Keywords: A writer’s guide to attracting more traffic to your blog

Filed under Building a social network, Proactive Writer.

Keywords: driving more traffic to your blogExperts will agree that one of the most effective tactics for driving traffic to your site is to maintain a regular blog. However, it is possible to maximise the traffic your site generates by the careful use of keywords.

What are keywords?

Keywords are words or phrase that search engines use to navigate the web. When a user types in a phrase, say writing a book proposal, the search engine will consult its database for that word and show you a list of results.

The order in which these results are displayed is based on some clever (and secret) mathematics carried out by the search engine. The simple reality is the higher you rank for your chosen keywords on the list the engine produces, the more traffic you will attract.

The good news is that it is possible for writers to influence the results. By following the simple rules below it is possible to improve your chances of being ranked higher for any particular keyword.

Picking keywords

This is very much part of the magic and requires you, the writer, to decide on what keywords or phrase you will target with each page. The simplest way to do this is to determine who you wish to reach and try to second guess the keywords they are most likely to type into a search engine.

Making keywords work for you.

This is where the magic happens. Once you have decided on your keywords or phrase, you can follow these simple rules to ensure that your page is as search engine friendly as possible:

  • Make sure your keywords are in your title tag.
  • Ensure you page’s h1 tag contains the keywords. If writing a blog post, the blog’s title is normally the h1 tag. However, it can depend on the software you are using. Please note the blog’s title and the blog’s title tag are not the same thing. If you look at the title of this blog post (h1 tag) and the title shown on the bar at the top of the page (title tag), they are different…
  • Include your keywords at least three times in the text. I tend to go for at least once per paragraph p tag.
  • Try to put the keywords in bold at least once. Use the strong or b tags.
  • Images are invisible to search engines. Make sure you put the keywords in the images tag.

I have used these simple methods to optimise this page for the phrase – keywords.

A word of caution

A well optimised page is only part of the jigsaw. By far the most important influencer to search engines (especially Google) is the number of external links you manage to generate to particular page. The more quality external links, the higher your ranking.

This means that to produce traffic worthy pages, you need to be producing pages optimised for keywords, that also contain link worthy content.

If you want more information about Search Engine Optimisation, I suggest you start with this Beginners Guide.

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  • Sloanwriter

    Thank you, this could not have come at a better time for me, I have had a 3 month writers block due to many breavements in our family, so now feel I need to start to relaunch my blog to rebuild my readership. many thanks.

  • garysmailes

    I am delighted the article was of value. SEO is a huge hole that you must avoiding tumbling into… However, I would suggest you read the guide linked to in the article. It will give you a good foundation on which to build.

    • Sloanwriter

      I have just finished downloading it, so will be reading with interest before writing my next blog post. Hope you don’t mind, have promoted you on my facebook page also.

  • http://alanayu.wordpress.com/ Alan Yu

    In the last but one paragraph, I think the headline should read: “Making keywords work for you”

    • garysmailes

      ohhh – thanks. Well spotted.

  • Sloanwriter

    Thank you, this could not have come at a better time for me, I have had a 3 month writers block due to many breavements in our family, so now feel I need to start to relaunch my blog to rebuild my readership. many thanks.

  • garysmailes

    I am delighted the article was of value. SEO is a huge hole that you must avoiding tumbling into… However, I would suggest you read the guide linked to in the article. It will give you a good foundation on which to build.

  • Sloanwriter

    I have just finished downloading it, so will be reading with interest before writing my next blog post. Hope you don't mind, have promoted you on my facebook page also.

  • garysmailes

    I love facebook… have you seen the BubbleCow facebook page? http://www.facebook.com/pages/BubbleCow/2020634… What do you think?

  • http://alanayu.wordpress.com/ Alan Yu

    In the last but one paragraph, I think the headline should read: “Making keywords work for you”

  • garysmailes

    ohhh – thanks. Well spotted.

  • http://jacquelinewindh.com/ Jacqueline Windh

    Hi Gary – I think this is a good introductory post about keywords – but I do think it’s important to mention that, for most subjects, people are not going to find our blog posts via random keyword searches. The competition out there is huge, and growing rapidly (WordPress alone gets something like 300,000 new blog posts every day!).For example, I just googled the phrase “writer’s guide to keywords” and this blog post did not come up within the top 100 (I stopped looking past the first 10 pages of results – as most googlers would do). I understand that this post is new, and so probably not yet well integrated into the search engines. But it would be interesting to try to google that same phrase in a month or so. I’d wager that it still would not rank very high – quite probably not in the top 100 – simply because these are such common keywords for people to search. There is far, far too much competition.I am not a keyword or SEO expert by any means. But I do keep a close eye on what keywords draw people to my own blog (which I’ve been running for over a year now). Funnily, the key word phrase that by far attracts the most visitors to it is “growing rice” or “growing rice in Canada,” which leads to a few articles I wrote about a gardening experiment last year – a subject about which, obviously, very little is written. On my old photography website, 6 or so years ago, I was trying to get myself ranked highly under “Vancouver Island photographer” of “BC photographer” or “wilderness photographer” or “landscape photographer” – but the competition was too high, I’d always be many dozen down from the top. But in specific topics, e.g. “photos of wild wolves,” I would easily rank number one.The lessons I take from this are:1. For general subjects (keywords), there are thousands of people doing exactly the same as you, trying to optimize so that they rank highly. Stats are against you. Sure, do everything right in terms of the advice above about keywords – but don’t count on these keyword searches as the primary way for people to find out about your blog. Get the word out in many other ways.2. Use keywords to your rare or specific or unusual topics well. If less people are posting on that topic (rice, wild wolves) you have a far better chance of ranking highly. (Qualifier: I don’t know that the people who find me via googling “growing rice” are the people who are going to stick with my blog, return as regular readers, and buy my next book…)It is a very tough world. There are a real lof of blog posts and articles online, and that number grows daily by the millions.Thanks for your advice and this discussion!Jackie

    • http://twitter.com/mrlewissmile Lewis Smile

      Search google for Writer’s Guide to Keywords now. This post it #1 because of your comment! The power of blogs :-)

  • http://jacquelinewindh.com/ Jacqueline Windh

    Hi Gary –

    I think this is a good introductory post about keywords – but I do think it's important to mention that, for most subjects, people are not going to find our blog posts via random keyword searches. The competition out there is huge, and growing rapidly (WordPress alone gets something like 300,000 new blog posts every day!).

    For example, I just googled the phrase “writer's guide to keywords” and this blog post did not come up within the top 100 (I stopped looking past the first 10 pages of results – as most googlers would do). I understand that this post is new, and so probably not yet well integrated into the search engines. But it would be interesting to try to google that same phrase in a month or so. I'd wager that it still would not rank very high – quite probably not in the top 100 – simply because these are such common keywords for people to search. There is far, far too much competition.

    I am not a keyword or SEO expert by any means. But I do keep a close eye on what keywords draw people to my own blog (which I've been running for over a year now). Funnily, the key word phrase that by far attracts the most visitors to it is “growing rice” or “growing rice in Canada,” which leads to a few articles I wrote about a gardening experiment last year – a subject about which, obviously, very little is written.

    On my old photography website, 6 or so years ago, I was trying to get myself ranked highly under “Vancouver Island photographer” of “BC photographer” or “wilderness photographer” or “landscape photographer” – but the competition was too high, I'd always be many dozen down from the top. But in specific topics, e.g. “photos of wild wolves,” I would easily rank number one.

    The lessons I take from this are:
    1. For general subjects (keywords), there are thousands of people doing exactly the same as you, trying to optimize so that they rank highly. Stats are against you. Sure, do everything right in terms of the advice above about keywords – but don't count on these keyword searches as the primary way for people to find out about your blog. Get the word out in many other ways.
    2. Use keywords to your rare or specific or unusual topics well. If less people are posting on that topic (rice, wild wolves) you have a far better chance of ranking highly. (Qualifier: I don't know that the people who find me via googling “growing rice” are the people who are going to stick with my blog, return as regular readers, and buy my next book…)

    It is a very tough world. There are a real lof of blog posts and articles online, and that number grows daily by the millions.

    Thanks for your advice and this discussion!

    Jackie

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  • http://twitter.com/mrlewissmile Lewis Smile

    All good advice, but under the section “Picking keywords” I would get more specific. There’s more to picking the right keywords than simply guessing!

    This is a great free tool by Google to see what is getting searched and what isn’t: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

    Although having said that, Google has said that 20% of searches EVERY DAY have never been searched for before. Blimey!

  • http://twitter.com/mrlewissmile Lewis Smile

    All good advice, but under the section “Picking keywords” I would get more specific. There's more to picking the right keywords than simply guessing!

    This is a great free tool by Google to see what is getting searched and what isn't: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolEx…

    Although having said that, Google has said that 20% of searches EVERY DAY have never been searched for before. Blimey!

  • http://twitter.com/mrlewissmile Lewis Smile

    Search google for Writer's Guide to Keywords now. This post it #1 because of your comment! The power of blogs :-)