Let me start off by saying I’m not an SEO expert and since Google became a popular search engine, having a strategy for moving up the rankings has become an art form. I have worked with agencies who specialise in search engine optimisation and have nothing but respect for people who really understand this field. I this blog and I’m always keen to attract new readers, so with that in mind I thought a review of my SEO was long overdue. I spent a grey, windy, Sunday afternoon reading various online commentaries and adopting some of the techniques on my site. This article will outline the key takeaways and changes which I implemented.
Being a WordPress user I have a large selections of plugins available. My first challenge was to work out which one to use. After reviewing the common, popular and highly rated ones in the plugin directory, I opted for “Wordpress SEO” by Yoast. As part of my research I came across this article which gave a good review of the main choices. I’m always interested in recent content and this was written in February 2015.
Understanding the key changes which I would have to make was important and the Yoast plugin gives an excellent analysis of your pages. Displaying a handy traffic-light system, it guides you to make changes which are not only better for SEO but also help your readers (by scoring your content on the Flesch Reading Ease test). Here is a breakdown of the quick changes that I now include:
Title of the post – Having a relevant title that mentions the keyword of the article is important. Optimising your title to be SEO friendly is even better!
Assigning a Focus Keyword – This is easy to do using the plugin and you should also include your keyword throughout the article to ensure it is relevant.
Handwrite your Meta Description – Search engines take the first sentence of your post as the meta description. Writing a separate one for each post is vital, it is a summary of the article and should be less than 156 characters.
Link to Sources – This is one thing I’ve always done, but I have become more aware of linking to other articles. It’s about building a more connected Internet.
Optimise your Images – Ensure your images have alt text associated with them and where possible include the focus keyword.
Deploy an XML sitemap – This makes it easier for search engines to understand the structure of your site.
I have yet to see any significant traffic impact after making these changes, but thinking more about SEO has helped me to become a better author. Not only am I thinking more about what I write, but I am critically reviewing from a reader’s perspective. While I don’t want to become an SEO professional, having an understanding of the basics is important and it has been a good learning experience. With a bit of luck my organic search will improve and I’ll engage with a wider online audience.
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