Many bloggers underestimate the power of carefully carried out keyword research before writing new content for their blog, and the wording in the article title in particular.
With the latest Google algorithm updates seen towards the end of 2011, more weight is placed on fresher, newer and of course, popular, content. This gives a much better chance of getting new content indexed quickly and ranking well almost instantly – well, that’s if your target market are a) searching for what you write about and b) can easily find it.
Blogging Topics: Are you interesting?
Firstly, it is pretty important to ensure that any content you write for your blog will be of interest to at least some of your target audience, if you’re writing about topics that has already been covered to death and or quite frankly, no-one is interested in – then don’t expect much visits or engagement. The likelihood is, you’re going to be extremely experienced and maybe even considered an ‘expert’ in your field and surrounding the topic of your blog anyhow, so one would like to think that you’ll pretty much already know what your readers will want to read about.
Blog Title: Capturing the reader’s attention
The title of a blog article goes a long way in ensuring whether the content will be read or not, ensure you are inviting attention to entice your audience. With so much blog content getting published on the web each and every day, it is critical to ensure you are standing out from the crowd. The title is normally the first part of the article that anyone will see, it is also likely to be to the page title seen in search results and will often likely form the URL of the article providing the publisher has set custom permalinks.
Carrying out the appropriate keyword research at this stage prior to titling your article, will increase your chances of your content being found on the web and generate more traffic to your blog. Keep it relevant too, the more click-throughs to your article from related search queries will be seen by Google – and Google loves relevance. Consider the topic of your piece and put yourself in your audience’s shoes, think about how they will search for the answers that your article provides – and then build your title around those that carry the most search volume.
So where can you get an idea of search volume?
Google Keyword Tool
Predominantly designed for Google’s paid search advertising platform, AdWords, but the free Google keyword tool is a quick and easy way of getting an approximation of how many people are searching for the content of your article each month. Just by entering a couple of your keyword variations, you will get an approximate average monthly search volume (ensure you always set the match type to ‘exact’ and set the locations if you just want data for your country specifically). Google will also offer a wide range of variations related to the terms you entered so it’s worth exploring these to see which could potentially drive the most traffic to your article.
For a more comprehensive list and review of free keyword research tools, check out 1st Web Designer’s list.
Blog Copy: Replicate the emphasis throughout the piece
Once you have a good idea of what people are searching for, and you’ve created a winning title for your article, ensure the relevancy and emphasis of this, is replicated throughout the rest of the content. Ensure the article does answer what your potential subscribers are asking, ensure the answer is clear, easy to identify – and this will then increase the chances of your content being shared which will generate more traffic and aid the ranking.
About the guest author: Tim Allen is an SEO copywriter at Clubnet Search Marketing, a UK based search marketing agency which specialises in a wide array of digital marketing solutions. Outside of web work, he enjoys salsa, travelling and watching movies.
This is a unique article published on SEO Desk with exclusivity.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Special Offers
Understanding SEO eBook
Learn how to increase your traffic and so your profits!
Learn how to attract the right traffic and analyze their behavior to convert more and more visitors into buyers!
Get People To Find You Easily, Attract Traffic and Become Famous.
ONLY 16.00
Twitter
Technorati
StumbleUpon
RSS
Warrior Forum
Facebook
