Given that I am a new blogger, I am still learning a lot of things about websites, social media, and social marketing. I do not know it all as I’m still learning, but I decided to write about the thing giving me the most trouble at the moment. I want to discuss what I know so far about SEO and why it’s so important for bloggers or anyone who has an e-commerce business.

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) basically enhances the discovery of a webpage through specific writing styles. In order for search engines like Google or Yahoo to find your page, you have to make it accessible for the internet to discover the content of your page. For example when I google, “How to bake a cake” it will pick up websites that use the keywords such as “how to” “bake” or “cake”.  It will also search for slugs (wording in the url for example, “www.sheresenicole.com/01/07/2017/how-to-bake-vanilla-cake”) that indicate what the website is about. Think of it as a table of contents where search engines can locate your information easily.

Why is this important?

One common suggestion I got when I launched this blog was that my content had to be consistent. Well, it isn’t lol but another thing I realized was it needs to be accessed in other ways beyond social media. So yes I do need consistent content, but what good is that content without any reach?

Social media is a useful platform for bringing attention to your website. I would say Instagram helps me get the likes on individual content, but it doesn’t necessarily carry over onto my website.  What actually pulls viewers onto my actual page would be internet searches (Pinterest and Facebook are actually helpful too, but I’ll discuss that in another post).

If getting your content out there to be accessed is important to you, which it may not be in the beginning but eventually, then maybe you might want to consider adding SEO plug-ins to your page.

There is a formula to SEO

What I find almost frustrating is that in order for my content to be highly ranked it needs to be written following a set of rules. Much in the same way you can only answer an algebraic equation following BEDMAS is the same way in which SEO works. No long sentences (I’m really good at that), frequent subheadings, usage and placement of keywords etc. will put you in the higher ranking of search engine finds along with other criteria.

Where to look for more information

You can find all you need to learn and more on SEO by searching the net of course! I’ve read several articles on SEO and I still don’t completely understand it. I was tipped on the idea of SEO by writing in to Pipdig customer support team (one of the perks I have due to purchasing this template). If there’s anything I’ve realized so far with my blog it’s that you will have learn a lot of things on your own.

Once again, if you are enjoying writing your blogs the way you have without all the technicalities then continue as so. This isn’t too important for me, but it is helpful to understand a little more about how websites and the internet works. I hope you were able to learn something new from this post. I’ll be continuing this series so look out for my next Blogging 101 topic.

xox