Need to improve your blog rank and traffic?
This is a familiar client/Writing Roads scenario:
Me: If you want to be part of the world online, you must have a blog (for all of these reasons and more)
Client: Okay great…how often will I have to post? Like once a month?
Me: Uh, no. A little more than that.
Client: Twice a month? Just tell me how often should I publish to get the most ROI?
Me: Honestly, as much as possible. But at least 2-3 times per week.
And then they pass out.
The thing is, I’m not just talking out of my arse.
Take this blog, for instance:
- I used to blog Monday – Friday. As a result, after about 9 months of steadily rising stats, I had an Alexa rank of 123,000. (Which is really, really good – Google is #1)
- Last spring, I got insanely busy and I decided it wouldn’t hurt to drop down on my posting. So I went to Monday, Wednesday and Friday posts, 3x/week. My Alexa rank steadily fell to the 300,000 mark. (Not anywhere near as good)
- About 3 weeks ago, I started posting every day, Monday – Friday, again. No less busy – possibly more, but I just wanted to (because I love writing this blog), so I did. And I’ve watched my Alexa rank rise 100,000 spots and my spider (and visitor) stats increase. That’s 100K in about 13 posts. As of this writing, my rank is 199,000 (and rising)
The proof really is, as they say, in the pudding. If you want your blog to do better, (one of the methods that works is to) write, produce and publish more good content that tells the world all that you know about your chosen topic.
The good news, for both of us, is that if you don’t have the time or ability to do all of this blogging, you can hire someone to do it for you. I know, it’s a brilliant solution. You can do what you do best (cut hair, build houses, train chickens, whatever) and I, or some other writer, can do what we do best – produce engaging content. It’s a win/win sitch. No heavy lifting required.
Image credit: The Truth About…
Filed under How To | Tags: Alexa, Alexa rank, blog strategy, Blogging, blogs, web traffic, Writing | Comments (6)SEO vs VEO vs Social Media: Which is More Important?
According to Wikipedia, Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
So what’s VEO? Visitor Enhanced Optimization is the practice of making sure that your readers can enjoy, understand and relate to your blog, site, content, message, call to action and more. For example, you can’t dump keywords into your site copy if the paragraphs they sit in don’t make any sense. VEO is about building relationships and trust with your visitors. It’s about offering quality content, value and information.
If you only do SEO – link, metatags, keywords, etc. and it brings you good search rankings – but you don’t have good content, readable content, interesting content – then why would anyone stay? Why would they come back?
On the other hand, if you have great content and VEO – but you don’t metatag your site or the site map is difficult for the search engines to read, etc…it’ll be harder for people to find you, but if they do find you, you’ll have a good chance of getting them to subscribe and possibly hire you or buy your product.
SEO and VEO really do work in concert with each other. I think they feed each other well. And, truth be told, the search engine algorithms strive to mimic the human mind. They’re not just looking for links or keywords.
Could you change your search rank by being social?
What about social media? How do you classify social networking? Is it in a class of its own? And can you build a strong readership, a nice Alexa rank and good search engine results if you replace hardcore SEO with a blog that you use well and a large, positive presence on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?
At the end of the day, I think that using all three components will get you the farthest. But…
- If you hate networking and just can’t be social like that – use VEO and SEO.
- If you’re a born networking and you love promotion, building relationships and connecting – use VEO and Social Media.
- If you want many one-time visitors with no punch or staying power – use SEO and Social Media. I feel quite strongly that losing the VEO will destroy you. There’s just too much good stuff out there and people can smell crap a mile away.
I’m tempted to say that Social Media could replace traditional SEO if you’re really good at working the networks.
Think about it: Are 20K followers on Twitter that adore you and feel like they know you better than thousands of dollars worth of keyword research and placement? I think so. And that’s because I’m a proponent of relationship and ‘word of mouth’ marketing. I also believe that if you’re an expert in your field, the keywords you need are going to naturally fill your site.
Of course, SEO can be good and full of quality, But, some SEO gets a deserved bad rap – because it’s black hat, or dirty pool, and to be honest it isn’t “natural” or “organic” – it seeks to reach a goal of high rankings without taking the reader into consideration. I suppose the spammers on social networking sites are the same – but they don’t usually come out on top, do they? I, for one, give them the big old BLOCK.
Bottomline: traffic drives your search engine ranking. And good content drives traffic. Social media has given us, the writers and readers, the opportunity to have a say in what sites are popular or not. The writers can populate with good content, the readers can share the site with social bookmarking and networking – even through email.
To answer my original question, ‘Which is more important?’ I’m going with this order:
1. VEO: have the goods
2. Social Media: build relationships, market, manage your PR, promote, be real
3. SEO: follow the basic guidelines and best practices, making it easy for your site to be searched, ranked and found
Image by alborzshawn
Filed under How To, Marketing, Social Media | Tags: Julie Roads, search engine optimization, search engines, SEO, social bookmarking, social media, social networking, VEO, web traffic, Writing Roads | Comments (10)How can I drive traffic to my website?
1. Blogs. Static websites don’t drive much traffic. Search engines are ranking sites by relevancy – they want to know if you know what you’re talking about, and if anyone cares what you’re talking about. If your site is about dogs, write about everything dogs (dog food, dog health, dog toys, dog breeds, etc.) and talk about what is happening in the dog world now. Blogs offer a productive solution – you are constantly adding content to your site (sending the search engines to visit you again and again) and you can add realtime content to your site.
2. Joint Venture Partnerships. Look around. Who else is selling to your market? One of my clients that I blog for owns a very hip mommy-gear store selling cool highchairs, crib blankets, slings and the like. When we start to look around we see that there is a world of store sites selling to our customers, but not selling our products! Natural baby toys, designer nursing clothes, organic baby food…these sites are all tangent to my client’s site. The beauty of the JVP is that you create a relationship with these other stores; then, you tell your list about your JVP’s store site. You offer your list value and you’ve just been permission marketed to the hilt by your JVP.
3. Keyworded Copy. Some of you have heard this story before. My research showed that in one month, 248 people searched for ‘copywriting for direct mail’ and 10.755 people searched for ‘direct mail copywriting’. Why wouldn’t you use this research to drive these people to your site? I know it is a bit creepy, digging into the minds of internet users everywhere, but it is useful – you are creating a resource based on what your customers are actually looking for. Really, it’s plain old marketing research – just a la SEO. Just make sure that the keyword research comes from a reliable source and that the keywords are strategically placed throughout your site and not dumped in like hay in a stable. Your site must also have VEO (optimization for the visitor) which means that it must be readable – to people. And, yes, using the keywords skillfully in your copy is… a skill! But success is possible at beginner, intermediate and professional levels.
Filed under How To | Tags: blogs, joint venture partnerships, keywords, search engines, SEO, web copy, web traffic | Comment (0)
