Blogging your way to the top results.

As a blogger who are you actually writing for?

OK, I agree that is a pretty loaded question. If you are new to blogging you may be surprised to find out the answers and if you are a seasoned pro you may also be surprised.

Let’s start from the perspective that you are brand new to this. Let’s also imagine that you have been following some popular blogs and decided, “Hey I can do that.” Well, the good news is you can. However, the idea of starting a blog and just writing your thoughts down isn’t really going to work. More good news, with a little practice, research, and dedication you too can succeed at blogging.

OK, how do I get started? Well, there are plenty of blogging platforms out there for you to get your feet wet but if you want to do this as a profession or to supplement your income I would recommend using WordPress. Before you jump up and create an account please read this entire article. If you do not already know this there are two “versions” of WordPress. WordPress.com is a free publishing platform. It allows users to choose from 100’s of themes and is a very solid choice for many people. WordPress.com does have its limitations. Make sure you read and understand the Terms of Service before deciding what is right for you. WordPress.org is nearly identical to WordPress.com with a few major exceptions. There are no terms of service agreements. It is completely customizable providing you have the required skills. As a developer, we always prefer to use WordPress.org.

Let’s assume you have chosen to build your blogging platform from WordPress.org. You have hired a developer and your site is exactly how you envisioned it. Finally, now you can just start writing your thoughts.

Unfortunately no. Well, technically I guess you could but if you have come this far why not take a few more steps to stand out from the crowd. First, you need to understand that you are writing not only for your audience. You are also writing for robots. Or to be more precise you are writing for search engines.

Let me explain what I mean. If you do not write in a way that is consistent with the search algorithms you simply will not be shown on search results. After all, you have just started and have not yet established your blog as a “brand” yet. Let’s assume you are a yoga instructor and have just posted a blog about the advantages of hot yoga. How many results do you suppose Google will display after searching for “the advantages of hot yoga“? At the time this article is being written Google provided About 1,100,000 results. So going with this hypothetical analogy Google would either provide About 1,100,000 results or 1,100,001 results. You want Google to provide your blog as one of the 1,100,001 results.

So why write for search engines if I’m still going to have over one million results ahead of my blog post. That’s the beauty of this. I never said that you would be the last result in that search. If you follow simple rules and account for search engines in your writing style you will far surpass your competition.

I want to write for people not for search engines. Absolutely! Your number one goal is to provide information to humans. You just need to do this in a way that Search engines can understand. After all, the search engines entire job is to serve relevant content.

Remember that there is no absolute definitive guide to Search Engine Optimization but there are some general steps to follow.

1. Make sure each post has one topic. (blogs posts are naturally one topic)
2. Ensure your post contains keywords.
3. Content, content, content. (Provide unique relevant content).
4. Answer the questions of your entire audience
5. Promote your blog post
6. Measure the reach of your post
7. Rinse and repeat.

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