One Question Interview #2:
When writing your posts how much does SEO, traffic and marketing come into your thoughts versus just writing a great post? Give an idea of your ratio for writing well versus writing for traffic. I know everyone has it on their minds at least a little. Even writing a personal journal I would be thinking about who might read it (though I’d usually be long dead and blameless by then).
Ken Writing: I’m afraid I don’t think of SEO at all (I know I should).
Sixmats: I’ve been more aware of SEO lately and if I can change something like the title to help I will. But I don’t go overboard and write my posts around it because if I do, the posts look fake and really amateurish.
A Frog to Kiss: If I write something technical, or informational, then yes I do keep SEO in mind and utilize the All In One SEO pack WP plugin-adding keywords. If it’s humor/personal related, I don’t- in fact, I’ve learned sometimes keywords aren’t necessary. My earlier posts were never SEO optimized, yet, some how, Google picks them up when someone is searching for “Oprah’s Camel Toe” or “women with hairy nipples.” Rednecks are a popular topic, too.
Canucklehead: For me its a non-issue. It has taken me a LONG time to get to this point but I can now honestly say that I write only for myself. To be fair, I am aware of and writing for an audience – but I don’t consider SEO, marketing or any of those factors. I write what I want and what interests me and then hope others enjoy it as well. As will be clear to anyone who reads my blog, I quite often don’t even have a subject in mind when I start typing. Its a difficult mindset to adopt but I have enjoyed writing more since the change.
The Thin Red Line: I think about SEO in how I title and keyword my posts but not too much in the actual writing of them.
The Eye Spies: I think about SEO and do try to incorporate some of the “best practices” into my posts. I do well on some and not so well on others. I use an SEO plugin that’s supposed to help, but confess to not always filling it out.
I seem to do better with choosing long tail keywords than with anything else.
Freaky Frugalite: I don’t think about SEO.
SEO thinks about me.
(Got that from Chuck Norris)
Actually, SEO doesn’t matter to me much as I write. I tend to write in a stream-of-consciousness-oh-my-gawd-what-is-she-wailing-about-now kind of prose. But I find that keywords just come out. Does that sound wacky? I just seem to naturally place the suitable words that bring in the traffic. That, and my profligate verbage where I have, say, 3-4 words for every 1 necessary, helps in the cause.
I have a travel blog that gets a lot of traffic from search engines– it’s a favorite for travelers, historians, and genealogists, and is loaded with essential nutrients and vitamins good for SEO health, I guess.
PictureFlick: I gave up obsessing over SEO, marketing and traffic a few jumps back. While I just make pictures now, instead of “painting a picture” with keyword rich text, my only thought to anything resembling SEO at posting time would be tagging my images.
Why? ’cause it’s a great way for someone (clicking on the tags) to find mini-albums full of related pics. If that helps with SEO: cool. If not? Wasn’t worried anyway! All in all, I make pics (posts) for the sake of making pics (posts). Nothing more, nothing less; everything extra is just icing.
30 Something and Searching: I don’t always think about it. It depends on the post. If it is more personal to me, I just write more for feel and readability. I know I have regular readers so I think more about them. Other posts though, that are more social, I try to consider marketing and reaching a broader audience. Example, yesterday and today I posted about a mammogram and my personal experience…I didn’t try to market that so much. Not that I don’t want people to read it, but it just wasn’t my goal to draw in mass readers. Others, like a post about today.com, or in the past about the Octomom, I did as much as I could to use SEO and market it. But as a personal diary, I don’t have mass market on the brain all the time. Plus, I don’t always have the time to do the marketing that I should…
Old Red Pen: I illustrate. It doesn’t SEO well. I don’t care.