Four blogging mistakes you’re making with your blog which can leave you naked in the eyes of Google!
Blogging is a great tool for any business. It allows you to voice your opinions, reach out to your brand and be a resource. It also helps you get new clients, build your tribe and get sales. The cool thing is that now many blogging platforms also allow you to have a site portion called a blogsite. But, I see a few mistakes that creative-preneurs are making with their blogsites.
I’m going to talk about four mistakes I see people make, in general, because sometimes it’s just small things that are overlooked or just haven’t been thought of, but are important. So let’s tackle those four mistakes.
#1 Lack of pages. For some reason, because we’re not writers or sales copy people, we tend to focus more on the blog part, and we’re not realizing that our site should have pages. This doesn’t mean you need 30 pages, but if you only have two or three, I want to encourage you to add more pages. Search engines look at our sites as a pyramid structure. So it first looks at the page title, then your permalink, and then your nav bar. Next it crawls for links. If you only have blog post categories on your nav bar, you are missing out because having an organized, structured website is essential for the search engine bots, and for your users too. When we talk about pages, this is how Google works.
“But Fusie, I am just a blogger and didn’t even think about having pages on my blog!” or “Fusie, I have my website on another platform, so do I still need pages?” Oh YES YOU DO, and let me give you some ideas on what kind of pages you can have on a blog site.
For Infopreneurs/Biz Coaches: Services Page, About Page, Testimonials Page, Freebies Page
Photographers/Designers: About Page, Mini Gallery Pages, F.A.Q. page, Resource Page, Contact Page.
# 2 Lack of text. This is especially true for designers and creative artists. You get to their site and there is a beautiful slideshow of photos, a perfect promo video, and all this awesome stuff, but there is no information on where they’re located. So your pretty site with all those visuals could look very bare in the eyes of Search Engines. Photographers should be interested in local SEO. You want to be found in the town where you’re living and working around. If you’re a lifestyle blogger, you want to found more for online stuff. Search engines don’t see photos or videos. They see only text. Text is the foundation for building our commercial home on the web. Text is also like the cement that will hold all the walls together and interconnect and interlock so that home is built up and up. What kind of text do you need? You need text about what you do, about what you offer, about the services that you do. You should not have blog categories that are similar. I’ve seen people with 20 different blog categories, you should aim for five to eight. Again, if you want to be found locally, you should say on at least three separate pages where you are and what your services are. If you have a commercial space, your address should be on every page on your site, and on your content page, you should put a widget for a map showing the address. Other text you need on your site is text related to your services and projects. Also, you only want to choose one or two categories for your permalink so it isn’t too long.
#3 Lack of images. Text is the foundation for SEO, but we really want branding and user experience. Don’t have an About Page or a blog post without a photo. We are visual learners, and a lot of people will even break down their blog posts and put little photos in the middle to catch your attention. A lot of us are skimming for information and we’re not reading everything. Use visuals and graphics to make your websites and blogs less boring. People want to physically see what you’re offering, what are they going to see if they sign up for your newsletter? Also remember that we are living in a multimedia world, so offering different types of media on your blogsite helps build a stronger brand because it gives your audience options.
#4 Lack of image optimization. When you upload an image in your blog post, there are areas for you to put text with those photos, because again, search engines do not see photos. There are three different ways to enhance image optimization. Rename your images to something that is related to your product or services. Also use alt text and descriptions that are related. Each photo on your blog becomes its own unique page with its own permalink. You need to make sure you’re optimizing and not missing out on the Google juice. Alt text is the most important because that’s what’s being pulled up in Google Images. If you’re ever in a hurry and you have to blog 20 images, at least fill in the alt text. Your image title, alt text and description should all be different as well.
Overall it is important to have a strong foundation for your blog in order to build your brand online which includes knowing how to optimize or boost your site so Search Engines find you and Google loves you. You need a step by step assistance to making sure you have a strong ranking foundation because after all you have worked so hard on your blog so join me for my 30 days get your blog found course which is now open. Registration closes February 29, 2016 and class starts February 22, 2016. Check out class curriculum and how to enroll here.
To learn more what Google is looking for on your site, grab your free brownie points here.