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Named to "Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites," this #SharingwithWriters blog is a way to connect with my readers and fellow writers, a way to give the teaching genes that populate my DNA free rein. Please join the conversation using the very tiny "comment" link. For those interested in editing and grammar, go to http://thefrugaleditor.blogspot.com.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Increase Traffic to Your Site: Five SEO Blog Tips

A guest post today from Karen Cioffi, author and marketer. It's important for authors to understand that our promotions must be promoted, as outlines in The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo). Promoting online using "SEO" (Karen explains below!) is tech--but it isn't hard.


Five Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Blog Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Site
by Karen Cioffi

If you’re new to the writing game, you may not be aware of some of the essential steps needed to actually get in the game--steps that will make your name and brand visible. And, visibility is a biggie if you want to increase traffic to your site and move forward in your writing career.

One very interesting fact about having content online is you never know who will end up finding it. It could be an agent, a publisher, someone who wants to hire you for your writing style. You get the idea.

Why is it important to become familiar with SEO blog tips?

Simply put, the answer is to generate visibility.

Writing is no longer a solitary career. Now, if you want to create and build visibility, along with readers to your site (traffic), you need to build a platform and promote it.

So, what are some tips to help you get started in the right direction?

Well, the very first and most obvious tip is to have a Web site or blog site. Once you have one set up, it’s your job to post content to it on a regular basis, no less than once a week, two or three times a week is better though.

It’s that content that will establish you as an expert in your genre or area. This will help you down the road, after you’ve traditionally published or self-published one, five, ten, or more books and/or e-books, and you want to expand your writing career.

So, here is the strategy (SEO) that allows the search engines, such as Google, to find your site and content and to categorize and index your content. This in turn makes it available to online searchers.

Five SEO Blog Tips:

1. Use a keyword in your article title. Try one of the free keyword search tools to find an effective keyword. I use http://googlekeywordtool.com/

A keyword, according to Compendium.com, is “any word or phrase a searcher might use to describe or identify a desired resource on the Internet.”

2. Use that keyword in your article’s subheadings, and be sure to bold or italicize your subheadings.

3. Use that keyword within the content--just don’t overdo it. You don’t want to stuff your article with as many visibility generating keywords you can fit in, search engines frown upon this practice. Your article needs to be an informative, engaging, and understandable read.

You primary focus should be to write for your reader.

4. When searching for effective keywords, look for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are words that will move you away from highly competitive keywords.

As an example, if you write business articles, a generic and highly competitive keyword might be "incentives." I did a Google keyword search and the keyword "incentives" came in at: 1,500,000 global monthly searches, and 823,000 local monthly searches. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to use a keyword with that much competition.

That’s where the long-tail keyword comes in.

If you used the keyword "business incentive," you’d reduce your competition to 22,200 global monthly searches and 14,800 local monthly searches. That’s quite a difference, and it narrows your target. Remember, you want to hit as close to your target market bulls-eye as possible. Writers could use "writers incentive." Look it up!

5. The final bit of advice in SEO blog tips is to let the social networking sites know you have new content. Post the content link to Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. You should also inform your groups. Get the word out. And, be sure to have a SHARE button so visitors can share the post.

~Learn about writing and marketing with Karen Cioffi at http://karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com. Sign up for her free newsletter, A Writer’s World, and get TWO free site-related e-books for subscribing, and ONE more just for stopping by. For professional and affordable writing services check out http://dkvwriting4u.com

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second ediction of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

16 comments:

  1. What a great set of tips Karen - really well put. I don't think I'm alone as a writer in finding keyword optimisation a tricky subject and you've made it clear and simple (the hallmark of a good writer).

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  2. Carolyn, Thanks for featuring my article!

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  3. Maggie, I'm so glad you found it understandable. I include examples to help in that area. As Carolyn mentioned in the introduction, it's techy, but definitely doable for all.

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  4. Thanks for the clear advice Karen. It's something that I really have to start working on.

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  5. Thanks for coming by Maggie and Mary Jo. BTW, MJ. I'm the same way. Good intentions to look up some of those keyword ratings, you know? But then I don't. Still, the compartison that Karen gives in this article allows us to use common sense about choosing keywords. That alone will help.
    C.

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  6. Wordtracker also offers Keyword Research tools for SEO and Rank Tracking and Site Analysis tools. I don't use it as often as I should. The one time I used it, my article was almost instantly visible and well-placed in a Google search.

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  7. informative!!! good article. key words are good way to get traffic increased. i use it often and my key words are generated from XnYnZ.com

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  8. Mary Jo, a while ago I never bother with keywords, but the more I read and my writing coach convinced me it's necessary.

    It does add a few minutes to your day, but if you're taking the time to write an article what's a few minutes more. :)

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  9. Annie, thanks for the tip. There are a few free tools out there to help in your keyword research. And, here's a BIG tip: Amazon is an excellent keyword resource! I'll be writing about this soon.

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  10. Saha, I'm glad you found the article informative.

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  11. Awesome article, Karen. Thanks for all the valuable information.

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  12. Mayra, I'm so glad you found it informative!

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  13. Hi Karen, these are quite effective and excellent tips. Some tips I already implemented in blogs and now I am going to use other tips to get benefit. Thanks a lot for sharing. I will certainly back to you next post.

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  14. I learn lot of tips from your this blog and it will be very helpful everyone who running in Online Marketing so thanks for share valuable info with us Michigan SEO

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  15. Content is one of very important thing in doing seo.For me you really have a good article in the way you explain it.

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  16. Great article and for me it has a great content. I get a lot of knowledge with your post. You did a good job. Big thanks and keep sharing.


    Shasing

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