What is one of the most impactful things you can do for your business? Blogging, of course! However, you need to be blogging with a purpose, like keeping SEO in mind. Instead of sharing my own blog SEO tips, I interviewed SEO expert, MaryBeth Bryant. She is generously spreading her wisdom so that you can start seeing results with your blogs.
(She basically taught me everything I know on SEO so I’m so grateful she let me pick her brain and share it here for you to learn, too!)
Before we officially begin, MaryBeth, could you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m MB and own MB Bryant Images, serving families, small businesses and dogs with modern down to earth photos. Many don’t know that before becoming a photographer full time I was also a business analyst and I’m equally passionate about helping other photographers learn skills like SEO, ideal clients, effective web design and more. I want other creatives to feel confident tackling the more analytical parts of their business so they can focus on the stuff they enjoy most about their business.
Let’s dive in with the first question!
What is the most common SEO blogging mistake?
The biggest mistake I see people make is not doing keyword research (or even choosing a keyword) when writing a blog. You should intentionally choose a keyword for each blog that serves you well in your SEO strategy. That keyword will consistently be reused in your blog to tell search engines what your post is all about.
Make sure you do your research on your keyword as well. Have you checked to see if anyone is searching that term? If not, you might be writing a post that no one will ever end up on. Keyword research is a vital step.
What are your top two blog SEO tips that will help people optimize their blog?
Well, I’m going to give you three since I already mentioned the first.
- Choose an SEO keyword for your blog that you know will convert.
- Use your header tags to support your keyword. Break up your text with subheadings (H2 tags) and make some of them include your keyword. – For example, in this post the questions in bold are H2 tags.
- Linking – Google loves links. Internal links (back to other blog posts) and external links (to sites other than your own) tell google what your page is about. Using thoughtful links that support your SEO keyword improves google’s ability to understand your post.
A good example of a helpful link for a newborn blog post would be linking to your newborn portfolio, other newborn-related blogs, etc. A poor link would be using a link to a wedding photography post on a newborn photography blog.
Any final SEO tips to leave us with?
The best thing you can do for your SEO is really to understand what you’re trying to rank for. Blogging to blog doesn’t really get you anywhere and can actually confuse search engines.
Spend some time to understand what you want to rank for and what other keywords support the main SEO goal.
After you get a good list of things to blog about, dive into understanding what SEO tools you have available to you on your blog and what they mean. Do you know what a header tag is and where you change it on your blog? I recently wrote a blog about SEO terms and their definitions. Check it out if you’re still learning the ins and outs for SEO terminology.
Thank you, MB, for such a great interview!
You can follow MB on Instagram, or even get on her newsletter for more tips and strategies for improving your SEO for your business.
Looking for support in a community of photographers who want to grow their business while maintaining better work-family balance? Come join us over on Facebook.
Comments +