – and, of course, many bloggers use pre-built systems such as Blogger or WordPress. However, there are still some elements of SEO that are vital for good traffic on blogs.
ALT tags on images are, of course, important, as is linking – both internal (to other articles on the same blog) and external (to other online pages). However, your main weapon as a blogger is text.
When writing your article, consider how you might search for your subject on Google. What key phrases would you use? These key phrases should be included within your main body text, and used as headings (with the appropriate HTML tags) and links.
There is an important term here: key phrase density – the percentage of normal text made up of key phrases. Optimum key phrase density is generally around 5-10%; any more, and search engines may dismiss your page as spam. Shorter articles are generally easier to maintain key phrase density on.
Read our article for more details about simple SEO techniques
Inbound links
This falls under good SEO, but make sure you promote your article to your potential audiences. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter give you a platform to sell your content, so make use of them. Don’t just do this once: remember that the world has different time zones and the average Twitter feed has a lifespan of less than ten minutes. Retweet!
Remember: if people like your content, they will often post their own links to it as well.
StumbleUpon
You’ve got great content. The SEO is as good as you can make it. But still… no one’s clicking.
Websites such as StumbleUpon and Digg provide great opportunities to get noticed. Users on these sites are frequently looking for content off the beaten track, and – so long as your articles are as good as you say they are – will often appreciate and pass on links they find.
When you first ‘digg’ or ‘stumble’ your article, make sure that you choose keywords and categories that accurately represent your content. Not only will this ensure that users don’t read content they wouldn’t be interested in, but smart categorisation can dramatically improve your traffic.
Keep writing
Of all the points here, this is the most important. A frequently updated blog is a blog that people will come back to. Not only this, but updating it ensures that search engine spiders will keep coming back and reindexing your site, which will keep it high on search result pages.
Sticking to a regular schedule is always a good idea, so that readers know when to expect new material. Another method of ensuring a loyal return rate is to make sure that the RSS feed to your blog is visible and that it works properly – this way, people read your content the moment it goes live.
