Given your passions, good ideas and amazing brand, I hope you've realized how much you have to offer online.
But there's still that pesky problem of getting lost in the crowd. With millions of blogs online, how will people find you? Your fabulousness is great, but even a golden needle gets lost in a haystack. Hopefully people will spread the word, but we also need some help from the search engines.
How search engines work…in a nutshell
When we talk about search engines (like Google although it's not the only one), there are a few things to understand.
First, there are electronic “spiders” that “crawl” the internet constantly. Their sole purpose is to visit and revisit web pages, index (i.e. categorize & organize) the information contained on those web pages and file that information away so when someone is searching, it can be found quickly. (Imagine if all the billions of pages on the internet weren't organized in some way!)
This is helpful because when you, a human, hop onto Google (or another search engine), type in your search (a.k.a. query) and hit enter, Google quickly looks through the web pages its spiders have so loving indexed, and produces a highly relevant list of search results that matches your search criteria.
Make sense?
Why search engines matter to a blogger
A search engine like Google is important because landing on the first page of Google's search results for a particular search is very valuable. It's like that golden needle getting found in a haystack. The vast majority of users never click over the second page of search results, so if you are on the first page for a particular search, it's huge.
How do you land on the front page of Google's search results?
Well, no one knows exactly. The exact formula (algorithm) is a closely-guarded secret and is highly complex. We do know there are many variables Google considers, but one that seems to hold quite a bit of weight is keywords.
If you're the one searching for something, keywords are the main terms you use in your search.
If you're a blogger, keywords are the words spiders associate with your web page (each blog has many web pages).
When the keywords used in the searcher's query match the keywords associated with a particular web page, that web page has a better chance of landing near the top of the search results. It's not guaranteed by any means (remember all those other variables I mentioned above?), but it helps.
So, as a blogger:
- Think about the type of person you want to find your site.
- Think about what that person would search for if they were looking for a site like yours. For example, what are the words or phrases they would type into Google to find your site? Maybe they would enter "easy knitting patterns," "frugal living," "stay at home dad" or "blogging tutorials." Those are keywords.
- Use those keywords whenever possible in your domain names, your posts, your pages etc. This will increase your chances of getting associated with those keywords by the spiders, and (hopefully) land closer to the top of the search results.
The importance of long tail keywords
Long tail keywords have 3+ words in them. (Actually, they're more like a phrase than a keyword, but hopefully you get the point.) Long tail keywords often return better search results for real people and are therefore more useful for bloggers.
For example, about five minutes ago, my daughter and I were looking for items she needs to make paper beads, specifically glaze. When I searched, I didn't use the term "paper beads." Instead, I used "best glaze for paper beads." The latter returned much more relevant results.
For bloggers, short keywords with one or two words (like "dog" or "cake recipes") are very difficult to rank for these days simply because there are so many sites competing for them. So the tip here is to try to use keywords that are longer. Use phrases.
When you are thinking about your domain name and your post titles, think about what a real person would type into a search bar for the information you're about to provide, and try to incorporate those keywords.
Related: What is Long Tail Search and Why it Should Matter (briangardner.com)
So…
Choosing and using keywords wisely is an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Here are all my posts about SEO. For now, a basic understanding of keywords will serve us well as we take steps to get this blog off the ground.
Other posts in this series
- How to Start a Blog or Website: Intro & FAQ
- How to Start a Blog or Website: Cheat Sheet
- How to Find (or Refind) Your Passion
- How to Decide What to Blog About: What Works for Readers?
- How to Decide What to Blog About: What Works for You?
- Understand Branding: 4 Tips
- Understand Keywords: Increase the Odds of Getting Found
- Writing Great Content: 3 Tips
- How to Write a Killer About Page
- 12 Blog Organization Tips
- How to Choose a Domain Name: 12 Tips
- How to Register a Domain Name
- How to Set Up Hosting and WordPress
- How to Change Your Nameservers
- How to Add a New User in WordPress
- How to Optimize Your WordPress Settings
- How to Install a Plugin
- My Favorite Plugins
- How to Get & Optimize a Feedburner Feed
- How to Choose a WordPress Theme
- How to Install a WordPress Theme
- Elegant Themes for WordPress
- How to Install Google Analytics
- How to Use WordPress: Tips & Tricks
- How to Start a Blog or Website: 10 Tips for New Bloggers
Are key words in titles more important that in the post iteself or is it equally significant? Does it matter where they are placed or if they are linked?
Keywords in titles and headings are very good. Keywords in content are good. Internal links with keywords in them (anchor text) are also good.
Thanks for this Amy. As a pastor, I am always looking for new ways to draw people to look at the content I so vigorously seek to teach. Thanks for the helpful tips.
Keywords confuse me when it comes to blogs. I mean, if I were a pizza place, I'd want to rank high in Google for "pizza" and the name of my town. But blogs are harder. Well, maybe mine is just rambling. If I were blogging about one thing then I guess it would be no harder than the pizza place. But personal blogs?
I have a personal blog too (WithPurpose.com) and I haven't worried much about ranking at all. Because I'm not trying to make any income there (and therefore am not concerned with # of pageviews etc.), I just let it be found organically.
Hi Amy,
I'm so thankful that you started this blog. These are the baby steps that I need to begin to understand blogging. I've been reading and implementing each of your posts and am just grateful that you are willing to do this for me/us.
Thanks!!
Oh, I'm so glad Kimberly! And I enjoy all your tips and tricks for raising kids! (She's got 10, y'all. Kimberly knows good parenting stuff!)
Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!
Hey, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, anyway cool blog, I bookmarked you.
Again…keep up the good work and I will look foward to seeing what you come up with!
Thanks for stopping by Stacey!
A reader might currently search for:
pastor's wife blog
Hmmm… I'm having a hard time coming up with others. I guess I'm having trouble because I don't actually want only pastor's wives reading the blog. I have a unique position to show others what it's like inside my life, but I want people to see that God uses all of our situations to bring us closer to Himself. So it's really more of a devotional-type blog… and I don't know how someone searching for that would find my site.
Christian women's blog?
Wife blog?
Devotional blog?
Arg, these are so broad!!
Eek, help!?
Hi Amy,
Just wanted to let you know I am enjoying your site. I wanted to know how to start my own blogging to make money and your site has been an inspiration for me. I am not very good with words but I am willing and trying to find out how to come across to people. Keep up the good work.
Nancy
Thanks, Nancy. I appreciate the encouragement! Being willing to learn a grow is about all you'll need — and I think you're off to a great start!
I've been blogging since last march and I'm kicking myself now that I don't read more of your tips. Er…for awhile my traffic was growing significantly and then it just kind of dropped off the face of the blogisphere. It was very discouraging and makes me want to stop blogging. Key words is a good place to start. Have you put up the next post on it yet?
Hi Becky,
You might want browse through the posts on SEO and keywords for more.
I hate to be dense so please don't mind my question.
My blog is about life after a stroke and that is in the description
for key word searches should I change the title to include the word stroke?
Having done a google search on stroke blogs there don't seem to be many so I see a niche available
Though my blog is a few months old wish I had stumbled onto yours sooner
Hi Bren, thanks for stopping by. Yes, I would focus on keywords with "stroke" in them.
I have one not so great post but it is titled fish. I wrote it 2 years ago and I still get about 30 hits a day on that 4 line post.
Should I wait until I am done using my temp URL to give my Keywords to Google? Also, should I wait to import from WordPress.com until JUST before I go live? Meaning, should I just work on my "theme" until then? I guess I am confused, again!
Yes, I would save importing until just before I was ready to go live. You can do the same with Google.
This is great info! Thank you!! I have an upcoming blog post in which I'll be using keywords/phrases like "local running events in New Orleans." I'll plug Keywords in titles and headings, and keywords in the content with internal links with keywords in them; like 2012 running events in New Orleans – click here!, and http://www.activerunning.com, etc.
Thank you for sharing a little more perspective – I've always had trouble understanding and implementing SEO on my site and I love that knowing multiple word strings are better. Great info Amy!!
It is good to use keywords in your posts, but it is also important to not use too many. Search engines like Google actually do *penalize* web sites for using too many key words. It is what is referred to as "keyword stuffing". There is no magic formula to how many keywords you should have, but be careful not to over-do it. If you have ever read an article that was written by someone whose sole purpose is to rank high in Google, then you know what I mean. Some of them don't even make sense. Make sure that your article is written for your readers, not for search engines. It used to be you could get your articles to rank high in the search engines by keywords alone, but not anymore. This was manipulated by scammers. Now it is just a small (but important) component of getting your articles to rank.
Amy- as always, thank you for all the wonderfully useful information!
It's my pleasure, Jessica!
Does the idea of using keywords in a post title conflict with the idea of creating an attention getting title? What are your thoughts on this? Thanks! (I read your blog on a regular basis and think its great!)
I search how to choose a domain name and found this blog.
Really helpful.
Thanks for sharing.