How to Write a Search Optimized Blog Post by doing it Backwards

I'm pleased to bring you this special guest post by Seo Expert, Michael Martine:

Search-optimized blog posts are the holy grail of blog writing. Would you like to learn the best step-by-step method for writing them? That’s exactly what I’m going to show you how to do in this post. To be more exact, I’m going to share with you my method for doing this, which works pretty darn well and has also helped my blog consulting clients get massive traffic increases (in one case over 2000%). My method is not the only way to do this, but I invite you try it for a few posts and track your results. See if it works for you. 

The Bass-Ackwards method

The way I do it is completely “bass-ackwards” from how most people write blog posts. The way most bloggers do it is to “just start writing” and try to whip it into some kind of coherent shape afterward. This is especially true for bloggers who suddenly feel “inspired” and then open a vein over their keyboard.

I hate to break it to ya, but that totally sucks for SEO. Why would you want to write a blog post your ideal reader or customer will never find? Does that make any sense if you’re trying to grow your blog? It doesn’t to me. Now, I realize that not every post you write is meant to grab search traffic, but for those that are, my backwards method works. Let’s get started with the first step.

Step 1: Before you write a thing: Keywords

SEO begins before you write a single word. Your first step is to decide what keyword you’re going to target with your post. This keyword should relate to some problem your readers have that needs solving (causing them to search for it and find you). Or it could relate to some kind of entertainment they would search on.

Excluding communications like email or instant messaging and content creation like blogging, those are pretty much the two main reasons people go online: to solve a problem or be entertained – and buying something counts as problem-solving. In either case, they’re likely to search for what they need.

This is where knowing your audience and having a well-defined niche, demographic or lifestyle segment is crucial. If you think your audience is bikers, you’re going to get nowhere. But if you target bike messengers, that’s much better. If you target bike messengers in New York, that could potentially be even better. Specificity = accurate keyword targeting, get it?

If you’re not 100% sure about what keywords you want to target, use your favorite keyword research tools to help you. Search the web for existing blog posts using these keywords and see what people respond to. Get ideas for yourself.

Step 2: Write your headline

So now that you have your keyword, you start writing your post, right? Wrong! You write the headline first. Remember what you were taught about writing in school? Have a thesis and support it with your writing. Think of writing your headline as laying down your thesis. Your headline has to do 2 things simultaneously:

• Target your keyword so as to give your post the best possible chance at ranking #1 in SERPs
  
• Be so compelling your reader can’t click on it fast enough to get to your content (they will only see the headline in their email, feed reader, or as a link on the web such as in social media)
  

The first point is relevant to SEO but if you forget the second point you’ll only get search traffic to your post and no word-of-mouth traffic, which is equally important in my opinion because it leads to more backlinks which is a secondary (and very important) SEO benefit. The right headline is key to a search friendly blog post.

Two power tips for writing a headline for maximum SEO effect:

• Place your keyword as early in the word sequence as possible, do not lead up to your keyword. For example, if your keyword was “potting shed plans,” then Potting Shed Plans Anyone Can Build is a better headline than Check Out These Potting Shed Plans.
  
• Target an exact-match search phrase if you can as your entire headline. Questions your readers ask you are great for this, because people type entire questions as search keywords. Every day I get tons of traffic to How to Wrap Text Around a Video because it’s an exact match keyword.
  

Step 3: Write your first sentence

I bet you thought now the next step to SEO a blog post was finally gonna be write the post. Patience, Padawan! Often, before I write anything, I will write out the sub-headings for a post to give it structure so I don’t wander all over the road as I write. But for SEO purposes, your next real concern is your first sentence:

• Use your main keyword as early in the first sentence as you can (go back and look at the beginning of this post, see what I did there?).
  
• If you want your post to help another post rank for the same keyword, link to it in the first sentence with the keyword as anchor text.
  
• If this feels difficult or awkward, you can learn a lot from journalists, who have been writing in the highly effective “inverted pyramid” style for decades. Read more hardcore news stories to get a feel for this and see examples. I’m not saying your writing should be artless and dry, I’m saying putting some structure onto your writing improves SEO. Don’t give up because it feels awkward (you wimp, LOL): keep practicing so that it becomes second nature.
  

Step 4: Write the rest of your post

YAY! Now you can write the rest of your article. How can we do this for maximum SEO effectiveness? Up until now we haven’t hit the “write for SEO vs. write for people” line. What works best in my experience can be summed up in a few tips:

• Write the post for people first, then tweak for SEO afterward
  
• Tweaking for SEO means using keyword, keyword variants and synonyms without breaking the flow of your writing or making it sound artificial or awkward
  
• Create links to your other content where applicable, using keywords as anchor text

A note about keyword density: opinion on this is all over the map. Google and other search engines heavily weigh factors such as title (headline), URL string, the heading 1 (which should be the post headline in a properly search-optimized theme) and the content. The keyword needs to be in all these places to give the page the highest possible chance of ranking well. It only makes sense that the keyword (and variants and synonyms) appear more than once in the content.

Rather than shooting for a density percentage, aim for including keyword variants and synonyms (which I’ve also done in this post—see if you can spot them).

Step 5: Configure your SEO-friendly theme or SEO plugin settings

If you’re using an SEO-friendly WordPress theme that has its own post-level SEO variables, now is the time to set them. Same if you’re using any SEO plugins that give you post-level variables. A good theme or plugin will let you tweak the following:

• Title (separately from the post headline—usually these are identical to each other)
  
• Description (WordPress and most blog platforms do not natively offer this as a field in your post-writing screen)Whether to nofollow links in the post
  
• Automatic or manual slug clean-up (removing “stop words” or reordering words for better SEO in the post permalink, which is also called a slug)

You’ll notice meta keywords is not mentioned. That’s because no major search engine factors them in their rankings. Unless your subject matter is better served by targeting specialty search engines which use the meta keywords field, you can ignore it.

Go forth and optimize!

I hope you find this useful. Be sure to get a snapshot of your traffic numbers before you start doing this in earnest, then give it a go for every post you write for 30 days. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t see an increase in search traffic by the end of 30 days.

Michael Martine is the author of WordPress SEO Secrets and offers blog consulting services at Remarkablogger as well as free content daily. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for more blog SEO links every day.

Which Type Of Internet Marketer Are You?

So which kind of internet marketer are you really?

Take the test…

Okay it's not a test, and this might only be my imagination, but I do believe there are different types of online marketers floating in and out of my online vision.  It's not just how you see yourself here, but how others see you and how you come across.

Apologetic - This is the person who is afraid to market at all and will just put up a website and hope people will find it.  They're afraid to put their face to it just in case the product isn't really good enough, and they don't want to upset anyone by being thought of as a "marketer" because they think that word has a bad connotation.

Over-eager - This type is in your face, all the time, doesn't miss an opportunity, and has kind of a funny light in their eyes if you meet them face to face.  An example of this is the custom jewelry party rep whose son played soccer with my son.  Upon meeting her at a game, she gave me her business card and her elevator speech and then used the team email roster to send me invites to her jewelry parties.

Spammy - We all know what this one does and it gives the rest of us marketers a bad name.  Are your marketing methods clean?  I believe they can be clever and innovative while clean.  Enough said here.

Backdoor - Similar to apologetic in that they don't openly market, but they come in with their product via the back door.  They talk about their products in a non-threatening (non-marketing) way.  This doesn't always work because not everyone can connect the dots and make it to the sales page.  A perfect example of this is my last post, although my intention really was to talk about a process and my insights rather than to openly sell.  I wanted to talk about the cake, but if anyone wanted to eat the frosting, well, that was icing on my cake!  Ok, that was a stupid attempt at an analogy.  So here's a better one…

Sideline - This person is a self-imposed benchwarmer.  He's learned all about the game, he's dressed the part, he wants to play… but he's NOT.  He has those cool breakaway sweat pants but he never gets out on the court to rip them off.   Now, he may have a plan – he wants to get as many loyal friends and family to the game first, before he wows them with his 3-point shots, and that's fine as long as he does intend to play.  Otherwise, why constantly show up and not put yourself in the game?  

Practically perfect marketer - Like the 3 little bears, this one is just right.  But this is just an illusion because you can never really be perfect to everyone.  Some will see you as pushy, others will think you should promote more.  And you will cross various lines and dip into the other categories listed here. The different will be that you do so with purpose.  It will be part of your overall plan to push harder with your new product, build an awesome blog that promotes nothing, create niche sites that pre-sell affiliate products, and offer advice to help others with no strings or affiliate links attached.

Well, that's a wrap, I think, unless you have something to add?

• Do you fall into any of these categories?  Or more than one?
  
• Do you have another category to add?
  
• Does it really matter what type of Internet marketer you are?

I croaked when I got this email…

Have you ever gotten an email that gave you that punched in the gut feeling?  I felt like that yesterday. All I could think of was my hard work going down the drain and losing customers (before I even had them, mind you!)

Maybe you got the same email I did?

It was from Jimmy D. Brown, Mr. Nearly Perfect Guru With Integrity?

His email was about a new ecourse on how to profit from PLR and also how to sell PLR.  Ding ding ding!  The alarm was going off inside my head.  I just released my new ebook, Become a PLR Writer. I didn't do a big launch, just let my friends know.  Plus I did an interview with Tristan Higbee that was lots of fun.  I've been working up the backend and starting to talk to affiliates. 

photo credit: liewcf

So I'm thinking my ebook is now sunk in the water and I go off to wallow in self-misery.  If this isn't a good excuse to break out the chocolate, I don't know what is.

So while I'm having my private pity party and wondering how the little guys, like me, can compete with big marketers like Mr. Nearly Perfect Guru With Integrity, I come up with a couple thoughts.

1.  His product is targeted more towards people who want to learn how to use PLR successfully.  Yes, it's a two part deal, but more emphasis seems to be on learning to profit from PLR.  And the promo emails I've received from his affiliates are pushing that angle.

2.  His product comes with a steeper price tag, $197.  I'm absolutely sure it's worth it.  I own several of his products myself and I know Jimmy D. Brown puts out nothing but the best.  But my point here is he is targeting a different customer base than I am. 

I am offering a product for just under $18 and I think that appeals to many people who are looking for an online business model they can follow without having to spend a lot of money.  I could have added more to the product, but then I would have raised the price and that would defeat my purpose.

Okay, I feel a bit better. And you know what?  I made 2 more sales while I was feeling miserable. 

Don't get me wrong, I feel great about Become a PLR Writer and I believe it can really help people. I'm also very excited about the backend product I'm putting the finishing touches on.  It's not about the money (ok, a little) but it's more about knowing something really well and passing it on to help others.

Slow and steady wins the race (that cliche is for you, Mark at icebluebanana.com)  and I won't stop putting out products!

Thanks for listening, er… reading.

I'd like to hear what you think!

• Has this ever happened to you?
• What price point would you rather buy at (with the value of the product in line with the price point)?
• How do you market your products to make them stand out in the crowd?

New update! My Cool Secret Blog Commenting Tool

 

UPDATE! - The creator of this tool read this post, listened to what the commenters' said and is offering anyone reading this a discount !  Kudos to Joe Marsh, I've never seen this happen before and I want to say thank you (if you're coming back to read this post again.)  Anyway, the special offer is good through January 30th.  New update – the discount is over but read on to see what this tool is about and whether it would benefit you.

The original post…

 

This secret blog commenting tool helps me leap tall buildings in a single bound.

[Insert my head on Superman's body graphics here]

I'd like to tell you about it and what it's done for me. Not an official case study; more like an unofficial relaxed listing of benefits. The ride has been pretty cool!

 

But first I want to mention a few facts (as I see them):

1.  Commenting on other blogs is a positive thing for the commenter in many ways. You can cement your status as an expert in your field, get traffic and comments to your site, build relationships that are not only fun but can result in successful business endeavors, and more.

2.  Comments should add value to the poster's post or be encouraging or somehow be a part of the conversation, not spammy.  Posting something like, "Awesome post man! Thanks!" won't get you anywhere.

Okay, now that we've established that commenting on blogs is a desirable activity, let's talk about WHEN to post a comment and on WHICH blogs.

First, to state the obvious, commenting on blogs that are similar or complimentary to yours is most advantageous for building your brand/expertness, getting targeted traffic, growing helpful relationships, and selling what you might be offering on your blog. 

Yes, there will always be blogs you want to comment on because you enjoy what they write, but this post is not about that!

As far as when to post?  Being one of the first is important, because then your comment is more likely to be read by everyone who reads the blog post.  Honestly, do you, yourself, read every comment on a blog when there are 112, 47, or even 28?  Nope.  If your comment is one of the first, it gets read more and your link clicked more often, which means more traffic.

So here is the tool I use: Traffic Sponge (aff link)

Basically, you load in the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs, which is really simple, then tell it to let you know in a popup on your screen the very minute a new blog post has been posted.  Viola!  You know before the ink is dry and the blogger's had a chance to tell his subscribers that a post is ripe for commenting.

You can set the popup, which shows in the lower right corner of your screen, for the length of time you want it to stay open. I have mine set for a couple of minutes.  If I've been away for a while I'll just click on the icon and see if my favorite bloggers have done anything in my absence.

It can also be set up to send you an email or a text message, but I'm good with the popup (see below).

These are the ways using Traffic Sponge has benefited me:

My blog traffic has increased.

My lists have grown in numbers. I don't always put the same website link. I'll usually rotate them or put the one that's most applicable to the blog I'm posting on.

My Alexa scores have improved (gone down).

I'm getting some much needed backlinks.

I'm building relationships with the blog owners, which is HUGE and has far-reaching implications. 

- allowed me to ask for help and be helpful to others. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and like to help.

- kept my name in front of a marketer who had promised to promote one of my products. They remembered and promoted.

- led to an interview and a chance to show my expertise.

- resulted in bloggers asking for my affiliate links x 3 to helpful products I mentioned.

- meant a guest posting gig.

- was asked to do a JV project.

- led to getting a paid product for free! 
The story here - I'd been commenting (as one of the first) regularly on 2 particular blogs. When I commented on Blog #2 about something they said about Blog #1, apparently Blog #1 noticed.  Shortly after that I purchased a new tool from Blog #1 marketer and he refunded my money and personally thanked me for my comments on Blog #2 and said he appreciated me commenting on his own blog.  Did you follow that?  If not, the main takeaway is bloggers notice and appreciate your comments, especially if done with some regularity!

Disclaimer – Not all blogs are created equal as far as traffic goes. You have to look at your stats and judge for yourself. I was surprised to see that posting first on one popular IM blog sent very little traffic my way.  But I think the more I comment there and build up my brand, the better. 

Also, Traffic Sponge doesn't help me when the blogger posts while I'm sawing logs.  I check it in the morning and comment where I want to.  Note to self – Become fully awake and have some coffee before commenting.

Why is it secret?  I don't think that many people know about it.  At least I haven't seen it mentioned by anyone else.

I do like to have a little fun with Traffic Sponge and challenge myself sometimes.  My biggest coup was being the FIRST commenter on Problogger one time!  You can have different motives than mine, but it's a handy tool for getting notified of your favorite bloggers' posts as soon as they happen. 

Warning: This Post Is All About ME!

2011

"The very best way to make 2011 the best it can be is to leverage your past experience." ~ Rich Schefren 

To move forward successfully, I have to look back. And it's always easier for me to point out what I did wrong or didn't do than to pat myself on the back for my accomplishments.

So to properly focus, I'm going to answer these questions from Rich's One Step Ahead newsletter:

What were your greatest accomplishments in 2010?

I'd say writing a complete PLR package that sold really well and people were happy to have, was one of my accomplishments. I am happiest when my products help make other people money, and me money too.

I also feel I stepped up my PLR business a few notches by adding a blog, targeting niches people want PLR in, creating PLR for autoresponders, targeting ClickBank products, adding reseller PLR packages for those just starting out in the PLR biz and need PLR to sell, doing a complete package deal, and writing articles about how to use PLR.

I finally did a mind map of where I want to take this business and I'm excited because I started working it in the last quarter of 2010.

I attended my first IM seminar in Florida in January. I met some great people and did my best to network between sessions.

I created several info products and I'm happy about that.

I blogged more on my own blog which was one of my goals for the year.

On a more personal note – I finally went to Europe! Yay me! I've dreamed of it for years and I finally took action. Now that I've broken the ice on my international traveling, I'm looking to set up a new big travel goal for 2012.

 

 

What were your biggest disappointments in 2010?

I played too many games of Spider Solitaire and while I did do a lot of product creation, it wasn't as much as I know I'm capable of.

I didn't make as much money as I wanted to. I'd rather create than market what I create.

I dropped the ball on creating more PLR packages for my PLR-Packages site. I wanted to do one every other month or one a quarter.  I did lose my tech partner and that definitely threw me off.

I didn't make time for more seminars. I would like to go to NAMs and meet some of the people I've had dealings with online. I'd like to take our relationships to a new level. Lol.

 

How did you limit yourself last year, and how can you remove those limits in 2011?

I'm still not real comfortable doing videos or podcasts so I'm going to force myself to do more of them and get comfortable.

I'm also going to clone myself, or at least up my vitamins so I can be uber productive.

 

What did you learn from your answers to the first three questions?

I've got to step up my marketing efforts!
I've got to outsource more because I'm only one person!
I've got to keep stepping out of my comfort zone.

 

How can you use this information to make 2011 your best year yet?

Umm… that's the million dollar question, isn't it?

I've seen how important it is to have a long-term plan in place. I've always had To Do lists, but nothing written down for the long-term big picture. That's something I've learned from Rich Schefren.  He's da man!

 

Looking ahead…

In 2011 – I'm going to Disneyland!!  Just kidding.  I've always wanted to say that like the football players do after winning the Super Bowl.

I just wrote an ebook called Become A PLR Writer! I now have to get busy promoting it.  Writing I love, marketing not so much.

I had a huge PLR-related idea the other night and lost almost a full night's sleep because of it. I will start in on it just as soon as I finish up a project I've been dragging my feet on forever. Now I've got a reason to hurry and finish the darn thing.  I tested the market and I'm quite excited about the possibilities of this new idea! This is going to be my big focus starting ASAP.

I'd like to do more guest posting this year, about anything IM-related or kids learning-related.

I'm going to take a look at all my niches and update or toss them. I've got a plan all worked up, but just need to carve out time to start the process.

I'd like to finish the book I've been writing on and off, but it's not something I'm going to push hard.

I want to try a working vacation. Work in the mornings and play in the afternoons, or the other way around. That sounds wonderful to me!

I want to comment on blogs lots more. There are some amazing blogs out there and a real blogging community I'm enjoying becoming a part of.  Thanks, Tristan Higbee, from bloggingbookshelf. 

How about you?

• What was one of your biggest accomplishments last year?
  
• What are some of your big or small goals for 2011?