Improving blog visibility

Business blogging tip 5 – improving blog visibility

Where’s the best place to hide a dead body?

The answer is on the second page of Google search.  Because no-one will ever look there!

Most bloggers work at improving blog visibility so their site is found on the first page of Google search.

So what are the things you can do to make sure you have a chance to be seen?

5 tips for improving blog visibility

Use SEO plugins

Making sure you have the right keyword in the right places, and your post or page is optimised for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).  This is essential when you’re looking to improve blog visibility.

WordPress SEO by Yoast takes all the guesswork out by having an onscreen tick list of what to do. There are other SEO plugins but this has been my plugin of choice for a long time.

Keep your site lean

Bloating your site with large images, lots of revisions on your posts and pages, too many plugins and a stuffed database will slow your site down to a crawl. Which means that people will give up before your beautiful content appears and the Google algorythm will mark you down.

All my images are around 125kb in size. You want to aim at a page or post being less than one megabit. Then you’ll get faster loading.

If you need to clear out revisions and tidy up your database then the WP Sweep plugin will do the job nicely.

Make sure your site is mobile friendly

The number of people using smart phones and tablets has exploded over the past 2 years. In fact across the globe mobile devices dominate minutes spent online, with the UK at 61% and Indonesia at 91%!

So if your site is not optimised for smart phones and tablets you are missing out big time. Here are the latest figures on mobile usage which prove the point.

You can check if your site is mobile friendly by using this Google tool. If it’s not you may just need to change your theme to get in on the mobile action. A bit of titivating might be required to sort your content out once you’ve done that though. Do a Google search for responsive themes to find one that suits your market.

Social media sharing

Being found on Google isn’t the only place you can pick up visitors. A lot of traffic can be driven to your site via social media. In the good old days of Twitter, 25% of traffic for my partner’s Work from Home site came from tweeting regularly and consistently. There’s still traffic to be had from here but the world of social media is ever-changing.

Facebook is a more reliable source of traffic now and Stumbleupon can often give a spike in visits.

Being shared by an influencer helps too. I’ve had spikes in traffic that have occurred because someone with lots of followers on social media had shared and endorsed a post or article.

Consistent content

I’m guilty of not being consistent in posting content. The reason is that I’m often working on other people’s blogs. Recently I’ve been focusing on my personal development blog so my eyes have been off the ball.

Fortunately I have lots of drafts on this blog that I can come back to and shoot out something when I have a clear couple of hours. In fact this is one of them!

Being regular with your blogging means that Google will like you more. When Google sends out its search robots to check your site it recognises if things have changed. If you have added a blog post or other content it interprets that to mean you are up to the minute and actively working on your content. That means they will call back regularly to see when there is something new.

Improving blog visibility doesn’t happen overnight though. You need to be patient and measure your success.

Be a tortoise not a hare!