SEO: How *I* Write a Blog Post Part 5–Top Ten {Tuesday} Style!

Have you been following along with my How *I* Write a Blog Post series? Well, it originally started as a crazy-long Top Ten {Tuesday} post which I turned into a series. I’m basically outlining every single detail of what I do when I write a post. It’s a nice step-by-step series if you’re a newbie and if you’re an old-timer, you might learn a trick, too!

Part 5 and 6 of this series were on the same topic: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) but I decided to stir them up together in this one post and attack it Top Ten {Tuesday} style. So here we go…

The Top Ten Things I Know About {Basic} SEO

{wow. awesome, right?}

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically it’s helping Google lead people to your site. Optimizing your posts so the search engine can help you! Google crawls through your post noticing repeated words, key words, bold phrases and headings and then holds onto that info until someone starts searching for it.

2. Bold

One of the easiest things you can do is to bold keywords in your post. If you’ve written a post about, oh, I don’t know SEO, if you can bold the words SEO in your post, Google is going to notice that.

And it’s not just for Google, either. It really helps your readers when you bold important phrases so they can easily scan. This may be the first sentence of each paragraph, the sucker-punch phrases or just your key words. They say readers stay on a blog post for mere seconds before clicking away. Help them stay with you with a little bit o’ bold!

3. Headings

If Google likes bold, then it definitely likes Headings. In WordPress you can find them in the dropdown menu labeled Paragraph. Or you can use the HTML codes <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc if you speak HTML. I tend to use <h2> most often. Otherwise it gets too big and crazy. You’ll have to experiment with how it looks on your site.

For example, my title, The Top Ten Things I Know About SEO  above is with the <h2>. It’s like putting a Google exclamation point beside my title and I think it looks better and makes my post flow better.

4. URL

The other main factor for Google is your URL. There are several ways you can set up your URLs:

http://yourblog.com/?p-123

http://yourblog.com/2012/02/06/your-post-title

http://yourblog.com/your-post-title

and a few more to boot. You’ve got 70 characters to let Google know what your post is about. And if Google searches your URL to find ?p-123, they won’t bring it up for any searches! Unless you’re searching for ?p-123, of course.

(Look in your DASHBOARD-SETTINGS-PERMALINKS to change your URL to how you want.)

So, you need to make sure your URL is something searchable. For example, I would LOVE to name my post about Lydia’s Tangled Party something like, “Let Down Your Hair!” but if someone is searching for fun ideas for their daughter’s Tangled Party, are they going to google “let down your hair”? Nope. They’re going to type in “rapunzel birthday ideas” or something like that . And what do you see when you type those in? Well, looky here…

And the URL on that post? http://ohamanda.com/2011/01/11/rapunzels-golden-hair-birthday-party/ I probably should have put the word “Tangled” in it, too.

5. Title

If it really bothers you having an SEO-friendly title, you can change the title of your post and the URL of your post in WordPress. Just click edit permalink right below your title on the Edit Post page.

See? Now your title can be, “Let Down Your Hair”, while your permalink is “http://…/tangled-birthday-party-ideas”. Cool, huh?

6. Photos

I’ve gone over the SEO of photos, haven’t I? Yes, I may have mentioned it a time or twenty.

7. Categories & Tags

I am not great at this. In fact, I’m terrible at it. That’s because when I started blogging there were no categories. Only tags. So, my poor early posts have like 12,000 tags each. Here’s Amy’s take on categories versus tags. And I like it.

8. All in One SEO Pack

This is a plug-in that helps with SEO. I use it. And it makes me feel like I have a security blanket–like if I didn’t do any of the other SEO stuff right in my post, at least I did this one thing! So, get it. And feel better about yourself.

9. Unique Evergreen Content

The best thing you can do for SEO is write good content. No one is googling what Lydia and Asa did today. But some people are googling “Toy Story 3 Party” or “Creative Advent Calendars“. The more unique, helpful and evergreen (meaning it’s something people will be searching for year after year) content I write, the better chance I have at search engine hits.

My biggest traffic spike is around November when people start searching for Christmas ideas. I get constant search engine hits for my birthday party posts, Disney posts and wedding posts. For example, my top ten posts this week:
Rapunzel’s *Golden Hair* Birthday Party, Creative Wedding Guest Books, A Picture is Worth: How I Write a Blog Post, Rapunzel Party Decorations, Lydia’s Birthday Party: Top Ten {Tuesday}, The Snow White Party, Nursing School Graduation Party, The Pirate Party: Top Ten {Tuesday}, How To Throw The Coolest Muppet Type Party and Asa’s Toy Story 3 Party.

Crazy, huh? Sometimes I wonder if anyone actually reads my posts on the day I actually publish.

10. You remember the title of this post, don’t you? What *I* Know About {Basic} SEO. I am not remotely an expert. And honestly, I don’t want to be. SEO can be complicated. And it’s not a science. But I do think about it with every post and the little rules I do know, I stick by. Even little steps can help your SEO. Here are some other fabulous resources for understanding and mastering SEO:

A Comprehensive Post on SEO at ProBlogger
Mom Blog SEO by Kelby Carr {an ebook}
What is SEO? from Blogging with Amy

OK. That’s all I got. I hope you’re not embarrassed at my lack of SEO-knowledge. Or maybe you learned something. What’s your SEO tip?

Part 6: Monetize Your Posts!

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OK. You know what to do! WRITE a fabulous top ten list on your own blog. LINK back to me somewhere in it. PASTE your post’s URL in the linky below. Start LOVIN’ on the rest of the participants with tweets (#toptentues), pins, stumbles, comments or just straight up clicks! For more and specific details, rules and a fun little button see my Top Ten {Tuesday} page!