A blog is more than an online journal, especially if you’re a shop owner or a professional blogger. It’s a way to be more personable, interact with your customers, and be an extension of you. So you need to maximize it to it’s fullest potential and get readers to follow.

My free printable: “My Blog Topics“, will accomplish this through helping you organize your thoughts and maximize SEO, Search Engine Optimization. In this simple + stylish layout you can plan up to 3 blog posts at a time with space to jot down your notes, ensure you maximize SEO, and keep track of where you promoted your post(s). File each page in a binder so you have a reference for future posts or to expand on a topic.

Tara Gentile, the guru of SEO, has so graciously offered to expand on how to make the most of each posts while using “My Blog Topics” pre-writing organizer. First let’s define SEO also known as Search Engine Optimization. Tara defines it as:

“…the art (and sometimes science) of helping people find your website in search engines. Good SEO involves several pieces of programming code that are most often taken care of for you. Great SEO involves a website that is clearly written, engaging to viewers, and solicits action from readers in the form of social sharing and incoming links from websites.”

Post Title
The words you select for the post title should grab a potential reader’s attention. You want to have the headline that stands out in a sea of headlines in a neglected feed reader. Your post title should also include a keyword or phrase about what your post is about.

Keywords
Imagine that you were looking for your latest blog post on a search engine. What words would you type into the search box? Choosing 1-3 keywords or phrases to focus on for a post keeps your writing centered and helps it get seen in search engines – it’s a win-win situation.

Inspiration
Choosing other articles to link to in your post isn’t sabotage, it’s smart writing. Linking out to other sites helps a search engine understand what your post is about. It’s also a service to readers who may want to delve more deeply into your subject matter. Finally, providing outside links gives your post more authority and will keep your writing on track.

Internal Links
Linking to your own posts inside of new posts is also a great strategy. New readers can see more of your blog. Older readers can go back to posts they might have missed. Either way, when a reader spends more time on your site looking at more pages, you are much more likely to convert them to regular readers – or customers. And did I mention that internal links are great for search engine optimization too?

Call to Action
When you write a post, you need to have in mind what action you would like readers to take when they are finished. A lot of times, it will be to comment on the post. Other times, you might want to ask a reader to share the post with their network. Still other times, you want a reader to act on an idea you have, click through to another site, or duplicate a project you’ve made.

Be sure to tell readers what you want them to do instead of leaving it up to them to figure out!

Follow Up Idea
Turning a single blog post into a short series – or an epic story – is a great way to engage readers. If writing your post inspired new ideas that didn’t quite fit your original purpose, jot them down in this space. When you’re hard up for a post idea, look back through your notes. Don’t forget to link back to the original post when you do!

The Final Word
One of the biggest “mistakes” I see bloggers making is not considering their blog as a whole. They don’t see the bigger picture. They post when they’re inspired, when they have news, when they’ve created a new product. But there isn’t any cohesiveness. There isn’t a sense of anticipation.

To achieve this, make sure you’re asking yourself about the larger questions your blog can answer. And then answer those large questions by posing tiny ones. Those tiny questions are your posts. As the answers to those questions pile up, you can link them together through simple category navigation, pillar content pages, or free resources.

This applies to image-heavy blogs, as well. In fact, it’s one of the most important things to consider. How do your images play together between posts? Are you telling a larger story with the images you choose? Is that story calling your readers to action without words?

In order for you blog to work for you, you must work for your blog. Using the “My Blog Topics” pre-writing organizer can help you do just that! And if you need further help with maximizing your SEO, purchase one of Tara’s e-books or set up a brainstorming session.

Click on the link below to download your free copy and come back and let me us know how it’s worked for you!

Note: Adjust your printer settings to ‘scale to fit’ if needed.

My Blog Topics