Writing and awesome blog is only one part of the puzzle... People need to see it too... The lovely people at WeBlogMCR asked me to join them for a morning talking about ways to get your blog seen - talking mostly about SEO, Social and some quick wins to add to their own blogs.

1. Getting Your Sh*t Seen
WeBlogMCR January 2017

2. Who am I?
I run an inbound marketing agency. We use content a lot.
15 years of experience in digital marketing.
Like to “play around” with digital (constantly testing and tweaking).
Massive advocate of the power of bloggers.
Worked on the FT blogs.
We use blogging to help clients get found, and to sell stuff.

3. So…

4. Thinking about your
blog…

5. Who are you targeting?

6. So ask yourself…
Who do you want to read your blog?
What interests them?
Why would they read your blog?
What content do they want to read?
How do they consume content? (Video, blogs…)

8. Ask yourself…

12. What is it actually?
At a very basic level, SEO is about making your site as “Search
Engine Friendly” as possible.
It’s based on something we call “ranking signals” (there are hundreds of
them)…
These are the ones I would focus on:
- How many links to your site
- Temporal relevance (how often are you being talked about on
social)
- User experience (mobile, mobile, mobile)
- Quality of your content
- What people do when they are on your site…
- Structure of your site
- Keyword density

14. Links to your site
It’s not “the more the better” (sometimes). You don’t want 100’s of
links from one domain… You want one link from hundreds of
domains.
Ask for a link EVERYWHERE. If someone quotes you or mentions
you, ask for a link. Someone uses your image, ask for a link.
Share your images on Pinterest from your site (Pin buttons). Share
your content on Reddit. Answer questions on Quora with a link to your
blog (don’t be spammy). Find sites you could write for, in exchange for
a link back…

15. Temporal relevance
Google likes sites that are being talked about.
- Share your content across social
- Make it easier for others to share
- Make it easy for readers to comment
- Mention influencers in your blogs, mention them on social e.g:
“.@hollynicol’s House Project has given me inspiration for my new post
on… http://myblog.com/my-blog-post”

16. User experience
If your blog is a pain in the arse to read, no one will read it.
If it takes too long to load, Google will penalise you.
If the content is convoluted, packed with links or too image heavy,
Google will penalise you.

17. Content quality
Don’t write shit.
Google likes good content. It knows it’s good content by looking at
how long people read it for, do they go on to read other things, and is it
shared.
Write content that appeals to your target persona.
Make sure each page has >400 words on it.
Include images in your post (or even better, include video)

18. Structure of your site
We could do hours on this...
In a nut shell, your site, in terms of inter page linking and how the page
itself is structured, should show google that you are an expert in a
given area and that there is a breadth and depth of content.
Think about how your menus are structured, how content is layered.
Ideally, you want Google to look at the site and say, “fuck, there’s
loads of content associated to that particular keyword”

19. Structure of your site
Create hubs of content…
If “weddings” was the keyword…
Weddings
Wedding
dresses
Wedding
Photography
Wedding
venues
Wedding
Reviews
Honeymoon
locations

20. Keyword density
Every single page should have a key word target.
And every one of those pages should have a slightly different keyword
target.
Make sure your keywords are in:
- URL
- H1 tags
- H2, H3 or H4 tags
- Image alt tags
- In the text, naturally 3-4 times.
Focus on longer tail keyword: Not ”Marketing Agency” but “Inbound
Marketing agency”

21. But…

22. Don’t focus on SEO…

23. Social is your friend…
Use Facebook Live
Get involved on Twitter
Images and video will rule the world

24. The last blog you found…
How did you find it? Did you search for it, or was it over social..?
Social can be labour intensive, but it’s incredibly affective.
Look for the influencers. Piggy back on them.

25. Use video, use video, use video
In case that’s not clear… use video.
On Facebook, video posts have 135% better organic reach than photos.
People spend 80% longer watching live video.
Doesn’t need to be in depth:
- Consider introductions to blog posts
- Live videos
- Consider reaction posts
- Product/restaurant reviews…

26. You’re not broadcasting… Stupid.
Remember, social is about starting a conversation… You’re not broadcasting
messages. Engage with people.

27. Email sucks, but…

28. It’s an effective tool…
Ask people for their email addresses. Build a newsletter list.
You can use it to keep people coming back AND it’s an important asset for
agencies and PRs to consider.
Use Mailchimp, it’s easy and it’s free (to a point).

30. Install SEO
Yoast
If you’re on
Wordpress, add this
easy to use plugin/
It helps with making
sure you’ve got best
practice stuff sorted.

31. Add ALT tags to all of your images
And yes… It’s a ball ache…

32. Go through all your old posts…
And make sure there are keywords in:
- Content (try to naturally fit these in 3 times)
- H1 tags – really important
- H2 (or subheading tags)
SEO Yoast will help with this!

33. Change your standard URL structure
But be careful… for those of you with a good level of existing search traffic…
this can be tricky and needs you to think about some other things (301
redirects)…
But, it’s worth it…
This: http://www.spamellab.com/2017/01/coconut-oat-caramel-slice/
Could be this: http://www.spamellab.com/recipes/coconut-oat-caramel-slice/
Go to Wordpress > Settings > Permalinks

34. Add analytics and Webmaster tools
It’s important. Get Analytics added to your site (it’s free). It will give you insight
and will help you rank.
Add Your site to Google Webmaster Tools – bit fiddly, but well worth it. Then
add your site map.

35. Add Disqus comments to your site
Allows people to comment using their social profiles – and it has some other
nifty tools you can use.

36. Make it easy to share…
Add in Sharaholic… or something similar…

37. Add in a CTA!
You’ve got people reading your blog… Now get them to do
something…

38. Add the Mailchimp plugin…
It’s free(ish). Has loads of great plugins with Wordpress. Very
easy to use…