What I've Learned About Blogging Since Working in SEO

Hello! What feels like a major case of 'long time no see' is back and to be honest, it feels good to be back.

For those of you that actually remember who I am (thanks!), I'm the person who started up this blog and then neglected it when I got a job. Yes - I feel bad but let's move on.

If you didn't catch the memo from my last post - which let's face it, you probably didn't - then you'll know that I recently got a new job! I've been working as a PR exec at an SEO agency and though that this blog could be brought back to life with the new stuff I've been learning.

So what better way to kick things off than with what I've learned so far?

WordPress is the way forward

I started this blog way back in 2012 (trust me, I'm as amazed as you probably are) and being a 14 year old girl that knew next-to-nothing about blogging meant that a Google search for 'blog' brought up Blogger.

Although it has served me well for the first few years, I've run into a common problem that many bloggers have faced - it's just not got enough on offer to make me want to stay.

Since being in charge of a number of blogs at work that are all self-hosted using WordPress, I've definitely decided that it has much more to offer than Blogger. (PS you can find me on Celebricious and Mozbot now!).

The choice of plugins available and the freedom of being able to create a site that is whole-heartedly your "own", I'm definitely thinking about making the transition over to WP!

Headings matter

See these headings that I'm using to get my point across? Yeah, they're important for a number of reasons and I didn't realise until recently.

The <h2> tags that I wrap these in - or Subheadings as they're known in Blogger's post editor - are essential for making sure that your blog has some sort of SEO value. They show Google what's important within your post and what your page is about, helping it to rank for keywords.

I know when I started that SEO went straight over my head - mainly because I didn't know how to do it properly - but using <h2> tags with relevant (NOT SPAMMY) keywords is the best way to give your page a better chance of being within Googles' search results.

Meta data isn't useless

See that search description that's displayed on the right-hand side of your post editor? It's not a useless box that you should just stuff with shit; it can be beneficial to your blog and the authority of your page.

Meta titles (i.e the title of your post) and meta descriptions (aka the 'search description') in Blogger are the snippets of what will show up when your page is found in Google, and optimising them using relevant (NOT SPAMMY) keywords can help bring an audience to your blog to look for answers to their search terms.

Duplicate content is an issue

Re-publishing content that's already seen it's day? Yeah, I'm guilty of it.

The past couple of blog posts that you may have seen from me on this blog have already been published before; but it's a big no-go when it comes to proving the worth of your blog.

Duplicate content can cause all sorts of issues with your website and re-publishing blocks of content on more than one page can cause your site to be issued with penalties; warnings that can have negative impacts on your efforts to increase your SEO value.

Now that I feel up to date, I want to ask you a few questions - that is, if you've made it this far.

What do you want to see on this blog? I'm thinking more blogging tips alongside my typical beauty posts but knowing what you guys enjoy reading the most is important. :)