Writing With SEO In Mind

I read this post on Desmondโ€™s blog yesterday (great blog, you should definitely subscribe. Especially if youโ€™re into the IndieWeb). In the post, Desmond talks about how growing his audience and SEO are not priorities for him. He says:

In a rough sense, I know what it would take to garner more readers to my blog (better attention to SEO, targeted subject matter). But I also know that if I took that too far, this blog would cease to be about me, and I donโ€™t think I want that to happen.

With regards to growing a readership, I completely agree. Personally, I think if you have started a personal blog with the intention of growing a huge following and becoming _Internet famous,ย _youโ€™re probably doing it for the wrong reasons.

But SEOโ€ฆ

SEO is another matter. I think itโ€™s important to follow good SEO hygiene where possible. I use the Yoast plugin to help with my SEO, but I only really do that for long-form posts where Iโ€™m talking about a specific topic. That usually means my technical articles, or how-to guides.

Things like this post - notes and IndieWeb replies - I tend to not include any SEO keywords. Iโ€™m writing a down my thoughts - thereโ€™s no SEO for that. I just try to ensure the readability is good, as my thoughts arenโ€™t usually that coherent. ๐Ÿ™‚

So I do see where Desmond is coming from in some respects, but a little bit of SEO can be a good thing for the right post(s). On this blog, I could certainly do a lot more with SEO, but I think that would take some of the fun out of blogging, and stop me writing the way I want.

The more I think about it, the more I see where Desmond is coming from. I obviously donโ€™t know how much SEO work Desmond does, if any. But it is important to strike a balance between SEO taking over your blog so you can grow it, and making sure you remain you. After all, these are personal blogs weโ€™re talking about.

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