Get MORE VIEWS! || Simple SEO for Blogs, YouTube, and Social Media
S E O, search engine optimization, it is often
dotted as the save all of digital marketing with good reason. At one point, the concept of
SEO was reserved for blogs and websites but it's since expanded into Youtube, Pinterest, and now
digital marketers are talking about SEO on Tik Tok and Instagram even. And I do admit that SEO can
sound really fancy and self-important at times and often really pretentious and confusing. To the
point where beginners feel really intimidated. But search engine optimization is really just
a fancy way of saying that you are setting up your content so that it can be found on search
engines like Google, or Youtube, or Ask Jeeves, Bing, are either of those used anymore? You can
dive really deep into SEO but you can still be incredibly successful just remembering two key
concepts. And it all comes down to keywords. Specifically, keyword usage and keyword research.
If you've watched my intro to Pinterest video this might sound familiar, keywords or key phrases
are the terms that describe what your content is about.
So you need to be using them
in your content. Think about it this way, if you want your blog post to rank on Google,
in other words show up in the top search result, for a specific query, you need to include that
query and variations of it in your blog post so that Google and other search engines know to serve
it to those looking for it. If I make a blog post trying to rank for purple ombre box braids but
I somehow never use those words in the post how on earth is Google going to know what I'm
writing about? So where do we put those keywords? Editing Kaya here, because I really want to
hammer in SEO for social media platforms too.
No matter the platform, the algorithms are scanning
everything they possibly can to properly identify, categorize, and serve your content to the correct
audience. So you want to put your keywords everywhere you can. So for Instagram, that's your
captions, your alt text, your hashtags, closed captions if applicable, say the words if you
are speaking to the camera or doing a voiceover. And for Tik Tok, honestly, the same thing. And for
a blog, well they should be included organically all throughout the text. As well as in your title,
your headers, alt text for relevant photos, your meta description, but please don't keyword stuff
or try any sleazy tactics like writing the keyword a million times and changing the text colour to
white. The search engines can see right through that and you will be penalized and it does affect
user experience for anybody using screen readers. When trying to determine if I have used keywords
enough, and in the right places, I will turn to my Yoast plugin.
It is not foolproof but it will
guide me and tell me if I am using my keywords too often and whether or not I have included them
in all the best places. But here's the thing, just including keywords that you think best
describe your content, or for queries that you are hoping to rank for on Google, that's not going to
cut it. You need to do research keyword research is a critical part of any SEO strategy. You need
to look at two things first. How many people are searching for a specific keyword? In other words,
is there enough demand for this query? Second thing you want to look at is how competitive
it is. How much well-optimized content already exists for this search query? If your blog is on
the newer side and doesn't have very much traffic or authority yet you won't be able to outrank
a post from a major website instead look for similar keywords.
Some synonyms perhaps or try key
phrases that are on the longer side and might be less competitive to search these two things. I use
keysearch.com for my blog. It also has a gajillion other very useful features like analyzing my
content and recommending similar keywords to try. And then for Youtube, I use Tubebuddy to do my
keyword research. If you want to check out either of those tools and support this channel I do have
affiliate links in my description. I also have a discount code for key search. When it comes to
researching keywords on social media platforms the tools aren't as sophisticated so more often
than not, that's going to look like going into the search bar beginning to type in your key phrase
and looking at what autocompletes.
Because those are likely to be some of the most highly searched
topics. Then when it comes to competition, you want to look at how many people are using those
keywords on Instagram. You can see how many people are using a specific hashtag and on Tik Tok you
can see how many views a particular hashtag has and this by no means is everything you need
to know for SEO but it's definitely a start that will make a powerful difference.
When I
started to include well-researched keywords in my blog posts I started seeing my content
rank more consistently on Google. It took a couple months but I trusted the process.
More blog tips coming soon! Until next time!.
