Think SEO’s only for nerds? Think again…

I’ve written a gazillion times about the importance of blogging for your business. I’ve even been totally, no holds barred honest about how I really feel about it.

So, you’ve taken my (rather brilliant) advice, set up a blog, you might even have made yourself an editorial calendar but hands up if when you see the words “meta description” or “keywords” you scroll merrily past, dismiss it as nerdy junk and just hit publish without a second thought?

Lost in the mists of cyberspace….

Aggghhhh what a wasted opportunity! What is the point of your blood, sweat and tears if your special brand of magic, the content that could add such value to your clients can never be found?

Imagine back in the day if Columbus had found America but instead of putting it on a map just thought that people would probably happen upon it, if they were interested enough to look…sound crazy? That’s EXACTLY what you’re doing by neglecting those “nerdy” little boxes so listen up and pay attention.

File now, Find later

Consider the sheer size of the internet – that’s a lot of cat videos – if you think of it as a massive library, the importance of categorizing and tagging your work becomes a bit flippin’ obvious.

Tagging and categorising your blog posts:

• helps your visitors find posts of interest to them
• becomes more important over time as you write more posts
• is vital for good SEO

And since you’ll probably be writing on a general theme it’s not like you’ll have to invent tags and categories every time – I use the handy “most used tags” feature, which gets better the more you blog, you can find it here..

Give it a description

The meta description, far from being an injury that kept David Beckham out of the World Cup, is a short summary of your post that is visible on search pages (like Google) underneath your blog title. Like this:

Including a brief description about the content of your post will reassure the reader that your article is exactly what they are looking for. Make your description benefit driven. It directly influences the reader’s next action – whether to click on to your blog or move along to another…

Keyword conundrum

I’m not for one moment advocating that you squeeze a keyword into every sentence of your blog – a total turn off and impossible to read but here’s a secret, it doesn’t have to be a key WORD, if you want to appeal to small business owners then think about what they would type into a search engine and have that in your description – how on earth else will they know you’re there?

It’s not all about you

As soon as you turn it around and start thinking about how you can make life easier for your ideal client by making your content simple to find it becomes a cinch.

DO

• write your descriptions as if you were talking to her
• use terms she would use
• state the benefits
• make it clear that you can help

DON’T

• Write about why you’re writing – that’s all about you, not her
• Use jargon – it’s meaningless and potentially off putting

Add these behind the scenes mechanics to your blogging and you’ll be amazed at the difference – if you’re really feeling it you can even go back to your old blogs and make sure they’re all filed, present and correct….Go!