© Rawpixel
I don’t know about you but I receive emails from SEO “experts” on a daily basis. These SEO consultants claims to be able to amp my website’s SEO up many notches making my blog “the numero uno of beauty blogging yada yada yada” on Google. Of course, you and I know that these are nothing more than spam emails so I happily mark them as spam and move on.
The thing is, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, is important for your website. Of course it is. You’d want your blog to be searchable on Google and when you type your blog’s name on the search bar, you’d want it to appear first in the search results. There are things that you’d need to do to optimise your blog for search engines but after that, you will need to stop trying so hard because believe it or not, concentrating so hard on building up SEO for your blog is not a good idea.
A few days ago, I received an email from a reader asking me about the best ways to build up SEO for her blog as she’s trying to increase traffic to her blog. We talked about SEO and at the end of the email, I advised her not to concentrate so hard on SEO, and I’d like to also share with you why.
I can’t remember which big entrepreneur/blogger who said this (could be Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Hyatt, Pat Flynn or any one of ’em big guns) in a podcast, but when I heard it, it just went ding ding ding! in my head. There are many things you can do to amp up SEO on your blog like longtail keyword research, making sure you hit the right keywords, etc but at the end of the day, don’t try to game the Google system because it would be a waste of time.
Google has hundreds, possibly thousands of engineers working on SEO alone. They work on creating the best search engine they could and optimising websites for best search results. Trying to game the system could jolly well be a losing battle on your end because Google’s algorithms can change at a moment’s notice.
Instead of concentrating so hard on building SEO, concentrate on creating better content. There are many ways to drive traffic to your blog other than amping up your SEO. Build your email list, have lead magnets to build your email list (i.e. freebies for readers to sign up to your email newsletter), put your content on Pinterest to help drive traffic, make your photos better, make your words better … do all these instead.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t also think about your blog’s SEO because you should. You should have a good meta description and keywords for each blog post. You should also have a good meta description and keywords for your website. All these can be done with plugins (if you’re on WordPress, I recommend the All In One SEO Pack) or manually code them in if you’re on other platforms. But you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about SEO. Use that time to think of and create better content instead.
Remember this: every minute you waste on trying to perfect your blog’s SEO is a minute wasted on creating better content for your blog.
In the early days, yes. I bothered about SEO. I learned up about it and tweaked things and made sure everything was SEO-friendly. I have to say it brought results. And then Panda came along and then Penguin and suddenly, it didn’t matter anymore what your SEO was. I have to say that I have focused on content all this while, but what the content was, was how I tweaked the SEO. These days, I don’t care anymore. Well, not really not care, but I now care a little less. I still apply what I know but it’s very hard to keep up with the changing advice with every algorithm change so I just do the basic SEO and leave it at that. Hopefully the spiders come and that there’s enough weight to carry the post/blog to the top 🙂
Paris B recently posted..MWS Cafe Vol. 10: Your chance to chat about how 2015 has been so far
Same here. I used to be quite crazy about SEO and all that but after hearing what that bigwig said about thousands of engineers on Google working just on SEO and who I’m trying to kid here by gaming the system … I was like, “oh. Ya hoh.” 😛 So I do the basic and keep my fingers crossed. Good enough. 🙂
I am using Greg’s SEO plug-in for WP, and now I think I should look into All in One that I think I used when I first started out. I hope I choose the right keywords but I’m never sure. I’ve been working on creating better photos. But I still wonder what else I could do to help my blog grow more, other than being a couple of decades younger and there’s nothing I can do about that 😉
Allison recently posted..Gabriel Cosmetics Eyeshadow Trio, Smokey Matte Grey
Al, I totally hear you on the last bit. Trying to compete with bloggers in their early 20s is a killer; I’d drive myself crazy if I obsess about it. The best I could do is target my own audience, who will typically be at least over 25 and serve them instead. Chasing the shiny pennies of the blogging world sure is no easy feat.
I’m glad SEO isn’t so important as people seem to push. I’ve never been very good at figuring out what ‘optimum’ phrases are for SEO, and frankly, the hours I would have spent on each post or item listed are a waste compared to other things I could have been doing, like, having a ‘real job’ or researching more content, or listing other items for sale. Now that I’m technically unemployed, I should have a lot more time to go back and read all the blog-related posts I’ve bookmarked from you!
BebeTaian recently posted..Vintage Sterling Silver Moldavite Ring – Size 7 – RARE Czechoslovakia Moldavite Tektite by BebeTaian
I agree! I used to obsess over SEO and it took me so long to realise that the time I spent worrying about perfecting the SEO for my blog could have been spent on creating better content, promoting content and engaging with my audience. After I got slapped by Google so hard a couple of years ago (I lost over 10k unique visitors in 2 months just like that *snap*), I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t try to game Google, it’s not going to work.
I would agree with having strong content. People will find you if what they want is on your blog.
Cocoa recently posted..Flower of the Day – July 18, 2015 – Unknown | cocoaevenings
It would, of course, help to get those people to your blog in order for them to know what’s on your blog. SEO helps but concentrating on that alone won’t do the blog much favours, to be honest.