This is the magic question for anyone who has a website. You built it and you have things to say that you know people will like, but how do you drive traffic to your blog? There are many ways to do this and I can go on and on about it, but for this post I just want to share one very important way to drive traffic: search optimization.
As many of you know, search engines (primarily Google) are an important component to your blog and how people find it. This article from Search Engine Land shows that at the time of the report last year there were 34,000 searches per second on Google versus 600 Tweets per second. Convinced yet that search optimization is important?
How about this specific example to my blog. November of last year I wrote a blog post about Kate Middleton’s style. Leading up to the Royal Wedding in April I noticed that my blog traffic was going up dramatically as it got closer to April 29th. The day of the wedding the average traffic on my site went up 400%! And the majority of the traffic was coming in from Google from searches like “kate middleton style” and “kate middleton outfits.”
So how do you get similar results and traffic to your blog through search engine optimization? Here are 3 simple things you can do to get started:
1) Sign-up for Google Analytics. Most blog formats have a way for you to easily integrate it into your blog. It’s free and has a ton of information in it about how many visits your blog is getting, how they are getting there, and what they are searching for to get to it.
2) Figure out what people are searching for. This is key and not always easy. It helps to start with some kind of idea about what you think people will want. Then you can use the free Google Keyword Search Tool to enter your idea in and it will tell you how many searches per month there are for it and give you other related suggestions for what people search.
3) Optimize your blog post. Once you figure out a phrase that people are searching for, write your blog post about it. It’s most important to state that phrase 2 to 3 times in the post, include the phrase in the title of your blog post and the first couple sentences, and include images and rename them with the phrase. Just be careful to balance your blog post with the search optimized phrase and your normal way of writing so it sounds natural.
Do you optimize your blog posts? Any other tips to share?
4 Comments
this was really informative! i have not yet entered the world of optimization, it seems like so much work…but maybe i should start and see what happens!
You should try it Krystal! Just with the tips I pointed out which aren’t too time consuming and can make a difference.
great tips! i have google analytics running on my blog but have NO idea how to use it…i need to just sit down and dive in. on my blog for bridesmaids, i use wordpress and they have an analytics built in which is very helpful!
This was such a helpful guide to SEO!! Thanks!