Welcome to week 2 of Boot Camp for Bloggers!  In case you missed us last week, check out Part 1.

Part 2 Keyword Research & Content Development

 Hello again bloggers.

Hopefully if you read last week’s post you have a solid foundation for your blog. If you haven’t you should probably go back and give SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers Part I a read and get your flabby, un-motivated website up to snuff!

Okay, that’s enough drill instructor for right now.

This second installment of SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers is going to teach you the basics of researching key terms you should write content around and how to write your content so the search engines will pick you up so more people can find and enjoy your blog.

I’m going to start with a little secret…

You are not Steve Jobs.

Huh? Okay, the blog instructor (not the same ring as drill instructor, hmmm) has lost his marbles.

Seriously though, after the death of the Apple icon Patrick Fitzgerald with The Huffigton Post wrote a great piece titled You’re Not Steve Jobs – And That’s OK. The basics of the post is that most entrepreneurs are nothing like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook and they don’t need to be because most venture capitalists and investors do not want that.

As a new or smaller blogger you need to have that same mentality.

You are not the Bloggess. You are not Perez Hilton. Whatever your niche is, there is probably a big time blogger that you admire, whether they are a mommy blogger, humorist or tech icon. The simple fact is…you are not them.

At least…not yet.

You absolutely can be, but when you are just starting your blog you have to keep in mind that when these bloggers write a post they have the authority in the search engines to rank for pretty much anything they want.

You, however, need to be smarter about what you write so you can rank in the search engine result pages (SERPS) and get noticed. How do you do this, you ask?

The answer, grasshopper, is keyword research.

Now, if you are writing a personal blog and only care that family and close friends read what you have to say keyword research may not be a huge priority (it really is, though…otherwise you could just send a mass email). If you have any desire to be read online, you need to decide what types of keyword phrases you are going to center your blog and your posts around. For the remainder of this post, I’m going to take you step-by-step on how I would start developing my blog.

1.      Setting the Mood: Deciding on your Blog’s Theme

Every good blog has a general theme; a basic concept that most, if not all, of the posts and pages are about. This is where we get the labels mommy blog, celebrity blog, tech blog, etc. I’m a big fan of scotch, the delicious Irish whiskey. I even named one of my dogs Scotch when I was in the Corps because his fur was the color of the drink. That said, I have often thought it would be fun to start a blog about my love of scotch and my search for the tastiest varieties.

And that’s it. I just developed the theme for my blog.

2.      Initial Keyword Research: The Tools of the Trade

Now that we know what we want the blog to be about in a general sense we need to figure out more specific key phrases that we want to write about. There are a number of free and paid tools that we can use to figure this out. For the purposes of this blog I am going to show you three free options that should get you more than enough information for you to write highly targeted posts.

• Competitive Research – Have you ever wondered how those pages on the top of the search results are getting there? Why not look at them and see for yourself? Often overlooked by people new to the search marketing game, competitive keyword research is a great way to figure out what you should talk about to get your own blog noticed.  Follow these steps:
  • Type a search into Google. In our case, we are going to do a search for “scotch whiskey”.
  • Look at the first page of results. Start at the top of the page. The first thing we see on the page is Google’s “Related searches”. This is a great place to get ideas on what to write about because these are things that Google is blatantly telling us it finds similar. I could definitely see a post about “Single Malt Scotch” and “Johnny Walker”….blegh! (sorry). I could even see an entire blog page about different scotch brands (we’ll get to that).
  • Click on the links to the pages and read the content. What is the main theme of the pages that are ranking well? It is important to remember that there are other factors that help pages rank well (links, social signals, etc), but if the search engines are doing their job this should be the most relevant content for the key phrase “scotch whiskey”.

• The Not-So Famous Tilde (~) – When writing content one of the biggest challenges is NOT using the same keywords over and over. Not only does this raise a red flag to the search engines, but it also makes your blog posts essentially unreadable. So, how do you figure out what terms are related to your keyword so you can write better content? The answer is the tilde (~). Simply type your search into the Google search bar with a tilde in front, like so: “~scotch whiskey” and hit the enter key. As you can see from the screenshot below, we could easily use “Scotland’s Whiskey”, “Bourbon” and “Whisky” without the “e”. Also, if you scroll down a little further you would see “Single Malt Scotch”. Now we’re cooking with gas, my friends.

• Google adWords Keyword Tool – A lot of bloggers don’t know about this one because there is normally not a lot of advertising for blogs. While the tool is a little more robust, you can still get plenty of great info from the free version, known as the Google adWords Keyword Tool External. After you type your search phrase into the “Word or Phrase” box and enter the Capcha the tool will return a ton of great information including related searches, the competition for the terms and the estimated monthly search volume as you can see in the screenshot below.

With the tools above you will be able to develop a pretty comprehensive list of keywords. Use a spreadsheet, such as Microsoft Excel, to keep track of the keywords you have found. To make your list even more comprehensive use a thesaurus or the synonyms feature on your document editor and place these on your list as well. Once you have your list together sort the list and remove any duplicates.

 3.      Grouping Keywords. Developing Content Ideas.

Now that we have our keyword list developed we will want to sort the list into themes. For our scotchconnoisseur.com blog, this could mean sorting the keywords into brand-related, scotch tasting, single malt scotch, single grain scotch, blended scotch, scotch regions – the list can go on and on. By grouping our keywords we can make a better decision on what terms we should use when writing a post or page for our blog. These lists can also help us as we research new ideas for new blog posts.

 4.      Post or Page? Which Keywords for Which?

A little earlier in the post we were talking about a page for scotch whiskey brands? You may be wondering how to decide between a page or a post for your blog. The simplest way to think about it is to ask yourself how permanent you want a content to be? A content about the different scotch brands out there probably has some staying power, and with a monthly search volume of 1,600 for the search “scotch whiskey brands” this would probably be a great content for a static (permanent) page.

Search volume should not be your only consideration on whether you want to utilize a key phrase on a page or post. If the keywords are highly important to your main concept and will help visitors understand your blog better then a page would be better. For posts, longer phrases, known as long tail searches, will usually work better and are easier to rank for, meaning that posts will have a better chance of ranking for them.

And that is content development in a nutshell. We could get more specific, but that may be confusing at this point. The most important thing to remember is to build relevant keyword lists, group them into themes and base your contents around the themes that will help your blog become an authority in the eyes of both the search engines and your readers.

If you have any specific questions be sure to leave a comment and stay tuned next week for the 3^rd installment of the SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers series where I will be talking about optimizing images, videos and other blog elements that are often overlooked.

‘Til then.

Jeff Loquist is a search engine marketer with more than seven years’ experience creating search-friendly content and optimizing websites for the search engines. He runs Zen Search Marketing, a Baton Rouge SEO Consulting, PPC management and content development company. Outside of search, Jeff enjoys making soap (yeah, you heard right…soap) and writing poetry and short fiction. Mostly, Jeff enjoys a good Scotch, a fine cigar and great conversation; pretty much in that order.

Catch up with Jeff on twitter! @jmloquist

Happy Friday, friends! I can’t believe that we’re already in our 2nd month of 2012… things are just going by too fast, aren’t they? January was quite exciting for me, with my trip to Alt Summit and also finishing up/starting some new design projects.  Today I’d like to share three web projects that I’ve recently launched (and have grown quite attached to!).

Zen Search Marketing

Remember the  SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers guest post from my pal Jeff? Well guess what-Jeff’s website, Zen Search Marketing,  was designed by me! To sum it up- this design was challenging and fun to work on. You must know by now that my style is usually quite feminine, so taking on this project meant that I had to once again think a bit outside of my (violet) box, haha. Luckily Jeff already had some ideas for his color scheme and logo, and after sending me a rough sketch of the layout he wanted- I nailed down the design. It’s actually a great launch for the both of us: I learned a lot along the way and implemented a few new design techniques, and Jeff now has a clean, minimal website for his amazing SEO business. Win, win!

TSJ Photography

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my return customers? Tracie first hired me last year to design her blog, TSJ Photography (remember this soft, sweet design?) then again to help bring her idea for MODSquad to life. But some gals just really like change, and Tracie is one of them! She was ready to start 2012 with a fresh new look, inspired by Japanese Washi tapes and bright colors. I’m also a fan of Washi tapes (did you see my business cards from Alt Summit? =), so Tracie’s idea really intrigued me. It’s always fun to get a new look, and I think Tracie and I are both excited about hers. Head on over to TSJPhotography and take a peek!

Beach Wedding Style

How LOVELY is this color palette? I have to hand it to my client, Kristina- she really knows a good color palette when she sees it! Kristina hired me to design her new blog, Beach Wedding Style, and she went above and beyond when sending me design inspiration. She created a beautiful pinterest board for me to use, filled with soft, beachy colors that she was hoping to carry over into the design. She also mentioned hot air balloons (another small obsession of mine) and chevron patterns- so I was instantly game.  I’m really excited to see the growth of this blog and the DIY projects she’ll be featuring. If you’re planning a beach wedding, or just love wedding blogs in general, make sure to subscribe to Beach Wedding Style

Well, that wraps up another Featured Friday post! If you’re still reading this, I just want you to know that I truly appreciate your interest in my projects and my work.

What are some things that you accomplished this week?

*Welcome bloggy friends! I’m very excited to introduce you to a new series about SEO, and also to a great friend of mine. Jeff is a SEO expert (really not kidding- this guy knows his stuff!), and I’m lucky enough to be able to pass on some of his knowledge though our new SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers. So sit back, grab a cup of coffee or tea, and let’s wrangle that SEO monster.*

Part 1  – Building a Solid SEO Foundation

Welcome to boot camp bloggers! I’m not going to lie to you; boot camp can be Hell. But with great sacrifice comes great reward. I remember graduation day from Marine Corps boot camp like it was yesterday. All the hard work, the sweat and the pain was worth it just to cross the parade grounds and show people the transition I had made.

After spending the next few weeks in my SEO Boot Camp you may feel a similar sense of pride.

Anyone can build a blog and toss content up so hopefully people will read it. Having a well-optimized blog that can rank well in the search engines, however, is a testament to hard work and sacrifice.

Fortunately for you, I promise not to yell and scream at you over the next few lessons (that would be a bit weird). I am going to ask you to do some grunt work though, and it’s not going to be easy. Search engine optimization is a process. It takes time. It takes effort.

SEO takes commitment.

Are you ready? Let’s get started.

What is SEO?

First, let’s answer the question: What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

According to Wikipedia, SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

That’s a nice, pretty definition but it doesn’t really tell us what SEO is. This is because search engine optimization cannot be summed up in a single sentence. There are a number of things you can and should do both on-page and off-page to help ensure your blog is search engine friendly and will rank well for your targeted key phrases.

Actually, the fact that there is so much involved in SEO is one of the main reasons bloggers and other site owners find it so intimidating. You can be smart when optimizing your site, however, and this will make the process of SEO much less daunting. So where do we begin? Just like the military does with boot camp, we are going to start by building a solid SEO foundation.

The Foundation of Search Engine Optimization

Before you can write great content, you have to make sure that your website will let the search engines crawl and find your website and the content on it. Following are 8 things you should do before doing ANYTHING ELSE.

“Oh no,” you say. “I already have an existing blog.” Fear not; all of the following SEO steps can be implemented at any time.

1. Commit to your domain and get it registered. Before setting up your blog you will want to settle on a domain name and register it. There are a lot of ways to get free domains, and many people are drawn to the easy set-up of a blogname.wordpess.com domain. The problem with free domains is that the hosting company could change your name or shut the domain down at any time (two issues you will not have to worry about if you own the domain name. And for a number of reasons (I could write an entire blog on the benefits) it is easier to rank a website on your own domain in most instances. And while we are talking about it, take the plunge and register your domain for two or three years at least (there are SEO benefits to this as well). The last thing you want to do is change your domain name once you have built rankings.
2. Pay for hosting and get a unique IP address. Do a search for “website hosting” and you will find a ton of companies offering affordable hosting packages (usually for less than twelve bucks per month). And unless you are the Bloggess, you will likely never generate the traffic that will require more than the twelve dollar plan (if you do, congratulations, but twelve dollars and under plans can handle quite a bit of traffic. Also, since you are paying the ten bucks for hosting, fork out the additional one to two bucks and pay for a unique IP address (your hosting company will know what this means and how to do it (if they don’t get a new one)).
3. Use WordPress. There are plenty of blog platforms, but WordPress is simply the best. They make it easy to add your own design, add pages and posts and offer a ton of free plugins, including several designed specifically for SEO (use SEO Ultimate, you will thank me later).
4. Invest in a good web design (and don’t use flash). Web design has a lot more to do with SEO than you may think. A good web designer will help you create a design that has easy to use and search-friendly navigation, fast load times, proper use of CSS and JavaScript, and a design that is appealing to users (all these things are very good for SEO). One of the biggest mistakes website owners make is the use of flash. Flash is simply horrible from an optimization standpoint, and while there is talk that search engines are getting better about reading it, it is simply not worth your time and will drive most visitors and especially SEOs completely insane. Honestly, I can’t ask this nicely enough; please don’t use Flash on your website. Pretty please.
5. Add Google Analytics. Google analytics is a robust and easy to use analytics program that will allow you to track your websites traffic. You can figure out how people are finding your blog, where they are coming from and how they interact with your blog once they get there. Wondering if a blog post you wrote was a success? Google analytics can tell you how long a person was on your post and if they took any action you may have wanted them to. Best of all, Google’s analytics program is FREE! There are a number of analytics programs out there, but seriously, this is all you will need…and you DO need it.
6. Create an About page and a Contact page. Whether your blog is informational, inspirational or strictly for entertainment people want to know that it is written by a real human being. And so do the search engines. The problem is, many blogs are created simply to game the search engines and build rankings. Nobody likes this; neither humans or robots. Creating an About page with actual information about yourself will let readers and the search engines know that your content is created by an actual human being and will also rank well for your name once you become a rich and famous blogger. A contact page with actual contact information (an email is fine; you really don’t want people calling you in the middle of the night to tell you that you used “your” instead of “you’re”) is also important and will let search engines know you are the real deal and will help readers get in touch with you (they often have GREAT blog ideas).
7. Use unique Title and Description Meta tags. From an SEO standpoint, there may not be anything more important than the Meta Title of your web page. If you don’t know what a Meta Title is, look all the way up to the top left of the screen where it says “SEO Boot Camp for Bloggers”. The Title tag is located in the <head> section of your page code and tells the search engines what your page is about. It is also the thing that draws the attention of searchers when they do a Google search (they are the big blue line of text at the top of every result). Under the Title in the search results is the Meta Description. While this tag doesn’t hold the weight it used to for SEO, it is still highly important as it can entice searchers to click the link and turn them into visitors. **With SEO Ultimate it is very easy to create unique Titles and Descriptions for pages and posts in your blog.**
8. Set up your Social Network. As a blogger you want to get your content noticed (if you don’t I recommend saving your money on monthly hosting and buy a journal). It is important to remember, however, that SEO takes time. If you want to push your posts out to the world, set up a social network and use it to the best of your abilities. Create a Twitter account and a Facebook Fan Page for your blog and start interacting with like-minded people. Remember, though, these are SOCIAL networks. Don’t think for a minute you can just push links to your blog out four times a day and call it good. You need to interact with your followers. Make nice with them. Read their blogs, tweets and posts and respond. They will appreciate your kindness and return the favor. **Added bonus: social signals are becoming more and more correlated with high search rankings.**
9. Use word of mouth to start. Remember the days before the Internet? Actually, many of you probably don’t, but humor me here. Back in the olden days when people wanted to get their stuff noticed they would utilize their social circle to get the word of mouth going. Their mother would tell their cousin who would tell their neighbors and on and on and on. Want to know a Super-Secret Pro Tip? This totally still works! Even before search engines, people used word of mouth to get people to see their websites, usually through links (see where I am going here?). Use your current circle and act like the search engines don’t exist. How would you best get people to your site? Do you have a cousin, friend or cousin’s friend with a blog that complements yours? See if you can get a link from them to you. **Also, use ACTUAL word of mouth. Talk to anyone and everyone you come in contact with about your blog and how simply awesome it is. You’ll be amazed at how well this works.**

Well, recruits…er…bloggers; that is it for this week. I know it seems like a lot, but no one ever said anything worthwhile was easy. I’m going to leave you to it. Be passionate and be innovative and come back next week when I’ll cover keyword research and content development (yeah, there is a lot more to that than you think there is).

‘Til then.

Jeff Loquist is a search engine marketer with more than seven years’ experience creating search-friendly content and optimizing websites for the search engines. He runs Zen Search Marketing, a Baton Rouge SEO Consulting, PPC management and content development company. Outside of search, Jeff enjoys making soap (yeah, you heard right…soap) and writing poetry and short fiction. Mostly, Jeff enjoys a good Scotch, a fine cigar and great conversation; pretty much in that order.

Catch up with Jeff on twitter! @jmloquist

Last week I decided to return to my purple roots (hehe =) and add some purple color to my hair. It has been a couple of years since I last had purple highlights/streaks, but this time I wanted to try something a bit different.

I had been seeing, loving, and pinning some lavendar ombre hair ideas for the past few weeks- and I finally decided to go for it. My vision was to have a lavendar fade into my blonde hair, and I’m very pleased with the results. I feel like ME again.. and it’s a great feeling. It’s funny what a little bit of color can do

On Saturday Chris and I headed downtown for a bit of exploring, and it was such a beautiful day! He snapped these pics as we walked around, and we had such a great time that we decided to head out there more often.

Have you ever added crazy colors to your hair?

P.S. Stay tuned for a new series starting tomorrow- I can’t wait to share it with you!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

First, let me tell you about my sweet roomie. Being friends with Emily since we opened our Etsy shops in early 2009, it was great to finally meet and spend our days at Alt together. We laughed a lot, got along fab, and brought each other some sweet gifts. She crocheted me a beautiful purple scarf and brought me some Violet Tea from Paris (how perfect, right?), and I gave her a handy book of New Orleans cocktail recipes.

Speaking of gifts, WHOA. I’m still in a bit of shock over all of the ah-MA-zing things I brought home with me. I had to buy a second carry on bag for my goodies, and my suitcase was still busting at the seams and 5 lbs over weight. Here are a few of my favorite things:

One of the best things was picking up my magnet at the Friday night Paris Party, because I was really missing my two guys at this point- and I smiled and teared up a bit when I finally found it
1- Magnet from Pinhole Press | 2- Necklace from Ritzy Misfit & Journal from Paper Coterie | 3- Bamboo Connect (Gift from Cottonelle) | 4-Baby Gear & Music from Superfly Lullabies

Everything looked so spot-on, let me just show you. From the gifts, packaging, ribbons & bows, sparkle, cupcake displays, mini parties, food, and our night in winter wonderland- the details paid attention to at Alt were pretty much flawless.

Among all of the beautiful and creative ladies I met, I also had the pleasure of meeting Anya from Project Runway (I am a pretty huge fan of hers!), Ben from Pinterest, and the oh-so-fabulous Amy Butler. I’m also very excited about the possibility of working with Anya on a web project in the near future. I felt a little starstruck,  I must be honest. These are some of the most inspirational people you could possibly meet- you can literally feel the positive energy surrounding them. And I’m convinced that every girl at the conference secretly went home with a crush on darling Ben after hearing his keynote speech, hehe.

I’m going to have to take a moment here and tell you about how much fun I had in the snow… before I hurt my wrist snowboarding, OMG! You do remember that I’m from Louisiana, right? And let me remind you that I’ve never seen more than about 4 inches of snow. On Saturday we headed up to the Solitude Ski Resort and when I finally saw REAL SNOW and a snowboard attached to my feet, you can probably imagine my excitement…

I took a bit of a super-fast-whiplash-fall-on-my-butt at the bottom of the slope and bruised my wrist (boo!), but I absolutely love snowboarding and will be doing it again next year.. My ski group seemed to love it when a cute ski-patroller came to my wrist-rescue and wrapped me up- ha! And wasn’t my new friend, B, from Truly Aesthetic, lookin’ chic in her ski gear?

The panels, roundtable discussions, and keynotes are still swimming through my mind- I’ve learned so much about myself and my business on my trip. Although it was sad to leave the snow and so many new friends behind, I was happy to get home to see my son and best friend-of-a-hubby. I still have a LOT of unpacking & mind-downloading to do, but I enjoyed adding a few new things to my inspiration board and studio shelves. (P.S. I read Deborah Needleman’s The Perfectly Imperfect Home on the airplane, and LOVED it- Another wonderful gift! Planning to do a review soon

Did you attend Alt? If you’re thinking about giving your blog a facelift or makeover, check out my portfolio and maybe we can work together

Is it weird that I’m already excited about ALT 2013? Woo Hoo!!

What will YOU be packing? Can’t wait to see you there!!!

Violet Sequin Top

Ivory Strapless Dress (Similar to mine)

Black Sweater Dress

Ruffle Coat

Jo Totes Camera Bag

Braided Floral Necklace

Silver Glitter Wedges

Mother of Pearl Watch

Black Suede Boots

Polaroid Camera

Purple Majesty Nail Polish

 Nook Color

Secret Wonderland Perfume

Are you having a Happy Holiday?

I’m so excited thinking of what’s to come for 2012, and I’m ready to celebrate at a midnight soiree with friends tomorrow

But first I wanted to feature a beautiful website that just launched for my client, Tara from Glutenull. It took a bit of time for us to decide on a color palette, because they all seemed to look pretty darn good with this design. I have to admit, I really love the end result!

Hope you start your New Year with a BANG!!!!! See you in 2012