For a small, first time blogger like myself, SEO is something that I need to focus on every time I post a new blog. In order for my fashionable insight to be heard around the world it is essential to be on the first page of Google. As the great Michael Pepe says, “If you’re not on the first page of Google, you do not even exist!” One day, if I’m lucky enough, I’ll be on page 1 just like Michael Pepe’s famous blog. In the mean time, there are a few easy steps I can focus on so that people look to my blog just as much they look to GQ.
SEO is what will put my blog on page 1 or page 20. It is important to focus on the small things, the things that won’t break the bank, the things that are so small but make such a large difference when discussing relevance.
Keywords:
It is important to think as the consumer. What will the person doing the search type into the search bar in order to get to the page they desire?
Keywords are something so simple, but something so effective in the world of digital marketing. Google, perusal are the King of keywords. Google AdWords, allows for individuals to recognize the words that are searched more than others. For me, this means I can search something that I wish to write about, and then Google will generate words that are searched the most. Through the use of this tool, I will be able to incorporate words that are relevant for each and every blog post.
URL:
Having a number of different pages on my blog means that the URL needs to be specific per each page. Having specifics located in the URL allows for easier key word mapping. Each page on my blog has to be relevant with key words (as stated above) that are searched. When the URL has the specific keywords within the URL, then it makes the search related to what is on the pages. The URL allows for keyword mapping, which makes the traffic on the specific pages higher and the volume increases. Having a specific URL is another element to increasing SEO.
The underlined portion of this URL brings the users right to the personal style section of my blog.
Title Tag:
The title is the most important part of the blog. It has to incorporate every little thing that has been discussed in the earlier portion of this post. It is truly important to make the title short and because it is so short, I can use the keywords that generate the best results. Having the title in bold also carries a great deal of weight when increasing SEO. Making the title tag short, while incorporating relevant key words will allow for my page to creep up when talking about page rank. If the title is relevant, bolded and loaded with keywords the SEO has no where to go, but up!
Hyperlinks:
Having strong hyperlinks embedded into my blog posts will increase the relevance to my site. Having external links that are appropriate to the content being discussed will increase my sites rank. Linking sites like GQ, H&M and other relevant fashion sites in my posts will increase the credibility of my content and may start to attract readers to my site. If my SEO was to let’s say increase to be on the same level as GQ, then people may start to see that my page has links associated with a great men’s fashion site and it would increase my page strength.
Quality:
The name of the game when it comes to blogs is content, content, content. It is important that I write about things that are relevant to the audience that I am trying to reach. If I write something that people aren’t interested in, or I write about something that is so outdated that I should retire before my blogging career really picks up, then no one will go to my site. The traffic to my site will be slim to none. Content is key.
Along with content, page speed is something that needs to be considered. Page speed is important because my site could have the most innovative and up-to-date content on the market. But if my site won’t load fast enough for people to read it, then they are going to go somewhere else. If the page is slow to load then the bounce rate is going to be extremely high. People are going to click my page, and if it doesn’t load fast enough then they are going to bounce out of my page and onto the next one. If the bounce rate is high, that is going to drastically decrease the SEO. That tells Google that the site is irrelevant and people are unsatisfied with it.
Out of curiosity, I searched page speed and Google (not surprised at all) had a page that allows users to see the page speed of any website. Google Page Speed Insights allows for users to paste in a URL and then see the speed of the site and how to fix it.
This made me curios, so I looked at my site and saw that there were a few things that I needed to change in order to be more successful.
These quick and easy steps to increase SEO aren’t going to cost me any money. They are little things that I can tweak that will help my SEO. These little tweaks are going to put me on course to dethrone GQ and rise to the top of Men’s Style. Improving SEO could one day make me a CEO, you truly never know.
Blue Blazer 