SEO Tips

#Blog #Tips Tag So You’re It-How to Tag your Blog Right.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , ,

Increasing traffic to your blog means increasing SEO views. Is that what this article is about? Yes and no. This is not going to be about how to intentionally seek out more views. This is going to be how to simply take what you have and let it be noticed properly with a few well chosen words and really just doing what you’re supposed to be doing already.

tag_you're_it.jpgTagging a blog article/post is a mystery to a lot of people. They have the best post ever on the planet. Then they don’t advertise it through their tagging properly. They put in a lot of obscure words or phrases. I’m here to break it down a little.

Things to Remember:

  • Don’t have too many-Stick to no more than about 13 and I mean 13. I’ve tested with a friend that was having problems and as we backed down the number of tags we finally got it to show up in the WordPress Reader.
  • Keep it mostly Basic with a few Specifics-If I have a poem I will use Poem, Poetry for certain. Some call this redundant if I have it in the category as Poetry. Not so. WordPress Reader sees my Tags. Then I describe the poem in a few words such as feelings or actions. Think of words that are used a lot. Love. Sex. Romance. Heartbreak. Humor. Pain. Sad. Happy. Sounds overly simple, right? So you go ahead and tag yours as Remorseful Angst and see how many WordPress Readers and even Search Engines are going to be looking for that.
  • When I do interviews I include the name of the Person, their Books, their Publisher, there Agent, and the genre of book and the type of availability such as Amazon or Kindle.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Don’t over complicate your tagging. You’re not writing another post in Tag form. One thing to not freak out about is-Your WordPress Reader Referral numbers will likely go down as your blog grows. Why am I mentioning this? Because I don’t want you to go and start freaking out and changing up your Tags. My Search Engine (SEO) referrals double my WordPress Reader Referral numbers. That’s really what you want anyway. Tag your things right.

ANOTHER TAG REASON

There might come a time when you want to create some drop down menus on your blog much like I have done here and on Lit World Interviews especially. I actually use Tags as those drop downs and even links on pages so all of my Authors that fit a certain type of genre can easily be pulled together in one place.

 A Bonus Mention:

Do your permalink right. That’s right below where you create the title for your post/article. WordPress will automatically use the words you put in your title as your permalink. For me, that isn’t what I want. My title is sometimes a catchy thing to get your attention. But for SEO I want words they are going to look for, so I change my permalink to be instead of say Remants, which is a recent poem I wrote, I might have  put poetry-haiku-love-remnants, or something like that, I don’t really remember.

 

Remember this isn’t extra work for you to worry about and TRY and get extra people to show up. These things are basics you SHOULD be doing already. I am no longer a blogger looking to really go after views and readers. I did that early on because I got caught up in the madness of it all. If you do that, you will so destroy any joy you have in doing this. Have fun and your blog will grow.

I have another site that very few know of. I do no advertising other than tagging. I don’t use Twitter, Google+, Facebook nor anything else. I have about 30 followers in about a month’s time. Not a lot I know, but I am happy with it, very happy. I simply Tag my posts, permalink my posts and move on to the next day.

Blogging is supposed to be fun. If you aren’t having fun, step back and take a deep breath. And remember this; the only person you are responsible to for on your blog is you. You are the only one that needs to be happy with what you post. The only person that needs to think about when your next post will be is you. If you are getting close to the edge of pulling your hair out or just giving up blogging, check out How to Survive the Blog Life.

 

Much Respect

Ronovan

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© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2014

How to Increase your #SEO Results and get your #Blog noticed.

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you are wanting people to visit your blog or website or to start getting  your name/brand out there, there are things you need to do that are simple and in some cases a one time set up that will help you. They range from blog post content for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to adjusting your blog settings. Today I’ll share four with you.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Friendly Blog Post Content

Search Engines, such as Google, ‘read’ your blog content, that’s the way I will explain it. What they are ‘reading’ for is what the person is searching for, what they typed in the search bar.  If you have a blog post about ‘How To Roast A seo_googe_yahoo_upward_trend.jpgTurkey’, then your post needs to OPTIMIZE  and include words that people use to search for when wanting to find out ‘How To Roast A Turkey’. The more relevant words you use the better chances of your blog or website post showing up in Search Engines. No, don’t say turkey or roast every other word. Search Engines actually DON’T like that.

I personally Optimize by having my key words a person is searching for in Search Engines in the first paragraph or two. Why? When a reader clicks to my site I want them to know instantly they have found what they are looking for. I might meander a bit later, but I want to catch their attention to have them keep reading.

Of course don’t get crazy with using the words when it just doesn’t make sense to do so. Sometimes you just need to talk to the reader and sound like you.

Difficulty on a scale of 5 being most difficult to use:

4 until you get the hang of it because you may have to adjust your style just a bit.

Why I mention:

Search Engines are my second place referrer to my site after the WordPress Reader. But here is the kicker, for the past 7 days the Reader only beat Search Engines by 11 referrals. And to be honest we want to be found on Search Engines. (It’s now Dec. 31, 2014 and Search Engines are my #1 referral.)

Including Images Inside of Your Post

Many blogs or website content posts are shared on different platforms or sites. Examples would be Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and Bloglovin. When your content is shared that’s a great thing unless for instance it visually looks like a set of blank photographs.blank_gravatar_image.jpg

You have an image or photograph set as a ‘featured image’. Great, it’s needed at times. I set one for every post I do, unless I am helping with another site and their layout does not use it. But here is something you need to know, put the image in your actual post itself as well. When you get shared on other sites those sites don’t always grab the featured image but they do usually bring the content images along with the share. That way when they do show up, say on Bloglovin you will have images to attract people’s eye.

Facebook is a problem as well in what it pulls in. It will grab an image and carry it with the post if you don’t have one. For a time it was my Blogging U badge on my sidebar, now it is my About.Me image. So I make sure to have images that are for the content itself.

BONUS TIP!

While I am at it, I’ll mention an additional tip. When you add media to your blog notice those different boxes that come up with titles like Title, Caption, Alt Text and Description? Fill those out. Why? When Search Engines read your content you want your images to have words of what those images are. Make sure they include things like .jpg or .gif or whatever format the image is.

Difficulty on a scale of 5 being most difficult to use:

3 just because it can be tedious depending on your amount of images. I sometimes reuse images to make life easier.

Why I mention:

This is one of the things that a lot of people skip and miss out on. Some Search Engines don’t ‘read’ the entire content, just the first so much amount. If you have images taking up the beginning of your post content, then what is the Search Engine reading if you have nothing descriptive in there?

Add Your Twitter Handle to Your Sharing Button

Your Twitter Handle is your brand, your advertising, your contact. You don’t have a Twitter account? That’s fine, it’s all up to you. Twitter is my number three referral for visitors to my site right now. Not a huge number, but numbers. But that’s misleading to say. Some people just don’t click the link in that Tweet. They will open it elsewhere, or copy and paste it. I am sure my Twitter referrals are a lot more than the stats show.

You might be asking me through your monitor screen what I mean by ‘Your Sharing Button’. At the bottom of your posttwitter_bird_image.jpg you have those little buttons people can click on to share your post to various other platforms. One site to share to is Twitter. You don’t have to have a Twitter account for people to share to Twitter. It will simply say wordpress instead of YOUR NAME that created the content. It’s up to you.

If you have Twitter just Go To:

  1. Dashboard
  2. Settings
  3. Sharing
  4. Twitter username to include in tweets when people share using the Twitter button.
  5. Type in your Twitter Handle without the @.

Some of you are wondering why that would increase people coming to your site. Brand recognition. If you have a good name and image people will begin to notice. The more your name gets out there and is seen the more people know it. This is not my personal idea this is a marketing idea.  There are times you will see a TV commercial for weeks before you finally actually watch it. Your child will tell you “Dad, um, this is like the millionth time you’ve seen this.” I am not at all quoting my son.

Difficulty on a scale of 5 being most difficult to use:

1 Once you have a Twitter Account

Why I mention:

It’s a, sorry to say it this way, no brainer. You have a Twitter, you have the option, why not do it?

Use Hashtags and/or Twitter Handles in your Post Title

#BloggerBoySayWhat This is something I’ve started doing lately. It’s not something I’ve really noticed being used, the Hashtag thing, yes, the Twitter Handle, no.

chalk_board_hashtags.jpgInclude these in the title of your post so when the post is shared, say on Twitter, you automatically have certain things you want to include to be tweeted. I do this with Authors and Bloggers I interview now. I put their Twitter Handle in the actual title. I don’t use the Hashtags so much but have when it is an important issue of the moment. For example if there were some Spousal Abuse media frenzy going on I might have a title #(FirstnameLastname) is a prime example of . . . Like I said, this one is a rare one, so when I do use it, it not only gets the write Hashtag used but people will do double take when they see the article title.

Difficulty on a scale of 5 being most difficult to use:

2 I only say a 2 because you need to know the Twitter Handle of the person you are wanting to boost/help out/ promote. And you should already have that if you are doing a post about them.

Why I mention:

Twitter is huge and if you are wanting to draw attention then make your blog work for you. People will share your post on Twitter but they might not go through the trouble of using Hashtags. Just don’t be obnoxious with it unless it’s a joke of sorts.

This was a lot longer than I expected it to be and for that I say . . . ouch. Even my fingers are hurting typing that much. As you begin using tips you get from me or from others it becomes second nature to do them and quicker. Turn these into habits/routines and you will think nothing of them. And as long as you have good content you should, I repeat . . . should increase your readership.

For More of My Blogging Tips and articles click here.

For Tips about Twitter click here.

Much Respect

Ronovan

2014 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com

Blog Tip: Tag Blog Articles Right

Ronovan Blogging , , , , , , , , ,

Blog Tip: Tag Blog Articles Right

by: Ronovan

Tags for Blogs isn’t easy. Or is it? You have a great article but no one comes to pay you a visit. Why not? You didn’t send out the invitations. I am going to make this pretty simple. Using a restaurant as an example to give you Blog Tagging Tips so that your Blog Articles will be friendlier to SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Think Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

 

Welcome to Restaurant RonovanWrites.

Please look at my Menu on the right which I call Categories

Please select a Dish from the Entree List of Poetry, Writing, or any other Entree you would like.

The ingredients can be found at the bottom of each  Poetry,Writing, or whatever dish you like as the Tags.

 

Restaurant RonovanWrites isn’t a big deal to people. It means nothing. I need to have what people want. That means a nice menu they are looking for. An example would be Poetry. Okay so I have the dish but what are the ingredients in the dish? Some people want veggie tacos, some beef, pork, or chicken.

 

How will people know what you have unless you tell them?

 

So your dish is Poetry and now you need to tell the customer what is in the Poetry you are serving. You created the dish. You know what is in it, the feelings and descriptions. Those are your Tags.

 

If I have a poem about my Migraines that are very bad, my Tags might be; Migraines, Pain, Headaches, Suffering, Anger, Darkness, Personal, Depression. I normally also put in Poetry, Writing, and Creative Writing, and I if I am using a personal Photo I add Photography. Blogs is also a good Tag to use.

 

There are those who use just a few Tags, but in truth as long as you don’t go over say 10 or so, I think you’ll be fine.

 

Now when a Search Engine reaches out it will see your Tags and the Category. Your Title is also important. Make sure to only capitalize the important words, the proper words. And also use key words in the first paragraph or so of your article. If you notice during some of my articles I have the images about a paragraph down, at least the first image. This is why. Search Engines don’t read Images but they do read something the various descriptions you put in the images when you load them. More on that subject another time.

 

I want to explain something quickly. I haven’t been overly active in really trying to pull people into my site. I know how things work. I mainly work on creating. A lot of what I create does not lend itself to SEO or Search Engine Optimization results. If you are writing articles like this then you should use everything you can. For my poetry, I’m not going to write the first lines of my poetry so Search Engines will like it more.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Much Respect

Chef Ronovan

© Copyright-All rights reserved-RonovanWrites.wordpress.com-June 30, 2014.