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How Do I Write for Search Engine Optimization?
Posted by DocNicole • 5/16/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Tags: blah blah blah, SEO, writing
Hi Ya'll-
I am watching my stats and watching what people are Googling to find me and just can't seem to figure out what the method to the madness is. I will write a fab detailed article on one disease, and only a thousand people will read it, I will write another similar article on a different disease and 8000 people will read it! I just can't figure it out.
If you have any tips on article titling, phrasing suggestions, which phrases to repeat, and what not so that the search engines can find my alternative medicine research, I would REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate it!
Also if you have any helpful links to articles on writing for SEO or free e-books on this topic I would appreciate the recommendation!
Thanks so much and happy blogging to everyone!!!
Dr. Nicole Sundene
kitchentablemedicine.com
User Comments
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Are you going to move away from your fun titles
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The funny thing is the fun titles get me more readers than the serious ones! I think if you can catch a random phrase that someone types in to Google that is the money right there!
For instance, lately "Why does my eye twitch" is the biggest referrer from Google. Should I just switch to making the reader's questions the titles of all my posts? Would that make more sense instead of
"Eye twitching: calcium and magnesium" -
Questions is a good way to go about it for a blog like yours. Also have the question or keywords in the post a few times. Then break down your keywords from the title into your tags. It may also help to name any images the same as your blog post title.
Treat it like you do on yahoo questions -
Or have the question and then say the calcium and magnesium after the question for some more keywords
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You have tags already with the 5in1 seo and the tags for wordpress, both found below where you write or edit a post
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Nicole, I have a blog that's formulated entirely of questions I've found in my search stats, with the title of the post always the direct question, and it started getting solid search results within about a week. I think it's because that catches the non-savvy searchers--and there are a lot of them. For instance, I've gotten a lot of traffic on the phrase, "My old dog won't eat is she dying". Of course, anyone who searches regularly would have typed in something like "dog appetite loss symptoms" (and when you type in those words, you get much better resources than my blog, because those are the words experts are using)...but people who aren't quite so experienced and just come online because they need specific information tend to just ask a direct question. My experience is that not a lot of sites are targeting those direct questions, so you might do well with that. -
"The funny thing is the fun titles get me more readers than the serious ones! I think if you can catch a random phrase that someone types in to Google that is the money right there!"
And there is the rub. Your title needs to carry the theme of the post, but it can't be written FOR the search engine. While it must also let the search engine know what it's about (you don't want surfers looking for 5.6kw honda generators showing up on your page about hand carved bone crocheting needles, right?) it must MOSTLY be written in a way that inspires the searcher to click on the link and follow through to the page.
Another thing that can help is to include a meta description with each post that includes a custom written mini "ad" for the post. Basically two sentences telling the searcher why THIS page is the one they want to click through to instead of all the others on the search page.
Writing FOR SEO alone is not enough. Ultimately it is people, not spiders who are your audience, and you have to make sure that what the spider reports, the people like. There is an old adage in marketing and advertising that people don't really want a drill, they just want a hole. If you want to sell them a drill, you have to talk about the HOLES and let them know that they way to get the hole is with YOUR drill.
So with your title you need to address what people really want. Your title and description on a search page amount to a small classified advertisement for reading your page.
Now the title I would probably select based on the situation you presented would be
Why Does My Eye Twitch? | Calcium | Magnesium | Eye Health
Why the pipe "|" signs? People seem to automatically understand that they separate related ideas and Google seems to like them. At one time it seemed that Google was actually seeing them as logical 'OR' separators as well, though this may not be the case any longer.
And people don't want calcium or magnesium, they want their eyes to stop twitching. I don't want gluchlosimin and chondroitin (I know I spelled that stuff wrong), I want my knee to stop hurting and to work more like it did when I was 20.
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Good to know thanks my friend! I don't know how to make tags...I guess the new version of wordpress has a way of doing it for you. Does the older version of WP have that option?
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I think I may have shared with you that someone told me to put the exact TITLE in the article at least 2 or 3 times for google to pick it up.
Usually, the easiest place to put the title is in the very beginning and end and that's what I've been trying to do, but I don't know if that's true about use of title. Does anyone else know?-
That might be helpful if your exact title was specifically the phrase you were targeting, but even then it's certainly not necessary.
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crkian sounds much more knowledgable than I am!
My website designer (www.somethingcreativeinc.com) optimized our website so we are #1 or #2 on google with many different HSA related terms. Brody and crkian could speak and actually understand each other! -
Doc Nicole - I have a site which has nothing to do with health and yet the top single search term for reaching it so far this month is 'scratched cornea' with over 50 hits. And that was because someone posted a comment that they had done so while working. It made me think that layman's terms combined with medical terms may be the best way to go for optimising search traffic as you'll get both profiles looking for you. In a way this is sad, but I've found that dumbing down phrases tends to get me more hits, and even in the odd case - spelling things in the way I think the masses would spell something even when it's clearly wrong!
Ben-
@OzScot: That's totally true about the mispelled words. My wife wrote an article titled "Myanmar Cyclone Devistation Abounds" and a ton of people found it. So, we went back in and corrected the title to "Myanmar Cyclone Devastation Abounds", but we purposely kept the tag line incorrect and she is still getting hits from both spellings.
The permalink still has the mispelled word too:
truthoughts.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/myanmar-cyclone-devistation-abounds/ -
I agree I have written before about mispelled words and how they should be used. A lot are picked up, even if you write a comment yourself at the bottom of the post and put some mispelled words in there.
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LOL OMB! That precisely what I mean. I really do wonder sometimes if I should deliberately spell something wrong for a few days then go back and correct it later too, or just use it twice with one spelling correct and one wrong!
Ben -
Wow I should write about scratched corneas!
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comment removed by the community.
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Cant you offer some advice here
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yes few tips can be given here but reading the complete post will be better as it has links required , dos and don't(precautions) also.
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Chris's advice would have been of greater benefit then putting up two links and looking for 6 extra hits to your site. We would have all gone to your blog anyway, if you would have posted info we thought was useful.
Just a thought... -
As far as I remember he has been warned about it before. just picking up on SEO advice threads and showing a link wont cut it. People will grow tired of seeing the same content again and again.
Plus he has shown these links to Nicole before.
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Bold and anchor text for keywords carry more weight with search engines. Give that a try
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I really cannot figure the whole thing out - I get lots of searches that make no sense and very few that would make sense.
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I have google adsense so some of my searches make cents
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now imagine if they made dollars...
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eventually. I might promote my site if I got off of BC once in a while
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I was thinking the same thing.
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To BC admin
My earlier comment has been removed but there are many comments in other threads where members have posted relevant as well as irrelevant links in their comments and are not removed.I have raised this point earlier in www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/read-before-posting-1
and have not received any reply.
Here the member who has started the thread has asked for the links
"Also if you have any helpful links to articles on writing for SEO or free e-books on this topic I would appreciate the recommendation!"
And there is no rule that a link mentioned earlier can not be mentioned again.Because each thread is new ,though on same subject and is created and read by different members.
The link i mentioned was related to what is asked for.
If someone does not like it and complains then rule is applied to few one and not all.-
As I mentioned before you have added those links to discussions of hers before, nearly everything you add here is a link to your blog.
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To Crkian,
why you keep track of all this?
And you are wrong because i have many comments without link to my post.
first of all i do not remember to which member i have posted which link.
Second then why the member has asked same thing again?
and third as far as i remember i have not posted the link to my keyword research post to this member earlier.-
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/search/user/umesh
Check yourself, well over half have links and thats on the first page.
First - Perhaps you should remember its not hard, or have you given out the link to many times to remember
second - Perhaps they didnt find anything useful in your posts thats why they posted again
Third - Perhaps you havent but what about the other one.
Im not keeping track but its got to the point that when you see a post by you its normally got a link in it.
Offer advice without links if members find your advice to be of use they will visit your site.
One of the admins Tony has told you before about posting your links everywhere but then it was fine for a while and you started up again. -
i checked the link given by you.
Out of 25 comments by me, 6 comments has link to my post.
this is the comment given by DocNicole in earlier thread
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/seo-quesion-mega-nerdy-please-brace-yours...
I quote her "Sounds good. thanks carl and umesh for you input!"
this means it was useful. -
So wait--you'd already given her the link and she'd already checked it out and responded and THEN you thought it was important to add it to this thread as well? Surely I misunderstand...?
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there is no link to my post in that thread.please check your self.
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Members please read this thread
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/seo-quesion-mega-nerdy-please-brace-yours...
it proves my point -
Dont forget some of those are from posts where you posted a link
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Hi----Nicole:
It is important to place your keywords in the post title AND ALSO the first sentence. Keywords can be in the form of a question or not.
Keep it simple and think what would someone looking this topic/subject up, input into Google. Think like the masses, not like a doctor would on a search. Unless you're targeting doctors.
For example, say you're writing on hemp pasta to cure arthritis. Those are gonna be your main keywords (hemp pasta and athristis), so you will want those 2 keywords in your blog title (question, statement, whatever format you prefer) and also the first sentence.
As the others have stated above, basing posts off of (stat queries) is also a good SEO idea. Yes! -
Hi Nicole,
Can you give a practical example? What was your article title when you got 1000 and 8000 page views?
Let me ask as well, what did you mean by saying "writing similar article on a different disease"? Did you mean there is some similarity between both articles in the subject or title? -
I would suggest getting a web stat program like statcounter and find out what searches are finding you now and putting that together with a keyword tool like freekeywords.wordtracker.com to anticipate what words to stress in your next post. Only thing missing then is keyword competition, or how many other sites rank higher for those words. -
write for the reader first and the spiders second. But that dosn't mean you can't repeat the key phrase in the first paragraph a couple of times. If its a common miss-spelling then make a 'joke of it' - something like Spinal muscular atrophy (sometimes also spelt atophy) etc. See its so easy to include it but make it readable.
try submitting to places like Zimbio - i get quite a few referrals and links from there.
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