Guest blog by Ann Mullen for BroadVision Marketing
I don’t like math. OK, so I had fun with it in college, but I have a reputation to uphold. For that reason I have run from any references to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and algorithms, which I think means mathematical formulas. It didn’t help that I kept reading that the algorithms shifted around worse than the sands of the Sahara. If 2 +2= 4 on one day and then totaled 16 on the next day, I didn’t want to have anything to do with SEO.
There is another aspect of SEO that has made me shy away from it--keyword stuffing. I had this idea that you had to put certain words in your title, throughout your blog article, in your author endnote, all over your website and probably pasted to your actual body, for all I knew, to get the attention of search engines. I prefer writing for people to writing for search engines, which aren’t really engines at all, but are really zeroes and ones in computer talk.
Algorithms or Keywords--On the Other Hand?
On the other hand, maybe there is a happy medium that the people who write about these things keep missing. After all, if you had math people, they got excited about the algorithms and if you had wordy people, they waxed poetical about word stuffing. People like me always said just write for people and let the SEOs take care of themselves (to mangle a line from Lewis Carroll).
What if you pay a little attention to certain keywords and check to see how the search engines, mainly Google, react? You can look up some keywords using the free Google Keyword Tool. How about making sure the pictures/graphics you add always have your keywords in the alternate text? What if one of the website page’s wording is updated once a month? What if you write to both people and the engines?
As for doing math, all you have to do is search Google to see how your site is doing. Have lots of variations on your terms to proximate the way people might look for your site On what search page do you find your website? Hopefully, it’s somewhere on the first. Don’t just look up your website by name, because, of course, it will come up. You have to sneak around as if you were your own potential client. OK, this is going to take you some time unless you get smart, write down a bunch of terms and then copy and paste them into the search box. Time saved. Now where is your website and how many times is it listed on the first and/or second page?
How do you feel about SEO now?
Ann Mullen has been writing most of her life, some of it even for pay. She wrote as many as three columns a week for a newspaper in South Texas. For the last year and a half she has been learning about websites, blogging and social media marketing. Lately, Ann has been a team member of BroadVision Marketing at http://www.broadvisionmarketing.com. You can contact her at mullenann4@gmail.com.
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