In today’s world of viral TikToks and YouTube sensations, it’s easy to get discovered… right? I mean, Justin Bieber did it, so can you! Although we all wish we had the musical talent of Bieber (Let’s be real though, Baby is an instant classic and can never be duplicated) or the dancing ability of Charli D’Amelio, some of us have to think of more creative ways to be discovered on the internet (and ones that require less God-given talent)
Although good content is always the most important thing when creating something to share online, there are more things than an awesomely written blog post that go into getting your work discovered by more people. Have you ever wondered why you have to read a baker’s whole life story before getting to their recipe for “The Best Cinnamon Roll in the World”? Or why when you are looking for an easy gift for your grandma, you need to read all about someone’s Christmas traditions? That is because online bloggers (bakers & gift guide curators included) need to optimize their posts for SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
SEO is what helps search engines rank content on their results pages. Having good SEO gets you higher up on the list and, therefore, gets more eyes on your content.1 Although SEO, and especially good SEO, takes some added thought and pre-planning, with a little bit of practice, you, too, can get discovered.
SEO implements keywords. Keywords are key-words that help search engines find the answers to your questions.2
For example, if you are looking for a pair of shoes to wear to go skiing, you may search “boots” online. The search engine will scan the articles and posts in its database to find results with the word “boots” in it.
I know what you are thinking- there have got to be a million articles with the word “boots” in them. Well, you would be right, a search of “boots” on Google brought up about 2,590,000,000 results.
How will keywords help my content be discovered? This is where longtail keywords enter the scene. Long tail keywords help you get more specific search results.
Let’s look again at the example above: we are still looking for a pair of boots to wear when we go skiing, this time, let’s use the longtail keyword “best boots for skiing” and see the results that we get.
As you can see, this second search where we implemented the longtail keyword brought us back a smaller result size with more relevant articles. This is saving us so much time in our research for our new boots.
But why does this matter for you as a blogger? Well, if you don’t want to get cut out of the results group, you need to implement specific keywords into your content. When readers search, content with keywords that match their searches get moved higher up, because it is more relevant.
To decide what keywords to use, look at what your content is about. You should also identify your target audience, and look into what keywords they are searching so that you can tailor your keywords to them.
Overall, keywords are a great way to help get your content discovered. Using them can get your content seen by more people and grow your reach!