4 tips to please your audience and Google.

Post #2 of Love your Blog, Love your tribe series. #loveyourblogtribe

I worked as a restaurant waitress and told my then-crush that I would not be attending church theater rehearsal because I had to go to work that night. He was super bummed, looked me up and down and licked his lips. It did feel a bit hot in that grocery store for a split second, and off I went to work. I could not stop thinking about him, and luckily it was a super slow night and I begged to leave early. I was starving, and I thought maybe he’ll want to join me for dinner… so I called him ( texting was not that big back then) and he said yes. Eeek!

When I stopped by to pick him up, he was wearing flip-flops and shorts, and he also basically left his wallet at home. He drank one soda and I ordered my chicken caesar salad. He talked and talked and talked, telling me stories about his funny aunts, mom, and friends from Brazil. I ate and stared, eyes wide open, as I chewed lettuce piece after lettuce piece. I knew it wasn’t a fancy dinner or well-planned date, but I still felt a bit let down.

Have you ever gone on a date and the person was not put together? [bctt tweet=”Well, if you want to establish that long-term relationship with Google, then you need to come prepared.” username=””].. and guess what? Google will have some expectations and so will your audience!

4 tips to please Google and your audience

If you missed my last blog post on how you can give your blog some love and start getting it prepared like you’re going on a hot date for Valentine’s Day, then you can read the blog tips here.

So now that you’ve cleaned up some and gotten your mani-pedis, it’s time to choose what to wear for your special date. Looks matter.  Lets chat a bit about how your blog is looking, shall we?

#1. Do a branding check up.  What many creatives don’t realize is that one the biggest aspects of SEO in 2017 is user friendliness, which means how easy it is to navigate your website or blog.  This starts with brand messaging and if your audience feels they can trust you when they arrive. How is your overall branding when someone lands on your website? When you think about your brand, what are some emotions you want people to feel? Is your current website design portraying that? If not, are there any tweaks you can make to move towards the direction you want it to go? If you need branding advice, I recommend you follow the following people: Flourish Collaborative, Miss Brittany from Miss B Fab and Rock Your Weird. My friend Carrie from Rock Your Weird has a cool branding course too. I love how she teaches on how your uniqueness can help you stand out from the crowd and attract your ideal audience.

You may not be able to afford a brand expert right now, but you can still make changes to showcase a more consistent message. I recently purchased this new blog theme by Bluchic, and it’s already increased my organic Google traffic by 15% in less than two weeks and increased my social reach 40%. My new design has also helped me get more e-mail sign-ups, a great small investment and a few hours of my time.

#2. Create visuals.  Blogging graphics is important, and consistency is key. This is one area I am still perfecting, to be honest, so I look at how blog posts look side-by-side and evaluate how the graphics look on Pinterest, on IG and in my post. If you’re an infopreneur, you are probably doing graphics with text, as you see in my post here. If you are a photographer, you may only be doing graphics for content like posts. For example, top 10 Philly wedding venues, 5 great locations for engagement photos. You can create a Pinterest-type graphic with text just for your Pinterest or as your featured photo. You can use a site like Canva to do the graphic or even create it in Photoshop. Definitely follow Brittany from Miss Fab B to learn a little more about visuals if you are not used to doing graphics.

I love how I can create folders in Canva for different things I need graphics for one of my video series called Blogging Matters.

 #3. Social Media branding. Is it en pointe? Are your taglines and bio lines consistent? Social links may not be on your blog, but the purpose of social media is to bring people back to your blog content, so it’s important that those social media pages are consistent with your brand. Also, are your blog posts easy to share on social media? Do you have a Pin It button? Or do you only use small text after the post and expect folks to share? Many times that text is small, and many times not everyone reads to the very end, so think of ways to make your posts easy to share. I love using a Related Posts Plugin, Pin It Button plugin, and a Click To Tweet plugin.  P.S I need to do a social media audit myself. 

Hot date time! So, the day to pick up your date is here. You look good, you’re cleaned up, and now you’ll take him or her to a lovely place for a great time or vice versa. You see, your blog is like your home base—this is where it’s your voice, your brand, and you’re taking your reader on a journey. How can you make your reader feel special? How can you make them feel important and how can you serve them?

[bctt tweet=”You can’t love your blog if you don’t love your tribe, so my dear creative, it’s time to love your tribe.” username=”feuza “]

#4. Be a resource. If you follow any of my live streams, you may have seen me say over and over again that the best marketing advice ever is to be a resource for your ideal audience. Be their curator, finder, pretty feed, inspire them, educate them, entertain them. You know what things may impress them on that Valentine’s Day date.  If your tribe loves your blog, sticks around clicking through and coming back, then Google will love your blog and will start trusting you more. Heck, Google may even introduce you to its parents and then things really will get serious. 🙂

How do we keep the date interested? By having interesting content. In other words, information your ideal audience will love.

So tip #4 has extra bonus tips.

So here are some blog content ideas for you.

• Rinse and repeat. Look at your top 5-10 blog posts from last year and guess what—do it again. If it worked last year and brought you traffic, then it’s a topic people enjoyed, so do a part two of it. For the photographers, if your top posts were work related, then see if you can shoot at the same venue, or maybe do an inspiration best-of post from the venue. See what you think was interesting about that shoot or wedding and brainstorm how can you write a part 2 blog post about it.
• Interview vendors. Doing local interview swaps can be great for link building, SEO and general networking, so get a group together in your local market and do an interview exchange.
• Target that audience. Write a non-work-related blog post that pertains to your audience. If your ideal audience is a mom, then moms always need what-to-do ideas with their kids in your town, in the summer, in the winter, during spring break. You get the idea. If it is a bride, then she needs bridal planning tips, bridal shower inspiration, and general wedding planning help.
• F.A.Q. Think of the top 3-5 questions your audience keeps asking you. Those should be blog posts—because if they’re asking you, they’re also searching for it. So be the resource, and have your posts show up.

So you have prepped, you look great, you are being a great date, and heck this may be your best Valentine’s Day ever… I mean best blogging year ever.

P.S. I married that skinny no-wallet flip-flop shorts-wearing crush. Don’t worry, he has way more that made up for that crummy first date.

P.P.S Join the Fuse lounge so you don’t miss any FREE SO audits and fuse news. Sign up here. And if you are brand new to SEO make sure you sign up to my free Mini Keyword course by clicking the pink button on my blog header so just scroll up.