Build a Blog

This is the fourth part of a case study series following how to set up a blog, if you would like to read more then take a look at the case study category.

What is a keyword?

Keywords are the building blocks for search engines. Search engines rank sites partly on the keywords they contain, and then when the keyword is searched for they bring up the best matches for that keyword. Therefore to rank well and appear in the search results for a certain keyword you have to first optimize your blog for that keyword. The higher you are in the rankings for those keywords, the more free traffic you may get from the search engines. It is only part of the algorithm used to rank sites in search engines but it’s also an important one. To help optimize your blog you could:

• Put the keyword in the post title
• Put keywords in the title tag of the blog
• Put keywords in the content of the post to increase keyword density

All this is good to consider when planning your blog. I may have condensed that definition but there is a lot to learn, and information out there about keywords and keeping it simple I think, helps to deal with it on a day to day basis without getting swamped.

The only problem is the fine balance between getting keywords into your blog and posts, while not taking away from the content you are trying to produce. There is no point in being able to rank well because the keywords are optimized, if your content suffers and isn’t enjoyable to read.

The Long Tail Keyword

In my own opinion it is easier to rank well for a longer phrase than just the one main keyword. Because there is so much competition for the main keywords in most niches. Take a look at this article that explains it a lot better than I could, Keyword Strategies the Long Tail For example:

Photography – would be classed as a single main keyword
Digital photography – would be classed as a sub keyword for the main one
How to take digital photographs – could be a long tail keyword for the main one

All posts will rank for keywords in their titles so you can see where you could use a long tail keyword. Plus people who are searching for a long tail term are focused on the one goal, they are asking a question or looking for a specific item. Therefore they are extremely targeted traffic for your blog, and hopefully they will like what you have to say and become a regular reader. The long tail keywords are longer phrases that people will be searching for, a review for a specific product including the model name in the title, could be a post that would rank really well as a long tail keyword, and bring in some free and highly targeted search engine traffic!

Finally…

This is an overview of the subject because as I said earlier you can go into keywords in huge depth. People have written books on the subject and I wouldn’t be able to do it justice in one post here. So my aim with this post is to highlight what a long tail keyword is and the huge potential that they have. Even if you are in a saturated niche you could still get traffic that is more targeted than the popular keywords and be able to have a successful blog. Everything counts.

Thanks

Mandy

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