When to SEO optimize a blog post?
-
Hi there,
Here's our situation: there are two people working on the blog.
person 1) writes the posts
person 2) SEO optimizes the posts
I know this is not ideal but it's the best we can do and it's a whole lot better than no blog.
I'm the fellow optimizing the posts. I've found that my best SEO efforts usually slightly undermine the readability of these posts -- not in an extreme way, I'm not going overboard with keywords or anything. Rather, things like a sexy & enticing article heading may have to be dummed down for search engines...
Because of this dumming down, I like to wait a couple of weeks to SEO optimize our posts, the logic being that we get the best of both worlds:
- a happy regular readership
- on topic articles that are clearly described for (and aligned to the terms used by) our search engine visitors
What I'm wondering is,
Generally: can you see any problems with this setup? would you do it differently?
Specifically: does Google (et al) punish this sort of backwards re-writing? and, does it somehow amount to less SEO mojo when done retroactively?
Thanks so much for your time!
Best,
Jon
-
Hey Jon,
I agree with both David and Kayden--readability, emotional impact, and great content should take priority over the mechanical SEO-rewriting.
IMO, the best option here is to teach your copywriter the basics of writing with SEO considerations. Investing that time up front will save you the pain in the long-run of "re-cooking" his content. One suggestion would be to develop a checklist, or a system of some sort that helps your writer incorporate SEO best practices while writing the posts (think: synonyms for latent semantic indexing, rich anchor text, proper use of headings, etc.)
Teach a man to fish...
-
You should really optimize your blog posts before they are published live on the blog. We have seen an optimized blog post start to show up in search results in less than 24 hours after posting it. If you optimize your post later it wont get crawled and updated as quickly but it will still get your updates. It seem that search engines see blogs as very time sensitive (kind of like news articles) and will crawl new posts faster.
I agree with David about the level of SEO you are performing on the posts. You don't want to hurt the readability or persuasiveness of the blog posts. If you optimize it right it shouldn't seem forced or spammy. I would suggest to only target one or two keywords per blog post. You should also get the original blog writer to help out by giving them a keyword or two before they write the post. Just give the writer some basic SEO instructions abouit usings a keyword in headers and various phrases and let them incorporate the keywords into their message. Then afterwards you shouldn't have to do as much, just some simple clean up to optimize the post. This is what we do and it has work out great.
-
Personally in this case I would lay back off the level of SEO you are performing if its having a negative factor on the readability.
You want people to read these posts, enjoy reading them and get something of value from the posts and be encouraged to come back to your blog and even promoted it by linking back to it.
If your posts have the air of 'overcooked SEO' on them it may have a negative effect on your efforts. Sure use some SEO when it comes to the titles, tags, headings etc but of all things make it valuable to the readers.
Regards
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should publish as page or blog posts on Wordpress ?
We have a technical blog website and our primary income is from blog. Recently we developed a open source free tool and but we are not sure if we need to publish it as wordpress page or as normal blog post. We don't look for an income from these tools. Later we will publish this tool in github. Also we have plan to develop many tools (small open source software) like this. So please advise we should place as Page mywebsite/tool1 mywebsite/tool2 or Normal blog posts mywebsite/toolcategory/tool1 mywebsite/toolcategory/tool2 Thanks!!!
Technical SEO | | Scaria0 -
Blog posts outranked for Title a String searches in content...why?
Site Pages: When I wrap a page title, or a string of several words in quotes, and GG search, my client's page shows up first. My understanding is that this shows general health of site, and acknowledgement as the original source of the content. Blog Posts: When I wrap a blog page, or post, title or string of words in quotes, and GG search, Feedblitz, Facebook, and other scraper sites appear before the blog home page, and also the actual blog post. The blog is in a separate directory. Does this suggest that the /blog/ is being penalized or demoted in any way? Does it indicate the /blog/ directory does not have authority? Both the static site pages, and the blog pages, are using rel=canonical tags. What causes this, what does it indicate, and how can I fix it? Thanks,
Technical SEO | | seagreen
Greg0 -
SEO quandary advice needed
I'm in a bind, I've been working on my SEO for a while now and have finally landed on the top page for [fishing kayak reviews] in Google US. The problem is it's not the page I want to be ranked! I've recently updated my reviews component to a more robust system but the url is slightly different. Looking currently [Reviews without Images] http://www.yakangler.com/fishing-kayak-reviews is ranking in Google but I would like [Reviews with Images] http://www.yakangler.com/fishing-kayak-review to rank instead. What would be the best solution for this problem? Adjust the url for [Reviews with Images] so it take the place of [Reviews without Images]? Do you think I will get any negative impacts from this?
Technical SEO | | mr_w0 -
301 redirects and seo..
I bought a domain and it has nice traffic. It only has about 5 main pages in php When i got the site i switched to html because php was overkill. I did the 301 and google deleted the php files and replaced with html version when i check site:domain.com It has been about 7 days. I DID NOT use 301 for each of the 5 pages to go php to html instead is used this code RewriteEngine On
Technical SEO | | samerk
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mydomain.com
RewriteRule (.) http://www.mydomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
RedirectMatch 301 (.).php$ http://www.mydomain.com$1.html So basically if you load php it will load the html version. dog.php > dog.html Is this OKAY? or should it be done differently.... worried! Thanks !0 -
SEO Yoast Help Needed
Anyone familar with SEO Yoast and interested in being hired to check out my settings for SEO. Thinking about 30 minute screen sharing session an helping me figure out what I am am doing wrong? Just cleaned up duplicates because of tags and now I see the images are getting duplicated as well as some of the titles. So new to Wordpress here I shine. Message me if you can help. Much Appreciated!!
Technical SEO | | Force70 -
Free Blogs Backlinks
Hello I have a very basic question, hope you people don't mind answering this. I plan to create a 10 blogs with keyword specific domain name, where in footer i can place back-link pointing to my website and thought to run on C-Class IP's which will cost me of-course. Now 2nd option which will be free, where i can plan to have my blog on wordpress, Timblr, blogger etc free blogging website and use the backlinks from there and all will have different IP which will also best for SEO prospective. Can you suggest me which will be the best option to have blogs on owned domain name or free blogging site, keeping in mind this will be just s prospective to generate backlinks. Do recommend is this a genuine way to get backliks or its another spam, and where we will keep on updating the all blogs regularly. Thanks in Advance! Regards Danish Wadhwa
Technical SEO | | DanishWadhwa0 -
Domain Forwarding and SEO
I have looked around and only saw older and contradicting responses to this question but what effect does having a domain with VALUABLE-KEYWORD.com forward to MAINSITE.com or COMMON-MISSPELLING.com forward to MAINSITE.com in terms of SEO and is it considered spammy or looked down upon
Technical SEO | | treytt0 -
SEO Impact of IPv4 and iPv6?
Thought I'd see what the asking side of Q&A feels like 😉 We've been hearing for forever that the internet is running out of IP addresses, but I finally encountered the reality of it. I just realized that one of my sites is on a shared IP (hosted by Hosting.com, formerly HostMySite.com). My other sites with them included a unique IP, so I was surprised to discover this. They claim it's due to limitations on their IP allocations. Hosting.com doesn't have the option to buy a unique IP, but some other hosts do. I noticed, though, that many of them are using IPv6 for the new accounts. Has anyone had practical experience with having an IPv6 address and is there any impact on SEO?
Technical SEO | | Dr-Pete0