You usually have to dig to find horrible pictures of people like this one I am just GIVING AWAY THE FARM! Thank you for reading my blog. Your reward is a picture of 19-year-old emo freshman Janelle starting her first blog. KMN
The point of me sharing that is to show you that I love blogging. I love writing. No. Really. I really really really really love to write. Though the statement, “my writing will adapt bits and pieces of every one else’s blog to make up his own identity” sounds like it’s straight out of the Taking Back Sunday album… it’s so true!
Blogging has helped my clients so much. It is the only way to build organic search engine optimization and growth on Google Search. Google crawls pages looking for information, solutions to inquiries. If your blog has answers to questions, it ends up higher on the search.
I have created blogs for cigar companies, beauty products, sunscreen manufacturers, construction companies, attorney’s, and so much more. They are helpful for sharing information, for documenting events, for making annoucenements.
Don’t get me wrong. There is beauty in the simplicity of microblogging (AKA tweeting and IG and reels and TikTok). I love those forms of media and have learned to use them.
But for me: ain’t nothing better than a good old fashioned journal where you can publish your thoughts and a corporation ranks how interesting they think your thoughts are and your thoughts become lucrative cash flows of leads and new business!!!! CHEERS TO THE DEAR DIARY!
Ok, now for the ABC’s. Thank you to Prime Concepts and Weebly for the jumpstart on this article.
Authentic:
Write your blog with an authentic voice. Small business owners should write as if they are talking to their newest client. It’s ok to be informal in most blogs because they are being read in someone’s living room, while they are watching a game of thrones and telling their kid to get in the bath. The Side Blogger mentions it is important to be mindful of writing intentions and to take time to research. I think this is also very important!
Build Trust:
Businesses can build trust with their readers by establishing themselves as an expert. This is done through information, tips, helpful ideas, and inspiration. Trust takes time and consistency. Think of your blog and its audience as a new relationship. Pay attention to the feedback you get. Write more articles in the areas that are popular. Give your audience what they like and they will trust you.
Crawl:
There are these little guys, they are called Google Bots, and they crawl the web looking for answers to people’s questions. If your page includes the answer to popular questions, it is ranked high in value and moves up higher in the Google Search page. I think of them as little nosey internet stalkers who are tattling to mom and dad if you are doing a good job. Isn’t that funny?
Deindex:
This happens when your page is considered invalid AKA PLAGIARISM. Don’t do it. Produce unique and original content. Simply copy and pasting other people’s work into your blog will hurt your website. Neil Patel explains that deindexing invalid pages, unimportant pages, less valued pages are important because they do not contribute and will take away from your SEO ranking.
External links:
Links, backlinks, external links, they all drive traffic to your website. The more links, the better. Always make sure you click the option for your link to open in a new window. You don’t want people to leave your website! Links also attract the people you are linking to. They build credibility and make it seem like you are not pulling information out of anywhere. Big Commerce explains that Link Building is ESSENTIAL for small businesses and is something you can ask for from your vendors and associates. What a great idea!
Factual:
With Google these, you should be able to find facts and figures for just about any topic. NeonGoldFish writes about the fear that some have about trusting blogs because of inaccuracy and subjectivity. I think we consumers, producing content, to be consumed, so we can consume more, is hurtful. Sharing facts, information, links, credible sources, is important and something we can all take a little more time to do.
Grammar:
Download Grammarly, pay for the upgrade, and use it. Grammarly helps to ensure your tone is consistent. It corrects spelling and is just a great, easy tool for professionals who are writing quickly. There is a really funny Quora on this topic and it brings me so much joy. I stan overly crediting apps for revolutionary concepts. I don’t know why I find things like this so funny, but I do!
Headings:
They should be bigger than the content. Use them. They pop up in the Google Search. Enchanting Marketing has a KILLER POST about the ins and outs of business blogs and headings and here is the link to their blog, go check it out (AFTER YOU GET TO THE BOTTOM OF MINE OF COURSE 🙂
Indexing:
Is like the file cabinet of the Internet. It organizes keywords and information and assesses validity, principal, authenticity, value. It is conscious of the internet. SEM Rush explains that looping redirects, errors, walls, all result in poor indexing. Make sure you are checking the functionality of your website regularly.
Juice:
WooRank has an AMAZING post about what SEO juice is, complete with gorgeous visuals and a stellar video. Linking, highly valuable content is essential to having SEO juice. The juice is what you get with good rankings and indexing scores from the crawling Google spiders. Is it making more sense now? I hope so. Look at WooRank’s Domain Authority. (PS, I GOT THAT DATA FROM A LINK ON WOORANK’S SITE. SEE HOW IT WORKS?)
Keywords:
Keywords DRIVE people to your website. Knowing your keywords informs you as to how people are getting to your website and what they are looking for. Gold Coast’s site visitors are looking for GOLD COAST. They already know the name and the brand, (because they have near-perfect social media lol), so visitors are simply coming to the website to verify what they already think, and also book an estimate.
Links:
Links drive engagement, engagement increases ranking, ranking increases access, and access increase visibility, which leads to clicks, which leads to cash.
Meta description:
This is the description of your blog or website that pops up on Google. It should be packed with keywords and paint an exact picture of the value of your services and products.
No Index:
Do this for staff pages, landing pages, exclusive pages that you do not want to pop up in search.
Optimization: This increases the quality and quantity of the traffic to your site.
Plagiarism: Don’t do it!
Queries: This is the meat and potatoes of your blog. What are people wondering and how are you helping them?
Redirect: When your pages redirect, if they have errors, if you add and delete pages… it decreases your ranking. So clean up your blog!
Solutions: This is what your blog must offer
Trust: Earn it by being authentic and professional and helpful.
Understand the needs of your audience. You do this through regular calculations and analytics
Voice: Reflect the voice of the author. If you are a small business writing for yourself, then just be you! If you are a copywriter, that’s a whole different ball game and requires a great deal of research!
Word count: Too many with kick you out, not enough will kick you out. There are actually specific numbers of words for each channel that are preferred. Look them up and know em!
XML Site Map: Tells users where your posts are, which ones are popular, and which ones to read next
Yahoo! Weebly refers to this as the first search engine.
Zest. You need it. In your writing!
