Roll with me, Henry
Since this post requires work on your part, I think it’s only appropriate that your employer (me!) provide you with music to work by, so roll with me here, Henry.
Many people use WordPress for blogging without actually meaning to make WordPress work for them in terms of Internet exposure and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I do both. Let me explain.
WordPress will love you if you will love WordPress. It takes a little work on your part, such as a consistent blog post. I do at least one blog post per day, sometimes two, and I’ve even done five in one day. Just depends on what else I have going on, but at the absolute minimum I make sure that I get that one blog post up each day.
Another part of your work is to use tags. Let me show you how this works and why it’s important to WordPress.
Early this morning (very early, like sometime around 4:00 a.m.), I published a post titled “In honor of Mitt Romney & snake oil salesmen everywhere.” I used three tags:
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snake pictures
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San Diego Zoo pictures
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Mitt Romney is a snake
The last tag I added by editing the post several minutes after I had published it, just to see what might happen with the search engines.
Here’s where you have to work. Go to Google (google.com) and in the search box type “Mitt Romney is a snake.” The very first return is Romney’s own web site. How funny.
The majority of the other search returns are from such famous and well-known people as Mark Hamil/Luke Skywalker, Lawrence O’Donnell, Tommy Holeman, and Run DNC. They take up the first four pages of Google search returns. One would think that little ol’ Russel Ray of Russel Ray Photos could not compete with those people. But go to page 5 of your search returns. Look at the return that is third from the bottom! That’s me!
If you don’t see me on page 5, look on page 6, or 7, etc., until you find me. I will never move up, but I will move down as people search for “Mitt Romney” and “snake” relating to those famous people.
The key to this is “fresh content,” and that’s where your daily blog post comes in. As you get started, Google might only visit your blog once each quarter. However, when Google comes by and finds that you’ve done 90 posts during that quarter, one each day, Google says to itself, “Self, come by this blog more often to see what this blogger is up to.”
For the next quarter, Google might come by once a month. If you continue to do 30 blog posts per month, Google will say to itself, “Self, let’s come by this blog once a week instead of once a month.”
See where we’re going with this?
Eventually, due to your blogging consistency, Google will be by almost instantaneously after you publish a blog post. As soon as Google indexes you, that will most likely be your highest position in the search returns. I’m on page 5 right now, but at 8:00 this morning, I was at the bottom of page 3.
The fact that you can show up so quickly, as well as move down quickly, too, is why you need to blog daily, persistently and consistently, especially if you actually are trying to get Google to put you in the search returns on page 1 or close to it.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Posted on October 23, 2012, in SNIPPETS and tagged bird of paradise pictures, flower pictures, google search, mitt romney is a snake, search engine optimization, wordpress. Bookmark the permalink. 19 Comments.
Good article on SEO without calling it SEO
Very cool! Thanks, Russel!
Also worth noting — if your content is VERY original (and you do the regular posting as recommended here) then you’ll practically “own” some obscure little corners of the Internet. When I had a kernel of a story idea and googled “potty training gifts for mom,” and got very few matching results, the tags wrote themselves. Same thing for “monarch park stadium,” a new development near my house that had almost no online presence when I first wrote about it. Both were like getting “scoops” and it showed in all subsequent rankings.
True. They teach in real estate SEO school to be very specific. For example, an individual will never win the battle for “San Diego real estate.” However, if I have the listing for 7000-31 Saranac Street, I can easily win the battle for that individual piece of real estate so that if someone does a search for 7000-31 Saranac Street, up pops me!
Great ideas – thanks for generously sharing them…
Thanks. Love the song
Very useful – you are a genius!
I have nominated your blog for “Beautiful Blogger award”. If you want to accept the award, please check my blog for rules etc. : http://exxtracts.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/two-blogger-awards/
Thank you!
and here i was “hooked” by the picture of ‘birthday-girl’ and her early career maker “roll with me henry” only to be educated on seo: nice russel, very cleverly, sneakily nice!! one of these days i’ll actually put this information to use: professor! good job my friend and thank you velly, velly much
awww, I read all the way to the end hoping for that one famous picture of the elusive Mitt Romney Snake! (you know you can do it!!)
Lovely post, thank you,
Anna
I need two good pictures to splice together.
This is very useful, thanks! I’m curious as to what you want to achieve with your blog – is it mostly for fun, or does it help you with your business?
Also, is it important to keep using the same specific tags repeatedly to drive yourself higher in the search engines, or just to post about anything at all, so that Google sees you’re posting something? I don’t know if that question is clear or not. I’m not too clear on all this myself yet!
This blog is mostly for my own personal satisfaction. However, the home inspection and real estate blurb at the bottom of each post definitely help business.
You are so good at sharing the most interesting and useful information… Thanks for taking the time!
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Cat
Thank you for finally putting all the tech talk into language and examples I understand!
My god… this is the best, clearest explanation I’ve ever found. Thanks Ray!
Thanks for the useful info. And rolling with Henry was fun; I enjoyed the music too