Writing With SEO In Mind

29 Apr 2020 | ~2 minute read

I read this post on Desmond's blog yesterday (great blog, you should definitely subscribe. Especially if you'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 don'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, _you're probably doing it for the wrong reasons.

But SEO...

SEO is another matter. I think it'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 I'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. I'm writing a down my thoughts - there's no SEO for that. I just try to ensure the readability is good, as my thoughts aren't usually that coherent. 🙂

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 don'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 we're talking about.

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