Tag Archives: tags

OMG, I’ve been doing SEO all wrong!

Posted on Wednesday 22 May 2013 by Alice • 2 Comments

Talking about bloggingI’ve been very busy lately doing lots of research for my next Lunchtime Learning video all about search engine optimisation (SEO) so I can give you top-notch information on that subject. Such a fascinating subject, especially since it has changed so drastically since last year.

But lo and behold, I’ve just found out I’ve been doing it all wrong over these past years! Why – what have I done?

I’ve always been a good girl and have been adding lots of my tags to my posts, carefully selecting them from the content so that they are relevant. I thought I was doing a good thing regarding SEO as surely the search engines would pick on on at least some of these tags to index my post.

But – overstuffing yourself with good things (like chocolate cake) will only make you sick. The old adage “Too many cooks spoil the broth” comes to mind, as putting all the herbs and spices from your kitchen into your soup will probably make it taste revolting and nobody will want to eat it.

Just like the over-saturation of keywords in blog posts pre-2013, which made them totally unreadable and frankly ridiculous, over-saturation of tags will do the same thing. The poor old spiders, when confronted with all these tags, get totally confused and their response would be to not index anything at all because they don’t know which one is the most important.

Would you like to know how many tags I have collected in this blog since I started it? 1,467! Yes, that many! No wonder the poor spiders were running away as fast as their virtual legs would take them.

This requires some serious measures to rectify the situation. There is a lot of tags to go through, but I need to sort out which ones are the most relevant to what I write about, and then use them more frequently. The more I use them, the more they become attractive to search engines to ultimately optimise my blog posts.

So, the answer is, once you’ve worked out the best keyword for your post, select up to four sub-keywords which will become the post’s tags. If they have been already used in previous posts, so much the better. They will need to be added to your post in the tag menu purely to supplement and lend weight to the primary keyword, and also in whatever SEO plugin you have chosen.

You don’t need to choose the same five for every post, but a healthy select few that are totally relevant will be helpful. That’s why it’s worth pre-planning your posts beforehand, or at least being clear on the subject matter or the readership you’re aiming at.

 

Filed Under: blogging success, use of words, Writing tips

Automatic archiving in a blog

Posted on Monday 17 May 2010 by Alice • 0 Comments

Fairy Blog Mother

One client asked me whether she should have additional pages added to her blog in order to house archives of the posts she had written. She had visualised doing this manually every time she posted.

Both kinds of blog

I reassured her that this was done automatically, and far more extensively than she had imagined. This is where categories and tags come into play (see my e-course ‘Creating tags and categories’ to find out more) as these are the preliminaries to archiving your posts. Categories are the topics your posts are allocated to, and tags are the keywords used to focus the search engines onto your posts.

But let’s start at the beginning. Every time you write a post, it is published straight onto the main blog post page, which acts like a news roll with the newest post positioned at the top:

Here is the previous blog post I published to this one. The URL for my news roll page is http://fairyblogmother.co.uk/blog/ (because I have a separate homepage):

But if you click on the headline of that post, you will find that it has its own separate page:

And URL (http://fairyblogmother.co.uk/5-top-tips-for-a-successful-post/):

You may have noticed that the page title is different from the post’s headline, as that is the result of using the ‘All-in-one-SEO-pack’ plug-in which allows you to create more appropriate page titles for SEO purposes than your post’s headline.

Now, if you have read my ‘Creating tags and categories’ e-course, you will understand the importance of allocating your post to appropriate categories and relevant tags:

The bottom of each post lists which categories I have selected, and you will see they are live links. They are also listed in their separate widget in the sidebar. Click on any of the categories used (in this case Increasing Business Visibility) and you will see a separate page that contains the post:

and its allocated category URL: http://fairyblogmother.co.uk/category/visibility/

and page title Increasing Business Visibility | Fairy Blog Mother.

The same goes for the tags:

These tags are listed at the bottom of their allocated post, and listed in a ‘cloud’ within their respective widget on the sidebar. You can see that the most frequently used tags are larger than the others.

Let’s look at the tag ‘Keywords for SEO purposes’ that I chose for that post, and the page URL and title automatically created:

Note the /tag/ in between the URL and the tag name.

But it doesn’t stop there. There is an additional widget on my sidebar that shows my archives allocated to each month I post:

I have opted for the pull down menu which shows each month and the number of posts I have published. There is a separate page for each month with its own URL (http://fairyblogmother.co.uk/2010/05/ for May) and page title:

So for each post, there is a total of five pages it is allocated to once it is published. None of these are obvious, but the links are there at the bottom of the posts or within the widgets on the sidebar. And it’s a good thing it is automatic – could you imagine having to do all this by hand?

Filed Under: blogs and blogging, Free Wordpress blogs, Self-hosted Wordpress blogs

10 Fantastic Books About Marketing Your Blog Online

Posted on Monday 27 April 2009 by Alice • 1 Comment

This is another excellent post by Randa Clay about 10 ‘must-have’ books if you want to succeed in blogging:

http://randaclay.com/blogging/10-fantastic-books-about-marketing-your-blog-online/

A well worth read!

Filed Under: blogs and blogging

How do I use my blog to promote my business?

Posted on Wednesday 22 April 2009 by Alice • 0 Comments

Hello Alice,

I do have a blog but I am not sure if I use it correctly. I created my blog to promote my business and to benefit from Google ranking. I am afraid I am not writing as much as I wanted … my excuse not enough time, but the real reason is I don’t really know how to use it correctly and benefit from it.

I am open to suggestions. Please visit www.penelopesweddings.com/blog.

Penelope

–oo00oo–

Hi Penelope

Yes, you’re on the way to producing a great blog! But we need to make it more interesting, for both your readers and the internet spiders.

As a wedding business I’m sure you have some great images you can share – beautiful brides, sumptuous cakes, fabulous dresses, elegant receptions, giggling bridesmaids – advertise and promote your business through pictures! If you have a great set of photos to share you needn’t write that much to go with it, they will speak for themselves.

You need to upload an image that resembles the header on your website so that your blog looks more like its extension. You can do this through the Appearance link on the Dashboard and go down to Custom Header and download a header image. WordPress give instructions on how to do this, alternatively you could use my blogging package ‘Creating a visual identity’ which is part of my ‘Beautifying your Blog’ series I’m creating on my new blogsite.

I’m glad to see you’ve created categories and blogs, but I think you should vary your tags to capture a wider audience for search engine optimisation. I imagine you got these keywords from Wordtracker or some similar provider – great – but other words that are relevant to your post will increase spider activity and therefore traffic to your blog, and ultimately your website. And don’t forget to put the tag cloud widget onto your sidebar along with one for your recent posts.

Post a nice picture of you on your About page, plus a bit more about you and some links to your website. People like a personal touch, especially for the service industry.

And if you want to accumulate a following, get a RSS feed URL from feedburner.com or feedblitz.com and put the code for the chicklit button or new post subscription link into a text widget and place it at the top of your sidebar.

There’s quite a lot to be getting on with here, so take it step by step. But the best way to promote your blog is to keep putting up new posts, preferably short, concise and relevant, regularly rather than frequently, with content gathered from your day-to-day activities that you think will interest your readers and potential customers.

Alice

—

Hi Penelope

On further inspection I’ve worked out that your blog is actually a self-hosted WordPress blog attached to your existing website!

To accomplish what I said in my last post, uploading your matching header will have to be done through your ftp provider into an images file, and then allocated to that particular area of the .css within the theme. This is quite techie, so if you are not inclined in that department you will have to get your webmaster to do this for you.

The widget stuff is the same, except that because it is a self-hosted blog you can upload forms into your text widgets and posts, something you cannot do in a ‘free’ WordPress blog. Take advantage of this with a new post subscription sign-up box which is included with your blog’s RSS feed – encourage your followers to keep in the loop with any new information you post.

Alice

Filed Under: blogs and blogging

Blogs aren't scary, they're fun!

Posted on Thursday 16 April 2009 by Alice • 0 Comments

Hi Alice,

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you for your very helpful advice on blogging, I have just started my blog and was really unsure the how to’s etc. I will definitely be making it a part of my daily routine.

I would love your thoughts on mine (please be honest) we can only learn from it! http://fijianbeauty.wordpress.com

Again thanks for your honesty and very practical advice.

Julz

–oo00oo–

Hi Julz

Well done for starting a blog! That ‘s probably the most frightening step taken, now comes the fun part.

You’re already got three posts up, and the headlines are good, because I immediately knew what you were about. These headlines are also permalinks (URLs) for each post, which have a separate page and identity, especially when it comes to search engine optimisation. They need to contain your keywords not only for your readers but for the internet spiders as well.

Where are the pictures? Your product is very visual, do don’t shy away from posting up images. You need to put a picture of yourself plus some more pictures into your About page too. Include some testimonials too if you have any good ones.

You’ve entered some tags in your posts, good, but you haven’t chosen your categories yet. Categories are like chapters and help readers search for specific posts under subjects. You can list both your tags and widgets with their respective widgets in your side bar.

Your header still has the words ‘Just another WordPress.com blog’. In your Dashboard go into Appearance and choose Custom Header. There you can upload an image for your header, which can also include the correct text to publicise your business. Alternatively you can change the wording to suit, or delete it so it doesn’t show through your graphics.

You can go to town with your widgets: why not put up recent posts, top posts and comments along with your tag cloud and categories. Encourage feedback and interaction, it’s good for everybody.

If you’re feeling particularly techie, go to feedburner.com or feedblitz.com and sign up for your blog’s RSS URL, and put the code for the RSS button and new post subscription feed into a text widget right at the top of your side bar to encourage followers. This is always good for search engine optimisation purposes, and you’ll find lots of uses for it at a later date.

That’s enough to be getting on with. Keep posting regularly, that’s more important than frequently: spiders work better with regularity, and make sure all your posts are relevant and of value, and don’t make them too long. And keep me up to date with your developments too!

I’m writing a series of packages called ‘How to beautify your blog’ on my new blogsite which should be ready very soon; meanwhile you could join my blogging newsletter to keep in up-to-date with my latest blogging news, especially about my blogging teleseminar on 14 May.

Alice

Filed Under: blogs and blogging