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Avoid Little Mistakes That Have A Big Impact When Blogging

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Good blog writing is an art. It requires attention to detail, good grammar, good punctuation, correct spelling and great content. So what is the single biggest mistake a blogger can make when writing a blog post that is supposed to be optimized for search engines?

Basically, it is to sacrifice any of these requirements in order to use what they think are high paying, low competition and high inquiry keywords or keyword phrases that simply do not fit into the content of their post under the misconception that they believe this is a good website search optimization strategy.

Examples are deliberate misspellings, phrases that are questions and cannot be contextualized as answers, abbreviated phrases and so on.

The flaw in focusing on keywords of this type rather than content is that the search engine operators actually look for and value good content i.e. the content that flows nicely, has correct spelling, good punctuation etc. etc.

They do not value nonsensical paragraphs that are clearly written to attract search engine attention rather than to meet the requirements of visitors to the website that have arrived there for a specific purpose and that is to find great content and information on their topic of choice.

You only have to think about what happens when someone arrives on your website and either cannot make sense of what you have written or, equally as important, cannot find the information they are looking for. They simply leave again and go and look for a different website or blog that does provide the information they want in a format they enjoy and in a place they can find it.

The technical term for what I am discussing is the bounce rate, the time a visitor spends on your website and how many pages they visit. If they only look at the first page or leave almost as soon as they arrive then you will register a high bounce rate. 100% basically says that they have not found what they came for and left immediately. A more acceptable level is 50%, but should be lower if possible, and that should be the minimum target any webmaster or blogger aspires to achieve.

Writing your blogs or websites with the objective of providing useful information that is well written and with appropriate keywords that describe the actual content of your site will result in far better search engine optimization than selecting keywords that are inappropriate or cannot be converted into sensible paragraphs of written text that can be understood and enjoyed by your visitors.

If you do your keyword research thoroughly and with this view in mind, there is a high probability that you will find keywords that are high paying, low competition, with sufficient numbers of inquiries and that do fit with your content in a sensible and coherent fashion. The extra effort required to do this will ultimately reward you with the associated benefit of attracting more people who in turn will become loyal visitors that come back to revisit your site and who are likely to recommend it to others.

Remember it can take a very long time to build a loyal fan base for a blog but all the work put into achieving that can be lost in moments by placing rubbish in your blog posts. You need to consider both the human elements and the search engine algorithm elements.

About The Author

I am a writer, editor, and publisher (just barely). I started Blog Interact® to allow for an "all-inclusive" site for bloggers and other journalists to come together and view each other's work. Additionally, Blog Interact® allows viewers and subscribers to find the highest quality and helpful content available on the web. Connect with me through Blog Interact®, LinkedIn, or Twitter!

Website: http://sandlapperwebdesign.com/

4 Comments

Peppy

Tue 09th Aug 2011 at 6:02 AM

Hi Bryan,

As usual, another well written article!

I liked the way you presented the issue of “keyword cramming” with the very real consequences if that is the only focus of a blog.

It can be difficult to take seriously articles on the importance of good content written by ones who have endorsed “keyword cramming at any cost” at other times.

However, Bryan, everything you have ever written shows you have a “freeness of speech” regarding blogging content and ethics. Your approach is consistently professional, genuine, and insightful.

Peppy
Reply
Bryan P. Hollis

Tue 09th Aug 2011 at 7:40 AM

Hi Peppy,

Thanks for reading and the very nice comment. When I started this site, that was part of the reason I wanted to cover so many categories – to give everyone a chance to express themselves and their blog.
Bryan
Reply
eganmedical

Thu 24th Nov 2011 at 4:08 PM

Of the literally thousands of articles and blog posts I have written and published over the years, the one that attracted the most natural links (those that did not require any effort or solicitation on my part beyond simply writing the article) was the one into which I invested the greatest amount of time and effort.

I spent several days writing the article, with the majority of the time going towards thoroughly researching an extremely complicated topic, including the identification of credible sources to which I could link as a means of supporting the claims made within the post.

Specifically, the post was about vitamin D deficiency, which, as I learned during the course of researching the topic, has been scientifically linked to well over thirty different (and serious) diseases, illnesses and various other bad medical conditions. Additionally, a MAJORITY of people in North America are vitamin D deficient, and that a simple supplement can help MOST people reduce the odds of developing any one (or more) of the three dozen or so terminal illnesses caused in part by low blood-levels of the nutrient.

Virtually all of the links generated from the post came from bloggers and users of health forums whom I’ve never met before. They linked to the post because the content was exquisite and extremely well sourced, with a link to an official summary of each of the more than 30 studies and experiments referenced within the post.

I suppose my point is that I totally agree with all of the points made within this post.
Reply
michael

Sun 27th Nov 2011 at 6:30 AM

Good information, I am so afraid of making mistakes.
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