Get on the front page of search listings without SEO – it’s called blogging

This is a guest post by Nikki Pilkington, digital marketing extraordinaire. With many small businesses more than a little baffled by search engine optimisation (SEO), we asked if there were any other techniques that could be implemented more easily to help get a small business up the search engine rankings.

Some say that SEO is a black art, others claim it is a science. If you read all the blogs, ebooks and articles out there, it can seem that SEO is a bit of a minefield There’s META tags and titles, alt tags and content, keyword density and page rank, links and reciprocal links – and that’s just for starters. No wonder the average business is confused when it comes to SEO!

After reading all there is to read, and heeding the warning tales of dire Google penalties if you get it wrong, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only way you’re going to get that coveted front page on Google is by paying an SEO expert hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds.

Well you’ll be delighted to know that there is another way, and all it needs to take is a little of your time.

What do you have to do?

Start blogging!

OK, it’s not just a case of writing the first thing that comes into your head, but believe me, blogging really can help your search engine positions. Here are 5 simple steps to blogging for search engine positions.

1) Find out what keyphrases your audience are searching for

Use the Google Keywords tool to find out what people are searching for related to your industry. Do you sell a particular range of jewellery or handbag? Look and see what phrases people are looking for regarding those items. A professional service? Find out the issues people are having. Knowing what people are searching for allows you to tailor your blogs to those phrases.

2) Write your blog titles with those phrases in mind

One of the most visited pages on my blog recently is the ‘What size should the new Twitter background be?’ post. With ‘New Twitter’ being launched, I knew that people would be wondering how to redesign their new backgrounds, so I wrote a blog post with that in mind. You can do the same. Solve a problem ‘How to’, ‘How can I’, How do I’ blog posts that answer queries and problems tend to do well in search engines, and bring in visitors.

3) Make sure you use your keyphrase in the body of your post

Don’t just put your phrase in your blog title, make sure it’s used a couple of times in the body of your blog too. That way Google will know that your post is relevant to the phrase being searched for.

4) Update your blog regularly

Google will come back and index content that is updated regularly, so ensure that your blog is updated frequently It doesn’t have to be every day, but a couple of times a week at least is optimal.

5) Link to your blog posts

Tweet them, Facebook them, refer to them from your website – Google follows links, and the more relevant links you have to your post, the more likelihood of it being indexed. Don’t spend hours on this; a few well placed links will do the job.

The simple fact is that Google loves content – and the more keyword strong content you can post, the more chance you have of being indexed and being found by people searching.

Want to find out more about Blogging for SEO? Download Nikki’s free guide: 67 SEO Tips for Blogging Beginners

Nikki Pilkington is owner of NikkiPilkington.com, an Internet marketing agency based in the UK and France, specialising in helping SMEs promote their websites through SEO and Social Media Marketing. She is also author of ebook 299 Steps to Blogging Heaven.