Is one of your New Year's resolutions to get more blog followers or readers for your beading blog? How about more customers for your Etsy shop? One way to help potential readers and customers find your blog or website is through SEO, which stands for "search engine optimization." Basically, it's a way to make your blog or website easier for people to find when they search Google. (A more accurate term would be "Google optimization," but the "GO" acronym just isn't as cool and mysterious.)
I worked with SEO for two years in a corporation where SEO meant hours of online research, extensive spreadsheets, meetings with dozens of people, and specialized web pages with embedded code tracking. That method works (quite well, I should add), but frankly, it isn't feasible if you run a one-person bead or jewelry shop.
If you write a personal blog, one intended primarily for your family and friends, you don't need to worry about SEO. Your family and friends should already know how to find your blog. If they don't, you can let them know about it using old-fashioned technology such as a phone call or email.
This advice is primarily for people who are writing a blog with some business purpose in mind, whether it's to talk about your design process and inspiration or to make announcements about sales and shows. A little knowledge of SEO will serve you well if you are selling your work online, especially in a crowded venue such as Etsy.
5 Steps to Getting Started with SEO
1. Plan Your Blog
Writing about whatever strikes your fancy when you wake up that morning may be a fun way to blog, but it won't help your goal of getting more traffic. Ideally, you should have a few topics that you want to cover 80% of the time. If you're focused, it will help your website traffic in two ways. First, visitors who are interested in that topic will be more likely to come back. If you love gemstones, for example, you're more likely to follow a blog focused on gemstones, rather than one that chats about gemstones, vampires, Britney Spears, and Helianthus annuus. Some variety is fine, but too much variety can lead some readers to drift away and find another blog to follow. You'd think that being focused would lead to a boring blog, but you'd be surprised at how many different topics you can cover and still be focused. Art Bead Scene is a great example of a blog that does this well. Its focus is on art beads and recent topics have included featured jewelry designers, free projects, giveaways, techniques, and book reviews.
Second, the effects of SEO are cumulative. Sure, you might see a spike in traffic and end up on the first page of Google results if you hit the right combination of words once at the right time, especially if the topic is a popular one. (I accidentally did this once while working at Beading Daily. For a little while, my She Bop earrings were popping up on the first page of Google results for people looking for the Cyndi Lauper tune.) But you won't stay at the top of the search results unless you get repeat traffic to that page. To get that repeat traffic, you'll likely need to blog about the topic more than once.
2. Write Good Content for Humans
Have you ever had this happen? You search for something and click on one of the first pages listed in the results. You open up that website and you can see your phrase on the page, but the text makes no sense. It's badly written or doesn't contain any real information that answers your question. These pages are generated by content mills that specifically target search phrases, including poorly worded phrases and misspelled words. Their main goal is to rank high in the search process. You don't want to be like them; you want to be better. Here's why:
Sure, those folks got you to visit their website by loading the page with popular keywords and phrases, but will you return? Will you bookmark the page or load it into your blog reader? Will you tell all your friends on Facebook and Twitter and at the water cooler at work about this wonderful website? If you mention the experience at all, it's likely not to be very flattering. The question for you is whether you'd like to have a smaller group of loyal, repeat visitors to your website or whether you would like to have a larger group of people who visit your website once and never return.
I believe in writing for humans first, computers second, but there are definitely SEO experts who will disagree with me on this point.
If you're a visual person, you might have trouble with this. It's easy to write about "this piece" or "my project" when you have a large photo on your website. While it's clear to a human reading that you're talking about a purple and green lampworked necklace with a brick-stitched focal, it's not clear to the computer. The problem with words such as "piece" or "project" is that they are too vague. Put it this way: have you ever gone to Google looking for a necklace design and typed in the word "piece"? I didn't think so. People are generally fairly specific when they search.
For my blog, I generally write my post and then review it and see if I
need to make any edits to use more concrete language. For me, this is easier than using a keyword
list and trying to include those words in my first draft. If I'm
ever in doubt about which phrase to use for a blog, I simply do a quick
search in Google to see which one is more popular. Yes, there are more
sophisticated ways of doing this, but this is quick!
If you have an online shop, this step is crucial. I'm always surprised when I search Etsy and find skimpy product descriptions like "pretty pink necklace." From an SEO perspective, I'm never going to find that necklace if I'm specifically looking for a 3-strand pink crystal and pearl necklace or a rose quartz choker. From a customer perspective, I'm not going to buy it, since there's so little information that it makes me suspicious of the designer/seller. Did she not include more information because she doesn't understand the materials she's working with? Or is she lazy? (That makes me worry about the quality of the necklace. Did she pay as little attention to making a lasting design as she did to this description?) Or is she trying to pull a fast one on pricing? I don't really know what I'm buying with the "pretty pink necklace." Are those pink beads gemstones, crystals, plastic, polymer clay? Yes, I could write to the seller and ask, but unless it's a completely amazing piece that I've fallen head-over-heels for, I probably won't. I'm busy and so are your customers.
4. Take Care with Your Blog Title
Titles tend to be weighted more heavily in SEO, so you'll want to take special care in choosing the words for your blog post title. Try this: do a search on Google for "how to cure the common cold" and
look at the websites that come up. Then try a second search for "cold remedies." Even though the topic is the same, the results are not. Not only does one of the searches have many more results than the other, but the websites listed for each are different. This isn't about right or wrong; it's about using words that your readers use. If there's one overall lesson in SEO, it's that this isn't about you—it's about your readers and customers.
5. Don't Forget to SEO Your Photos
Have you ever tried to find images using Google's Image Search? If so, you know that many people don't follow this advice. Don't use the default names from your camera. Use specific words for the filename and make sure you fill in the "alt" (alternative) text for the image as well. So instead of "image00001.jpg," you could use "turquoise-bracelet.jpg" and alt="Turquoise chip bracelet with sterling silver toggle clasp."
There's certainly a lot
more you can do with SEO, as any SEO expert will be happy to tell you. If you're using SEO in a large corporate setting, you may have more time to devote to learning the many nuances of search engine optimization. But as a small business owner, you need to do what makes sense for you, given your many daily
responsibilities. Do what you can, but don't obsess. SEO is just one more tool in your online toolbox; it's not a magic wand.
More Resources
Looking for more SEO tips and tricks? Want to get a second opinion? Here are a few articles on search engine optimization for crafters: