Another very helpful session I attended at BlogHer was called Positive Return on Content: Make Your Words Work for You. I have done some playing around with keywords, but I got a lot of great information from this session! The whole reason you want to find good keywords to put as tags for your blog posts is to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization). If you write a post about potty training, you want anyone who types in things related to potty training into a search engine to FIND and CLICK on your post! Am I right?! Here are some ways you can help your site get there.
Some Keywords Tips…
1.) Your Content is the Most Important Thing
Create Content that provides a solution to a problem.
Be Authentic! (I heard this over and over again at the conference!)
2.) Come up with Three Keywords to Brand *Your Blog*.
I went up and talked to the presenter afterwords so I could ask her about the problem with my title. You know, the fact that my blog is called For Love of Cupcakes even though it has nothing to do with actual cupcakes. (You, my faithful readers, know I call it that because I call my daughter “Cupcakes” and this is a parenting blog, but others are quite confused.) She said that its not really a problem as long as I explain that Cupcakes is my little girl in my blog’s description and in my social media bios. I already do that so yay.
I need three words or phrases to enter into the tags section of every blog post. I’ve been trying “Cupcake Mommy” and “For Love of Cupcakes” but I don’t know if there are other unique phrases I could use just for my blog… So I have some thinking to do.
3.) Start Making Videos.
Did you know that YouTube is the third largest search engine?? Use those same keywords / phrases from your blog on your YouTube channel.
4.) Track your Links.
If you use the website bit.ly you can shorten your links AND track them on that website.
5.) Here’s How to Use Google’s Keyword Tool.
Go to adwords.google.com/keywordtool. I just type in the word or phrase that is the topic of the blog post I’m working on and then enter the captcha words to verify that I’m a human. After you put in the phrase, it will show you the results for that exact phrase and then give you a list of similar phrases with their results. I typed in “potty training” as an example and here are the first several results:
You want to use the phrases that turned up LOW competition. So in my Tags box when I’m typing up a new post, I would put in the following phrases: potty training girls, potty training charts (if you talked about / showed charts), when to start potty training, and potty training tips for girls.
Get it??
6.) The Presenter Suggested Several Tools to Try:
* SocialMention (to keep track and measure)
* Technorati
* Premise
She also suggested giving Facebook Ads a try. Though you have to pay for these, she said you could see a pretty good Return on Investment. If you do use them, make sure your ads are timely and your calls to action (i.e. “Check out this site today!!”) aren’t too sales-y / overt.
7.) Here are her “Best Practices”:
* Be in-line with your branding.
* Stay organized.
* Work on getting LIKEs and engagement.
* Use effective key words, images, and think about your target market.
Good luck! And let me know if you know any tips for using keywords!
Check out my other BlogHer posts:
BlogHer Post #1: Hello and Welcome
BlogHer Post #2: To Do List
BlogHer Post #3: The Three Things I Loved about BlogHer13
BlogHer Post #4: Improving on Instagram
BlogHer Post #5: Improving my Facebook Fan Page Reach
BlogHer Post #6: Get Good at Pinterest