Search Engine Optimization
Your eyes blur-Your brain takes a vacation- You feel the desperate need for a nap.
SEO for writers who are dummies when it comes down to technical. Include me in the SEO dummy category.
I have two novels and three short stories under my belt. I've built my website and integrated my blog and website together. I'm creative-not technical.
Recently I've been reading about SEO. A must for authors who own a blog and/or website. You've written a book. You want it to sell. You want to see your name in the google rankings spotlight. At least, I do. I installed an SEO plugin on my Website a while back and forgot about it until I recently looked myself up on Google. It wasn't pretty. The plugin wasn't doing what I expected it to do. It wasn't even compatible with my website anymore.
Fine. I didn't know much about SEO, but it was time to figure it out. I found numerous post on Search Engine Optimization. H1, h2, h3 headings, entering shortcode. Using bold, italics, hashtags. I spent hours reading these posts and yes, I did feel the desperate need for a nap. I have a day job, a family to take care of, and I write. Entering shortcode? Not. And the bold, italics, hashtags verdict is still out. Those may or may not help SEO rankings. Is it still worth taking the extra time to use them? I think so. But I also needed a good plugin. I spent more time reading up on the different SEO plugins available for my website. Yawn. Tired and confused.
After searching the internet and reading about SEO until my brain felt like it was going to explode, I logged into twitter. Anyone know of a great WordPress SEO plugin? I asked cyberspace. I received a reply back from All in One SEO plugin.
All in One SEO plugin for WordPress is easy to set up.
The guidelines: They are not a third party plugin.
The perks: (Here are a few of many)
XML Sitemap support – submits your sitemap to Google and Bing and improves your SEO
Google Analytics support
Automatically optimizes your titles for Google and other search engines
Generates META tags automatically
*For beginners, you don't even need to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything to optimize your SEO
Compatibility with many other plugins
Since my blog and website are already integrated this is a perfect match for me. I need to concentrate on my writing not Social Engine Optimization.
All in One SEO offers free and pro versions and it only took me about two hours to set up. I had to play around with it. A neat feature is that you can write up your post, scroll to the bottom of the page and add your title, description, and keywords. If you chose to make that information different from what All in One generates.
As a writer, I started out strong when I first set up my blog and began posting lazy content somewhere along the way. Over the years, I went from saying Hey, I'm Here to getting a low score on the google totem pole. What I found is blog less. Make it real. Something I used to do. I'm not sure what happened.
A little extra effort in your blog content and research finding and installing a good SEO plugin frees up your personal time to write that epic novel sitting on the back burner.
Write smart- SEO smart- save time.
Since finding this plugin I have gone back to school to learn more about SEO. Now I am more educated on Search Engine Optimization-And I'm now more appreciative I was led to All In one SEO plugin for WordPress!
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