Spring 2013 NMDL

Search Engine Optimization - Not as easy as you think

Submitted by Student on Sat, 02/02/2013 - 1:05pm

I found this week’s assignment extremely difficult.  The entire time I was making the same face that my roommate is making in that picture on the right (she’s going to kill me, but I needed a picture).  I didn’t really know that search engine optimization is up to the content you come up with.  I was searching for an exact step-by-step list of how to optimize your blog to have it come up at the top of Google or Bing.  Well if it was that easy I guess everyone’s blog/website would be at the top!  It was definitely a steep learning curve for me.  However, I think I got the hang of it.  I really need to take the time to look at Google Analytics.  It looks like an awesome tool but it is super confusing to me.  I think I set it up correctly and I hope it's working on my blog page!

WHAT I DID

  • I stayed organized around the theme of real estate and this week my topic was about foreclosed homes. 
  • I made a squidoo page about real estate and connected it to my optimized blog.
  • I linked to other popular pages about foreclosed homes.
  • I linked a past blog post of mine to my current one.

My favorite resource was propbably SEO Resource 11-3: Google's Starter Guide for SEO.  This had the most information about Search Engine Optimization and made the topic of SEO clearer to me.  Below are my two favorite tips from the resource. 

SEO BASICS

  • ·         Create Unique and Accurate Page Title – Although I thought my blog title was pretty clever, I realized after searching it on Google I’m not the only one with that title.  I’m still pretty attached to (what I thought was a clever) title so I probably won’t change it and really try to optimize my blog through quality content. 

 OPTIMIZING CONTENT

  • ·         Write easy-to-read text, stay organized, create unique content for users and NOT search engines - Writing your blog with your readers in mind will produce results.  Keeping search engines in mind is important however you don’t want the quality of your work to fall by the wayside because you are trying to be first on Google.