Good Web content attracts those search engine spiders.
by Anne R. Allen
These days, pretty much all writers need to learn to write Web content. Yes, even if you’re a Victorian romance author whose readers care more about reticules and spatterdashers than retweets and SEO. Even if you don’t have your own blog. Any website needs content. Plus you may want to plan a blog tour to promote your book launch, or guest on a blog for visibility. (Guest blogging is one of the best ways to market your book for free.)
Like it or not, all writers need to become “Web content providers” these days.
Yeah, I know. Sounds a lot less creative than “author” doesn’t it? And harder.
But it actually isn’t. Writing Web content is a little different from writing a traditional essay or magazine article, but it’s not hard. You just have to learn some basic guidelines.
Learning to Write Web Content Involves Unlearning
Especially what you were taught about paragraphing.
According to Mike Blankenship at Smart Blogger, the paragraph has gone through radical changes in the 21st century. He says the 100-200 word standard paragraph has disappeared. Now your average paragraph should be between two and four lines. You can go over and under — some paragraphs can be just one word long — but stay close to that average and you should be fine.
But don’t make them all the same length. Blankenship says, “Too many same-sized paragraphs in a row will bore your reader. It doesn’t matter if it’s too many small paragraphs or too many long paragraphs, the effect is similar.”
I had to unlearn a whole lot of what I was taught about writing prose back in the 20th century in order to be an effective Web content provider today. (Many thanks to my first online editor, Daryl Jung at the online zine Inkwell Newswatch.)
Back in the 20th century, good writers…
- Learned to use topic sentences and avoid cutting to a new paragraph until there’s a new topic.
- Wrote for people who paid money for our words and read every one.
- Wouldn’t put a title on a serious essay that looked like a cheap tabloid headline.
- Avoided repetition.
- Would never offer an outline instead of an essay.
- Substantiated information with footnotes.
- Never heard of tags, keywords, or SEO.
But the majority of people don’t read on the Internet; they skim. In fact, most people don’t even skim the whole article. Farhad Manjoo famously reported that only half the people who visit a website read past the first hundred words.
So how do you get them to come by…and stick around?
Forget all of the above and learn some new tricks:
1) Write Grabby Titles
This is probably the most important aspect of learning to blog.
Mystery author C. Hope Clark once said in her “Funds for Writers” newsletter: “You might be surprised at the key factor I use in deleting or holding to read: The quality of the subject line. Hey, when time is crazy limited…the words have to snag me as I rush by. That means first and foremost that the subject be crisp, sharp, attractive, intriguing, or whatever adjective you want to use that gives me whiplash. It has to shout, “HEY, READ ME OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.”
She’s right.
Headers are the most important element of your blog content, and it’s the one most novelists don’t get. We want our blogs to sound creative and literary like our books, not cheesy like a supermarket tabloid. But tabloid journalists are good at what they do. They have only a moment to grab a reader going through that checkout line, so they need an irresistible hook.
In our case, headers need to snag a reader in the endless stream of content Web browsers can choose from.
So how do we do that?
Here are 8 ways you can grab a Web reader’s attention with your story about, say, a writer who suspects her bathroom is haunted.
- Stir emotions: “The Tragic Ghost that Haunts my Bathroom.”
- Offer useful advice: “How to Make Sure a Building isn’t Haunted before you Sign that Rental Agreement.”
- You can sensationalize: “Why This Woman is Afraid of her own Apartment!”
- Or appeal to sentiment: “This Story of a Cat and a Flapper’s Ghost Will Melt Your Heart.”
- Maybe stir up some greed: “How Wendy Writer inked a 7- Figure Deal with her Haunted Apartment Story.”
- Paranoia is good: “Is Your Bathroom Haunted?” Or “Who or WHAT is Flushing Your Toilet in the Middle of the Night?”
- Curiosity, too: “10 Things You Don’t Know about Poltergeists.”
- Or you can appeal to thriftiness: “Save Money and Time with a Do-It-Yourself Exorcism.”
2) Promise a Speedy Read
Everybody’s in a hurry online.
Author Jillian Mullin recently wrote in the Web Writer Spotlight: “Generally, an average Web user only spends 10 to 30 seconds reading Internet content. People rarely read web pages word-per-word. Instead, they scan the page for related keywords, bullet points, subtitles, and quotes.”
That’s why one of the best ways to let people know you’ve got a quick, easy-scan piece is with a numbered “listicle” like “The 10 Best Ghostwritten Books” or “5 Signs Your Computer is Possessed.” Or, ahem, “10 tips for Writing Strong Web Content.”
The other thing is to learn to harness the power of white space. A page with lots of white space looks can be taken in at a glance..
I remember picking up a book my Yale-professor dad left in the living room when I was about 8 years old. It was thin and had lots of white space. An easy, quick read, I thought. So I sat down and read it before lunch. But the content was a bit disturbing. A mother did some really terrible things to the girl her husband was having an affair with. Then she killed her kids.
Yeah, it was the Robinson Jeffers translation of Euripides’ Medea. But hey, it was a quick read!
3) Pack Your Opener with Essential Information
Make sure your most important information is visible as soon as somebody opens your blog. People do a lot of reading on phones and small tablets these days, so those first words are all-important.
It’s also what Google shows in the search results. And those opening words will help the search engine spiders decide what searches will pick it up, so you need some keywords there, too. (Spiders, or “crawlers” are the programs that examine websites so they can index them for the search engine. Spiders are our friends and help make us visible on the Web.)
Since most people won’t read past the second paragraph, you don’t want to save your best stuff for the end. Half a century ago, journalists were taught to “humanize” stories by starting with a human interest line.
“Wendy Writer shouldn’t have a care in the world. She’s a pretty thirty-something freelance writer living in a gorgeous Victorian triplex in Old Town. She’s sitting on the front porch of the house she moved into last month with her cat Hortense. The three-story home was once owned by one Mildred Biggins, who died in 1924…”
The reporter could wait to get to the lead (then known as the “lede” to differentiate from the metal originally used to make type) in the third or fourth sentence. Not so anymore. You’ve got to give people the facts in the first 50-60 characters.
50-60 characters. That’s all Google shows in the search results, so make those characters work hard.
Just say it: “Wendy Writer’s house is haunted by the ghost of Mildred Biggins.”
4) Make Every Title Tweetable
Even if you’re not on Twitter, the reading public is, and you want your readers to share your piece and spread it around the Internet. Otherwise nobody reads it but your mom, your cat and maybe the poltergeist that might be lurking in the upstairs bathroom.
This means we have to avoid enigmatic, one-word headers that don’t give people any idea of your content. I recently saw a title that exemplified the kind of header that doesn’t work in the age of Twitter. The article was called “Ghosting.” It turned out to be about ghostwriting–a very timely subject at the moment.
But you wouldn’t know from the title. It might have been a piece on Tinder dates who evaporate, or ectoplasmic apparitions, or that short-lived TV show with Adam Scott and Craig Robinson. I didn’t have time to write a new header, so I didn’t retweet it.
You don’t want that to happen to your posts.
5) Use and Properly Format Subheaders
Sub-headers are essential for drawing traffic and keeping it. They have three jobs:
- Emphasize your important points.
- Draw the eye through the piece.
- Signal your topics to search engines via keywords.
So if you’re writing about Mildred Biggins, you want to use sub-headers that contain keywords like ” ghost” , “haunted” , and “poltergeist” , rather than “Flappers in the Night” or ” Mildred or Hortense…who’s Flushing the Toilet at 3 AM?” .
IMPORTANT: Be sure to use the “header” and “subheader” mode in your blog program, and not the “normal” or “paragraph” setting.
For Blogger users, the sub-header menu is on the left-hand side of the toolbar, where you see the word “normal.” That window has a menu, where you can choose Heading, Subheading, or Minor Heading.
For WordPress users, it’s in the menu where you see “paragraph” as the default setting. You can choose “Headings” from one down to six.
When I started blogging, I didn’t have a clue about formatting, and didn’t know that spiders don’t recognize “normal” text as a sub-header even if it looks like one to human eyes. Finally somebody told me about the importance of using the appropriate formatting and our blog stats soared.
6) Write in a Light, Conversational Style
A blog is not the place to show off your encyclopedic vocabulary. If somebody has to click around to look up a word, they probably won’t come back.
It’s also not the place for jargon. Don’t write in geekspeak, legalese, or that “most scholars agree” phony-tony style you learned to use for college term papers.
Many tech people write in a language comprehensible only to them. It identifies them as “in the know.” But an “in crowd” blog isn’t going to get as many followers as one that’s friendly and welcoming to all.
Marketers and SEO specialists are some of the worst offenders. Several years ago, I remember being told I had to learn about something called Google Authorship. I read dozens of blogposts about it, but I couldn’t figure out if it was a software program, an app, a Google Plus circle, or the name of Larry Page’s secret Caribbean island. Nobody seemed able to define it. They only made fun of people who didn’t have it.
A few years later, I read that Google Authorship had died. I couldn’t help feeling it had something to do with the fact nobody outside of Google had any idea what it was.
You’re not going to reach the general public if you write in geek-speak and act smug.
7) Shorten your Sentences
My tech guru, Barb Drozdowich of Bakerview Consulting, has put little elves on this blog who rate my posts for “readability” before I post. The elves, aka algorithms, are courtesy of a WordPress plug-in called Yoast SEO. They give me a green light if I pass muster, an orange one if I’m getting too complex, and a red one if I’m moving into Ph.D. territory.
My most common offense? Long sentences. Ruth too. We’re old school. We know how to compose and punctuate complex sentences and we have fun writing them.
But it turns out Web readers don’t have so much fun reading them. And neither do the spiders. Once I started using Yoast, our traffic soared. As they say, “Yoast SEO does everything in its power to please both visitors and search engine spiders.”
It’s all about the spiders, people. 🙂
If you have trouble writing short sentences, Copyblogger has some helpful exercises to help you be creative with fewer words.
8) Format all Web Content so it’s Easy to Skim
Skimming is easier with lists, bullet points, and bolding. Italics can be useful too—anything to draw the eye along the text.
MS Word makes this a breeze. Unfortunately a lot of Word formatting doesn’t translate to blog programs, so you may have to resort to primitive means like numbering your own lists or using asterisks for bullet points.
A numbered list has a three-fold benefit:
- It provides lots of white space.
- And draws the eye through.
- Plus gives you a hook for your grabby title.
- Bullet points are good too. Like numbered lists, bullet points are easy to grasp at a glance and they let people know they’re getting the “good parts.”
- Bolding is powerful: It’s especially good for headers and other significant information.
- Italics provide emphasis: Putting a quote in italics sets it apart from the normal text.
9) Choose Informative Anchor Text for Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are all-important in writing Web content.
What are hyperlinks? It’s okay to ask. I had no idea how to make a hyperlink for the first six months I blogged. You make a hyperlink when you turn an ugly URL like this: https://selfpublishingsites.com/2019/01/new-writing-scams-2019/ into a live bit of text that you can click on to take you to that address.
You make a hyperlink by selecting the text (called “anchor text”) that you want people to click on. Then you go to the icon that looks like two links of chain up there on the menu bar. Or in Blogger it is cleverly identified with the word “Link.”
Don’t make the link with the word “here” or “this link.” That’s because the words “here” and “this link” don’t mean anything to those Google spiders.
So select the whole phrase and make the hyperlink to that. So you’d select the words, “New Writing Scams” and put in the URL to that post. (Like the ugly one above.)
Spiders only notice links with identifying text. So either use the title of the piece as I did above, or say something about it, like “Author hounded relentlessly by scam marketers”
10) Keep Keywords and SEO in Mind, but Don’t Lard Your Post with Repetitions
I know SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of those jargon expressions that make most writers’ eyes glaze over. A lot of people think it means repeating the same words over and over. But search engines actually favor using regular speech these days, so you don’t usually need to do anything strange to “optimize” for a search engine.
All you need to do is use simple keywords to help Google and other search engines find you. The best way to optimize for search engines is check after you write your post to see if you have keywords in the following:
- Headline
- First paragraph
- Sub-headers
- Anchor text for hyperlinks.
- Tags
And don’t worry a lot if you can’t cram them all in there. Treat that list as a helpful guideline, but don’t obsess or your prose will sound stilted and boring.
Using keywords simply means using the most basic words about your topic. So when you’re writing your copy or header, think of what words somebody might put into a search engine on the topic you’re writing about.
Say you’re writing about Wendy Writer’s cat, who has been flushing the toilet in the middle of the night, making her think the house is haunted by a long-dead tenant. Here are some possible headlines:
- “Hortense the Cat is a Genius.”
- “Wendy Writer Discovers the Truth About Mildred Baggins.”
- “Can Your Cat Learn to Flush a Toilet?”
So put yourself in the shoes of a person who might be interested in a story about a toilet-flushing cat. Are they more likely to type “cat flush toilet” into Google, or “Hortense” ,”genius”, or “Mildred Baggins”?
Again it turns out that empathy, rather than a gimmick, is the most powerful “tip” of all.
***
What about you, scriveners? Do you format your blog posts for easy skimming? Do you know how to make friends with the spiders? Have you found using subheaders increases your blog traffic?
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) March 3, 2019
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Outstanding blog post! Thank you for sharing! I am passing the link to this post on in my April newsletter.
Bonnie!–Many thanks for sharing this with your peeps!
Wow, some good stuff today Anne! A few things I’ve been missing, like a good lead-in opener. I need to start making short paragraphs before I dive into my post. (Which usually covers several items – at least I’m good with subtitles!)
Alex–Shortening sentences and paragraphs was a tough one for me to learn. It went against all my instincts. But the blog gurus were right. It made the text much easier to read. Subheaders are a big factor, too!
Thanks as always Anne. I read #7 and now I have a stitch in my side, because it hurts so badly that I’ve run roughshod over that one. Can’t. Stop. Essaying… but I’ll work on it. Hype-links too, though it’s a bit harder when what you’re writing about doesn’t have the advantage of existing anywhere offsite!
Will–Short sentences are a toughie. But–here’s the secret–they can just be fragments. Fragments are fine in today’s Web content. So throw out the grammar book and chop up those beasts.
Yeah, it’s kinda tough to link to stuff that doesn’t exist. But you can always link to your own earlier posts. The spiders really like that. 🙂
These are great points, especially the one about headers – which I understand is also important for ADA accessibility, so folks who are using a text reader can navigate through the post. And here I haven’t ever even thought about them in regard to my blog posts …
However, I’m planning to re-post some of my old stuff and will then have a chance to fix its content.
Anne—Great, useful post! In some ways it reminds of me tabloid writing: grabby headlines, short sentences, sensational. Reminds me of the classic headline: Headless Body Found In Topless Bar.
Ruth LOL. Yes, there needs to be some tabloidy stuff going on, especially with headers.
Once again, great stuff. I’m compelled to quote Gary Larson — “Can I go home now? My brain is full.”
CS–Haha. Well, you know where to find the info when you need it!
I’ve been doing the “this link” and “here” thing for years–(embarrassed, me? Yes.) Thank you for teaching me a better way, Anne.
Leanne–A whole lot of bloggers do. I saw an agent do it the other day. But if you want more traffic, that’s one simple way to get it!
This is amazing advice, Anne. I only wish I had the time to re-do everything I’ve ever blogged!!
Tara–Don’t worry about the old stuff. Unless you want to refresh it and reblog. With a different header, Google thinks it’s a new post and you’ve got more traffic for something that was just sitting gathering dust.
This whole post is information I’ve been starving for, but this particular bit about how to repost is priceless. Do you know if it is kosher to update and repost material from another blog one has written? I’m in the process of shutting down a “theme” blog and just posting to my “author” blog, but I’d like to keep some of those posts/essays from the theme blog. Anything I should keep in mind other than the change in the header?
Meg–There’s no problem with reposting that I know of. I had to move this whole blog from Blogger to WordPress and some of the posts didn’t travel well. So I rewrote them as new material, with better SEO and updated links, and they got a whole lot of new traffic they never had before.
Any material that can travel from an old, dead blog to a new one is good for everybody. Go for it!
Thanks, Anne, for the good advice. I’ve learned to use much of your advice in my blog. I also try to catch the attention of readers with a picture. One thing I found out about titles: some words catch the eye of smammers such as “Branding” (which is not a good title, I’ll admit). So, when I wrote a blog post on profanity, I titled it “Anti-Clean Language.” No telling what I would have gotten if I used “profanity” in the title.
I’m glad your book is out. I certainly will buy a copy.
Stanley–You’re right that certain words trigger algorithms that are not what you want at all. And if you have an image with a lot of skin–like a baby’s face–that can trigger the anti-porn spam filters, too. Very clever title!
Great blog tips – and I started noticing when and why I started skimming. Must do same to own posts. 🙂
Jemima–It’s good to notice when we start skimming. I’ve found I do that myself. I read the first few paragraphs, then the subheaders. If there are no subheaders, I sometimes skip to the last paragraph. If even I do it, most people probably are doing the same.
I follow many of these suggestions, but I cringe at some of the things I know but don’t always follow. I know I skim articles on line and it takes something special to make me read word for word.
Susan–It’s embarrassing, but we couldn’t get to all the things we need to read if we didn’t skim. Word for word takes leisure time, which most of us don’t have.
Great post and I learned something, which I usually do when I read your blog. I didn’t know NOT to make “here” the hyperlink. As in …read all about it here. I’ll mend my ways immediately. I also didn’t know about the sub-headers being separate from regular text. I wonder if Weebly (my platform) uses that distinction. Off to investigate.
Luanna–Weebly is kind of the new up and coming platform for blogs, so I’ll be interested in whether it has subheader formatting options. I’ve never used it, so let me know!
Old Dog here; new trick learned – how to make a link say what I want. I had no clue. Will work on the paragraph/header stuff next go round. I only blog once a month. Any tips welcome. https://valerieparv.wordpress.com/2019/03/03/first-monday-mentoring-march-2019-how-to-create-a-story-character-in-ten-minutes-flat/ Thank you so much, Anne
Valerie–It took me years before I figured out the anchor text thing. Also, I didn’t format my subheaders properly. so you’re not the only one!
Shortening sentences is one of my biggest struggles. However, I have also seen views increased once I started shortening them and using more white space. Still, it is a struggle. I guess I am old school too, Anne.
Great post with great tips for bloggers.
Ingmar–As I said, I’m with you there. But it does help our readers.
All these points make sense. I GET IT. But my style fights it on some levels and when I’m done, I am prouder of the piece I’ve written MY WAY, then something that is easily skimmed and tossed. Just saying, Beth
Beth–Here’s my solution: I write the blogposts in Word the way I want, then cut and paste them into WordPress and format them here. Then I save the posts in Word and put them into essays I can send to journals and magazines, or put in a collection for a book. So I can have more blog traffic and put out the writing the way I’d prefer as well..
Those are all great ideas. I guess I do it backwards. I pull posts from my blog and add and change for other publications. We were talking about this last night at a party, how phones have changed our lives and people don’t focus in on writing the way we used to. I still read two newsmagazines per week, a daily newspaper and when I read a novel, a paper and hardback BOOK. I have a Kindle but it’s not my preferred method. I keep wanting to turn a page! As long as I’m still thrilled by the power of the word, I’m fine. Change can be good. Believing in your own way can work too. And thanks always for your posts.
Fabulous post Anne. I especially liked learning about the difference in using headers and sub-headers to just enlarging the print (one of my bad habits). I will start paying better attention to that one for sure lol. And I will be adding this post to my next writer’s tips post on Friday. 🙂
Debby–That took me the longest time to learn! Like I’d probably been blogging 4 years before I figured out how to do the headers. Thanks much for spreading the word!
Very helpful! Thank you.
Tammy–Happy blogging!
Very helpful article! It’s a lot of the stuff the webmasters I write for keep telling me to do, but I struggle with brevity. Short sentences – bah! I’d rather have some fun with semicolons. Short paragraphs – even worse!
But my biggest struggle is with the lede. I strive for a cozy, chatty column, which to me implies a bit of waffling and setting the scene before diving in to whatever we’re talking about. “So I was chatting with my friend Sam the other day about X, when she asked me question Y. I thought about it, and my first instinct was to say Z, but then I realized it’s not quite so simple! If we think back to…” I want readers to feel like we’re having a conversation, not that they’ve arrived at a lecture, but that buries the lede.
Irvin–I think all of us “of a certain age” have trouble with this stuff. As far as the lede, the most important thing is getting your keyword in your opening sentence. So you can say something like “Ever wondered about (keyword).? I was chatting with my friend…” That way you let readers know the subject matter and they’re more likely to click through to read it. .
Ooooh, good idea there! I’m gonna implement that for my next piece!
Also, I don’t know if I qualify as “of a certain age” at 27, but am happy to lumped in!
Irvin–Haha! I figured if you used the word “lede” you had to be my generation. Glad to know millennials are learning the old ways too. 🙂
I found this very, very helpful. I haven’t blogged about anything in months and this will guide me in my next posting. Thank you.
Patricia–Have fun with it. I look at SEO as a kind of game.
Ooh excellent post! And then, on top of it all, writers have to learn how to promote that excellent new web content on social media! So tweets like “come and read my latest article” is a bit enigmatic… *Twilight Zone music*
Icy–Yes! I talk all about getting more traffic through social media in my blogging book. “I have a new blogpost” does not cut it. 🙂
Thanks for the overview, Anne. Yikes, I am guilty of # 9 HERE but will fix that asap. Wish my web host (Square-owned Weebly) had an app like YOAST for WordPress. Congrats on your blogging book’s skyrocketing sales!
Cat–Thanks! Blogger doesn’t have that feature either, so I blogged for a long time without knowing all this stuff. But if you keep it in mind, you can be your own Yoast elf. 🙂
Excellent reminders along with a few things I did not know. Thanks for the tips!
Pat–I hope these tips help you get more traffic!
Great post! informative and useful! Thanks for posting 🙂
Luccia–Thanks for stopping by!
Hello, Excellent post. I just bought your blog book, which is what enticed me here. Thanks for the useful tips, I far prefer the spontaneity of blogs, as opposed to planned newsletters, and have been neglecting the former in favour of the one I least like. Well, no more.
Best,
Jan x
Janet–I’m always totally jazzed when I hear from a reader of one of my books! You’re right that a blog is more spontaneous. Posts can reflect what your blog readers commented about or what they’re expressing concerns with. My feeling is a blog is more about the blog peeps and less about the author.
Like many others have posted here, I had no idea about a lot of that..and only a little idea about the rest. I will start trying to incorporate much of that in my blog posts.
Thank you, Anne, for an excellent and helpful article.
Fred–Many thanks for letting me know it’s helpful. Happy blogging!
Great advice! Are you advising that each short paragraph be written in the Sub-paragraph style?
Dave–I’m afraid I don’t know what the Sub-paragraph style is. If you mean an indentation, that’s too hard to format in most blog programs, unless you use bulletting or numbering format. I don’t thing that’s usually necessary.
I apologize, I meant to say “subheader”, as you state here:
IMPORTANT: Be sure to use the “header” and “subheader” mode in your blog program, and not the “normal” or “paragraph” setting.
So my question is should ALL the short paragraphs be written is subheader setting?
David–I get it. No. Use :”paragraph” for the text in the body of each section. Only use “subheader” for the header of each section. You can see how I’ve done it in the post above. Hope that helps.
Very helpful, Anne. When I clicked on your book special link, Amazon says, 2.99 instead of the .99 sale you offered. For my WordPress blog, there’s a section for Title. Is that what you mean?
Evelyn–I’m so sorry. The sale on Amazon ended yesterday. But it’s still only $2.99. Most blogging courses cost hundreds, so it’s still a deal. 🙂
The way you format headers in WordPress if you use the classic editor is go to the “paragraph” window and click on the little down arrow. This will bring up a menu where you can choose Headings numbered 1-6. Header 1 is usually used for a title. Then you can choose the others for subheaders and sub-sub headers. Those will be live, so the spiders will find them.
It took me about 3 years of blogging before I found out how to format subheaders. Wouldn’t it be nice if these things came with directions?
My sister taught effective business writing for over 30 years, from the 1970’s to early 2000’s.. That’s where I learned about using white space, headings, and bullet points.
She said that a busy executive has 7 seconds to decide whether or not to spend time reading more of your letter or report; that why it’s important to put your main point first.
i.e. she was teaching much of what you suggested 4 decades ago. I’m happy to see this being applied to websites and blogs.
Florida–Thanks for the info! I know that James Patterson learned his masterful use of white space from his years as an advertising copywriter. So this stuff does come from business writing. These days everybody is that “busy executive with 7 seconds to decide” so we all have to learn those lessons your sister taught.
Excellent advice, thanks!! I was just embarrassed that I didn’t know what SEO stands for until I looked it up – something you said readers shouldn’t have to do! But maybe I’m the only blogger not to know it ;-).
Helen–I usually do define SEO. (Search Engine Optimisation) but I forgot. I’ll remedy that right now. 🙂
I almost passed this story up – after all, I’ve been blogging for over 16 years continuously.
Big Mistake. HUGE.
I’m bookmarking this, and will be spending some down time reading it again. Kudos.
Headlines? I like to think I’m pretty good at them:
Those links represent a quick check of some of my more recent popular posts. But, I’m looking forward to testing out some other ideas:
– sub-headings formats
– link text that will entice readers
– listicles
lfox–I’m glad to hear this post was able to teach new tricks even to a well-seasoned blogger. I had to cut your links because WordPress only allows one link per comment. But I’m sure your headers are excellent, since you’ve been at it for 16 years. Have fun with the sub-headers and link text.