@casmccullough

Couple of thoughts Cas:

1. How old is the blog? Young sites take time to come up. That can vary widely though. There are so many variables both known and unknown that play into SEO.

2. Make sure you know who your audience is and write to their specific needs / issues.

3. Try using Google Keyword Tool and search for words that are in your articles title. Intermix the best words contextually from the results into your text. I personally like to look at what the advertisers are paying per click, and then the local and global numbers.

4. Don’t worry about SEO – Not everyone can be at the top of Google. In my opinion, you’re better off networking the blog with other bloggers, commenting / linking, guest blogging, and building up your target audience.

Over time, your Google page will come up. But, my personal experience is people who find our blog via Google get the one article they want and leave. Those that connected with us from other blogs, social media pages, email, etc., stick around, read, and contribute to the conversation.

But that is just my personal experience. Different blogs, with different topics, may have drastically different experiences.

@donpurdum Top of the List advice, as usual. If you focus too much on being a rock star, you’ll end up in the same clinic they often do…

@casmccullough great advice from @donpurdum Especially the advice to not worry about SEO so much if it’s a young blog. Think about creating the best possible value and getting the message out there. The traffic will come.

Just in case you need some fine tuning on the SEO/keyword combo for your blog, check out a plugin called Scribe. I wrote up a review here and it really does help you fine tune your posts. Here’s a link to a post I wrote on it. http://janetfouts.com/scribe-seo/ it’s an oldie but a goodie!

@kristi-hines good advice @jfouts I will check out Scribe and your post

@donpurdum the Hubspot website grader (not their marketing grader) will point out some common errors many people have on their sites, such as missing tags, missing titles, etc. Most are easy to fix, and while they don’t help in terms of most content based SEO, it will remove things that hurt, if that makes sense.

One feature I love is that it tells you what grade level your copy reads. I find a lot of people love to use twenty-five cent words when on the web, nickel words are better.

Hey @casmccullough  just another quick tip and a question…

What keyword are you actually trying to rank for?

For example are you trying to rank for “supporting work at home people everywhere” (or Support a WAHP)

Are people typing that into google?? (keyword tool will tell you that)

I ask because that is the name of your blog and in tern, that seems to be what google may think you are trying to rank for…

SEO is all about proper keyword density and you have to tip to the search engines to what your blog is actually about. You may have all of this great original content but the fact of the matter is, the search engine cannot think logically like we do, they just see the algorithm with all those fancy numbers and “keywords” throughout your blog.

In other words, the google bot will just count the number of times words show up in your articles as well as take into consideration bold, underline, italicize, and H1/ H2 tags.

Stay consistent with you keyword (even in your wonderful titles) and give the search engines a proper fighting chance. Just because your business is about helping others home biz doesn’t mean they know the name of your company.

Keyword idea: what would you type into google if you where looking for your business type of help?

Regards,

Lou

@donpurdum That’s my experience as well, search traffic comes in for one article, then bounces.

At the moment, I’ve got about 80% search traffic with a time on site of ~1:30.

Two years ago when I was much more active, search traffic was ~20% with a time on site ~3:30.

Working on lowering bounce rate of search traffic right now, which brings it back around to @casmccullough: from what I can see, the SEO game has gotten a bit more intricate over the last year, and certainly since 2009, it feels totally different. 3 years ago it was not that difficult to rank for reasonably competitive terms with high quality content. Not, not so much.
Part of my answer will be using Google +. Personally, not real excited about Yet Another Social Network, but if my stats continue on their current trajectory, it won’t be pretty. Google owns the sandbox, if we want to play, they make the rules.

@casmccullough I wrote up an article covering what I learned from Rich Brooks on SEO: How to be found on the web:http://www.blogsbyheather.com/series-how-to-be-found-on-the-web/

In summarizes what every blogger can do (not just WordPress bloggers) to better optimize their blog posts, as well as keyword analysis tools and link building strategies.  Rich gave a great presentation and I did my best to summarize it and share with my readers.

Enjoy

P.S. One main point was that it does that time. He suggests posting 2-3 times a week for 6 months before you may see any changes.

@casmccullough You’re welcome.

You’ll enjoy it. It’s a 3 part article and a summary as well.  But he reviews changing the title like you did, how to write a great title, tips on blog content and the use of keywords, etc.  Then also speaks of on page optimization vs. off page optimization.

have fun,Heather

SEO is difficult some people just have a great skill with it I must add it does make a big difference to be top 5 G! page one and it’s not possible for everybody to be there so yes work on SEO but also work on other ways of attracting visitors to your page and personally I would never pay a company to do it (I know you didnt ask that).

But as you have asked about SEO you could try the link below I have no connection with them but I feel it does give some sound advice and checks currently what you are doing.

http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/

@casmccullough no dumb questions here.

Yes google will rank all your keywords in your article but if you do not have a specific keyword you are trying to rank for, the process of ranking high in the search engine may take a while longer because Google will have a harder time figuring out what your article is really about… (we are going for FREE traffic here remember.. We want to be on page 1 of google for a specific keyword phrase!)
          don’t forget to do your keyword research and stick with that keyword.

Make your keyword that you choose your title, your Meta tags, etc.

Keyword Density:  “After you write your article, multiply the number of words by .025 and that is around the amount of times you should have your keyword in your article.”  Don’t go over that is called keyword stuffing and google doesn’t like that.

Send me a message or skype me at Fobusiness if you would like to talk more.

Whoah, this thread is by far the best-read I’ve had in long while. Granted, I’ve only been blogging for nine months and my knowledge of SEO is basic, as I would delegate to folks from my team in previous roles

Will read through all the comments once again, links and articles included. Very helpful stuff.

Cheers,

Update. Just did searches on my two biggest keywords and came up within the first few links both times! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with me. It’s already made a MASSIVE difference.

@dextereugenio  Good point Dexter. 

@casmccullough Yes, if you do keyword searches using Google’s Keyword Tool for instance, be sure to look at how many competitors there are and the trending on those keywords and keyword phrases (long-tail) as well where they are coming from. You can also focus on demographics as well to focus on who your main customers are located or break the stats up by region. If there is low competition and an upward trend, then focus on those. You can create landing pages or buy keyword rich domains adding landing pages optimized for those keywords all pointing to your site or a specific call-to-action (CTA) you prefer. 

Utilize Google+, because it is becoming an important part of high Google rankings.