How to write a winning blog for SEO
September 3, 2009
At the September meeting of the Cambridge Search Engine Optimization Meetup Group Chris Baggot of Compendium Blogware, advised a tech savvy group of 72 that key words and multiple pages are crucial to winning high blog rankings on search engines like Google and Bing.
Group members interrupted Baggot numerous times with questions. (They didn’t want to believe that Compendium’s platform, which focuses on providing many pages, each with its own keywords, could work better than WordPress). But Baggot held his own.
Key takeaways:
- Eighty percent of activity on the Web is search–by people who are looking for solutions to particular problems– using keywords.
- Bing, and, now, Google, are increasingly using content, as opposed to links, in ranking the importance of particular posts.
- Domain names don’t matter: blog titles, and keywords do
- Have as many focused blog pages as possible–hundreds, if you can, each with its own main keyword
- For consultants: tell stories of problems you have solved
- Search engines “like” frequency and fresh pages; write short but often
- Blogs should be 100-150words; if you have to more say, write another post
- Include a call to action–give people a way to go forward: have an offer; ask them to sign up for something
Ohmygosh I’m over 150 words!
Here’s my call to action: Contact me at harriscom@harriscom.com if you need communications strategy, media outreach, Web structure and content, a WordPress blog or writing for any medium about almost anything.
–Anita M. Harris
Harriscomblog is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. We also publish the New Cambridge Observer. Copyright: anita m. harris, 2009
Filed in new media, Publishing Industry, social media
Tags: Blog ranking systems, blogging, Cambridge SEO Meeting Group, Cambridge SEO Meetup, Chris Baggot, Compendium, Harris Communications, SEO, SEO Optimization
September 3, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Anita,
Only 150 words? Why is that?
September 3, 2009 at 3:46 pm
He thinks people only want to skim to find solutions to particular problems…and that to “win” top placement on Google and such, that it’s important to have as many blogs with the same key words as possible. Hence–he advises not wasting time or energy on long posts. In fact, the Compendium platform divides content into specific keywords–and depending on how much you want to spend, will launch hundreds (possibly thousands) of blogs focused on particular keywords—with no content–which his customers can then fill over time. Quantity over quality, as far as I can tell.
October 5, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Be careful how far you take this approach. Inbound links are incredibly important to PageRank, which is how Google chooses websites. And more and more, traditional SEO tactics of keyword sowing are backfiring because web traffic is moving more towards “shared” than “search” (although Search is still incredibly important!). If something reads like it was written by a robot, nobody will re-Tweet it, e-mail it to their mum or share it on Facebook, but if it’s great content (even more than 150 words!) it will get shared and shared again.
October 6, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Mike, thanks for this. This company has built its entire business model on giving customers a myriad of similar pages based on the belief that Google has changed its model. I wonder why they think that.
I know that when searching for articles mentioning my clients, I find it incredibly irritating to come with 100 of the exact same pages. They do come up at the end of whatever google lists, however. AMH
February 25, 2010 at 11:36 am
its really good and informative site. thanks
February 25, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Thanks, Sonali
March 25, 2010 at 12:40 am
Well, I would like to see some proof that keywords in domains are not important or have no weighting in the ranking algo of Google. If that WERE the case than how would you explain the fact that you can buy a brand new, keyword domain – let’s call it best chiropractor miami .com for example. Then let’s throw up a quick WP install and one post about “best chiropractor miami” with an H1 heading and a couple instances of the keyword in the post.
Let it sit for a week or two – then check the serps. You WILL find it on the first page of Google more often than not.
March 25, 2010 at 1:04 am
Bob, thanks for writing. It would be great if you’d ask the gentleman who gave the talk about this. (I’m just reporting on what he said–which, I have to admit, left me scratching my head, at times). Anita