Targeting major keywords with your blog

Many people have heard that having a blog on their site is of great benefit in terms of search engine optimisation. However, if they don’t quite understand the reasons why a blog is of such use, they will often approach blog articles in the wrong way.

Repetitive titles

One mistake that people often make is to target the same handful of phrases again and again. This is often because their website as a whole targets these phrases, but the whole point of a blog is to broaden the number of search terms for which your site will rank. Don’t just put “men’s shoes” in every title, put “brown square-toed loafers” or “black casual slip-on shoes”. Take the opportunity to be specific.

Overly competitive key phrases

Another common mistake is to assume that popular keywords or key phrases will guarantee high traffic. The fact is that the more frequently people search using a particular phrase, the more difficult it is to get traffic.

You can’t just write a news article featuring Britney Spears assuming that you’ll get loads of visitors landing on that page. The reality is that a person searching ‘Britney Spears’ is never going to get down to the 4,500th page of results, which is most likely where your blog article will appear.

With patience and hard work, your blog can bring you healthy numbers of visitors who will be interested in what you offer, but you need to choose the phrases you target sensibly or you’ll be wasting your time.

Alex Bowden
Senior writer