When I started blogging back in 2011, it would never have occurred to me that I would have to give two second’s thought to what or how to name blog posts. I just called it what it was. Fast forward to a couple of years and all these internet terms were being thrown around that, to me, sounded like a different language, and still do. I’m certainly no expert but I just wanted to share what has worked for me. I want to give you some advice on how to name your blog posts.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine what? If you haven’t heard that term before you might’ve heard of the acronym ‘SEO’. Search engine optimisation is a term used to basically let search engines, like Google for example, find your website or a page within your website when somebody searches for it.
Now, there is definitely some kind of science behind it but the golden rule I have always followed is this.
Name your blog posts what you would most likely search for.
That’s it. That is the process I use every time I write a blog post. What would I most likely search for if I wanted to find a recipe, craft or piece of advice? It doesn’t always work as some of the more popular subjects I blog about are often ‘beaten’ in the search results by organisations who pay to always be at the top of the search. For example, if I wrote a blog post about Chocolate Chip Cookies, you could only imagine how many other people and larger websites have published recipes for Chocolate Chip Cookies. Based on my location, the chocolate chip cookie recipe by www.taste.com.au came up first.
It’s probably going to be a long shot if your recipe could ever beat that but what I’ve found in analysing search data used to bring people to my website is to put in another word or phrase. For example, I love easy recipes so I would more likely want to search for “quick mix chocolate chip cookies”. In this instance, a recipe from the Woman’s Weekly’s “Food to Love” website came up first. If I typed into my Google search bar “the best chocolate chip cookies” a recipe from AllRecipes.com is displayed first.
If I was to search for “quick mix chocolate chunk cookies” (which is what I called my recipe for a crunchy cookie using chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips), my recipe comes up as number 9 in the search on Google’s front page. Still a little way down but you might find people searching for recipes are tired of the big company’s recipes and would much prefer to give a tried and true recipe from a home baker a go. That’s what I do.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool
It really is a matter of trying out a few different titles but the Google AdWords Keyword Planner can help find out what’s hot and what’s not. This is where it gets too technical for me and I don’t understand it but there are plenty of tutorials and advice out there. I’ve never really had the time or desire to try to understand it.
Organisations like The Hoth (affiliate link) can help bloggers and their businesses set up their websites to achieve the best search engine optimisation and assist in marketing campaigns.
It’s an absolute minefield, for me anyway, when it comes to things like SEO but after 5 years of blogging, I’ve been having success with well worded, simple naming conventions when it comes to naming my blog posts.
