SEO Basics: To Grow Your Site’s Traffic, Make It More Visible

June 15, 2018June 15, 2018 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 13 Comments

If you’re like me seeing the terms SEO, METADATA, or ANALYTICS, makes me dizzy. It feels as if I’m trying to decipher a foreign language without a clue how to begin. Thankfully, WordPress offers plenty of resources to help.

So, if SEO confuses you as it does me, check out this article on the basics of SEO.

via SEO Basics: To Grow Your Site’s Traffic, Make It More Visible

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story. I’m all ears and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram. You can follow my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Your Year in Review

April 29, 2016December 19, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 19 Comments

Day 25: #AtoZChallenge

WordPress does a phenomenal job keeping up with our blog stats. At the end of the year, they send you an annual report: Your Year in Review.

The report includes:

Posting Patterns – including your longest blogging streak and your Best Day.
Posts that received the most views.
Top Referring sites.
The total number and name of the countries visiting.
The post receiving the most comments and who commented.

To improve your outreach, it’s important to review your stats on a regular basis.

Things you can discover to improve your blog’s performance:

Who’s following and how long.
Where referrals are generated.
The most active keywords.
Who’s leaving comments?
The number of clicks.
The number of visitors.
The most popular day and time to post.
The most popular posts and pages.
The post receiving the most comments.
Total Shares.

Want to see what the report looks like? Click here to see the Cow Pasture 2015 annual report.

So, what about you? Do you review your stats page? Do you use the information to improve your outreach? I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, and Contently.

Keywords- Why are They Important

April 13, 2016October 21, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 31 Comments

Day 11: #atozchallenge

All Bloggers are, theoretically, familiar with the term keywords. If you’re like me, understanding what they are and what they do for our blogs is still a mystery. I’ll admit, this is one area of blogging, I haven’t gotten a complete grasp on, yet.
Keywords are words or phrases used in search engines to find the information we’re seeking. For example, place any word or phrase (best is 3-5 words) into Google, Bing, or Yahoo and a list of content reflecting your topic will appear. Keywords are either short tail (one word) or long tail (a phrase). Every article or blog content can be reduced to a few key topics. The trick is to choose your keywords carefully. Common keywords will receive thousands of clicks per day, others a few. As a blogger, you want the find and use the keywords that increase traffic to your site.

How to Find the Right Keywords:

Research keywords.
Keep track of your keywords in a spreadsheet – include the number of clicks per day.
Don’t spam – using keywords arbitrarily.
Write great content that people want to read.
Once you find relevant keywords, place them where they’ll give you the biggest bang.

4 Keyword Mistakes:

Too many keywords – best for search engines to use one per post.
Using exact phrases – Google understands related words and phrases. Don’t be so rigid.
Not using keywords in photos – photo optimization is essential.
You don’t research keywords

Resources for Finding Trending Keywords:

• Hubspot – Download your SEO template to organize keywords
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• SEMrush.com & Market samurai – find out what keywords are competitive.
• Keyword Finder

Where to place the keywords:

Title.
Heading and subheadings.
Introduction sentences.
Concluding paragraphs and meta descriptions.
Title tag.
In the text, you hyperlink to other pages.
When you use photos, include keywords in the file name
When you reference other links.

Want more information on keywords? Check out these articles:

So, what about you? Do you have a grasp on keywords?

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilagood, and Contently

How to Write Headlines that Stand Out in Search Engines

April 9, 2016October 21, 2016 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 33 Comments

Day 8: #atozchallenge

Writing the headline for an article or blog post seems easy, but easy doesn’t always get you the response you want.

Headlines play a significant role in how your posts rank in search engines. Some will get more social shares and click-throughs than others. Why?

It’s all in the words you choose. Think keywords, common, uncommon, and power words.

Statistics reveal lists, and how-to headlines get better traction while emotional or positive headlines get shared more often. Having the right combination of words and the right length will make your headline stand out.

The free headline analyzer from Co-schedule will help you learn to write the best and most compelling headlines.

In addition to the analyzer, CoSchedule provides word lists that will help drive traffic to your blog. Download your copy here.

The headline for this post scored – 70 A+

What do you think? Do you think headlines make a difference? Do you think about your headline? I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, and Contently.