Friday, September 30, 2011

Learning how to blog

Blogging has been a learning experience. I follow more blogs since I’ve started blogging myself, and I found an interesting link on one of them. In the Friday finds of Epbot Jen* linked to SEO for Non-Dicks.** The post is mostly for people who are way more into webpage design than I am. My focus is knitting and yoga, but it’s good to learn tips on how to talk to more people about knitting and yoga.
The main points I learned from the post are I need to be aware of anchor-text, and you can always use more content as long as it is good. I knew I needed to keep writing. Before Skywestern Crooked turned me on to Google Reader, if there wasn’t something new on a blog twice a week I’d forget about it. Google Reader has changed that for me, I have a list of the blogs I read and it tells me whenever there’s a new one. Still, if it’s been a month since the last post, I wonder if the author has found something else to do with her time.

The real eye-opener for me was anchor-text; those are the words that turn blue that link to somewhere. I’ve often seen the link be “here” or “this”. Like you can find my blog here. And according to SEO for Non-Dicks, and the very dry Google SEO Starter Guide, anchor-text is supposed to describe what it is linking to. It makes it easier for search engines but, more importantly, it makes it easier for a reader to decide if they want to click. I’ve tried to do that, but sometimes I get carried away. I once linked every word of a sentence to a different post. It made sense at the time, but it might put people off because they don’t know where they are going to be taken.

I know this post is not pretty, and it might be a little dry, but I wanted to share with anyone who is thinking about their next blog post. And I haven’t meta-blogged in a while, so now you know what’s going on behind the scenes. Also, I need to learn how to use DH’s camera to get better pictures. But that’s a different post.***


* I don’t know Jen but, from all the geek love on her blog, she seems pretty cool. She is also funny; you should check out her other blog Cake Wrecks.

** SEO for anyone who doesn’t know, and that included me until I followed Jen’s link, is Search Engine Optimization.

***Apologies to Mr. Brown.

4 comments:

MaryAnne said...

I have yet to figure out the SEO stuff. Maybe someday.

Erin said...

I immediately started changing my phrasing on anchor-text when I read the link you sent. Thanks for sending that! Also, it seems like you've got a good amount of followers!

Erin
whatdoiwanttodotoday.com

seeherknit said...

Hey there MaryAnne! I didn't know you had a blog! It is now added to my Google Reader. I love the Halloween gloves!

seeherknit said...

Erin, I'm very glad you liked the link.