AUGUST 30 Day SEO CHALLENGE
SYNOPSIS – My 30 Day SEO Challenge is about this one thing. How do we learn? ONLY in spending time around people who know more about something than you do. Also, being humble in your lack of knowing helps. Often you don’t know what you don’t even know yet. Clearly, you can become stronger in your ability to improve yourself. Therefore, I have to admit that I am sad that I did not spend more time listening to Corey Potter earlier in my association with him.
It would have paid bigger dividends by now. Recently I paid for a precursor to his current SEO offerings. Afterwords I began working through that process at the end of June. At this point, our website was on page 4 on google. Basically for most all of the important search terms for our company.
What I learned when I began to Open my Eyes was amazing.
Chiefly, I can summarize the information Corey Potter provides in three categories. Above all, they are Stop, Start, and Continue. With this in mind, here is my 30 day challenge to you. By the time we get to the end of August, you should feel better about your website. #augustarcseochallenge : My challenge is 30 DAYS OF TEMPORARY PAIN FOR 30 MONTHS OF PERMANENT REWARDS. This is my first 30 Day SEO Challenge. Be gentle with me.
The best way to start your 30 day SEO Challenge is to STOP.
STOP – There were a big bushel of things I was doing incorrectly. I needed to spend almost two weeks fixing things. Overall, too many incorrect or broken or incomplete things about our site. In other words, think of clearing the land before you can build a home. To begin with, our site has carried over from wordpress/bluehost to wordpress/godaddy to wordpress/showit to now wordpress/cloudways. All along the way it accumulated so much extraneous performance-sapping gunk. Undeniably, the “STOP” section took that long to correct.
NOTE — you should find a way to gain direction from Corey Potter on this. Even if you have to pay for it. It’s worth it. Despite this not being a paid endorsement, I rarely pay for anything. Regarding website marketing and SEO, his was the one really important investment I felt I needed to make. Certainly as Orlando Wedding Photographers, we are always willing to learn .
Get your act in Gear.
START – So, I was finally able to start doing constructive things. This was around the end of
- Yoast SEO Tool for Writing better Articles
the first week of July. I knew I still had existing old content. It was really in bad shape. But I also needed to create new content as well. Therefore I chose to start working on both ends. I would attack the list methodically. In effect building a new blog article each day.
Then going back and resuscitating an old article back into top shape. Indeed I can honestly say I enjoyed training my brain.
I needed to learn to write blog posts effectively. After all, to score well for SEO is the goal. At any rate, it was the most fun re-direction of my energies. Really. The most fun I have ever undertaken. For instance, this article changed the way I write. https://yoast.com/5-tips-improve-readability-blog-post/. Here are two examples of Articles I have written using this tool. I hope you enjoy!
Please continue to do great work during your 30 Day SEO Challenge.
CONTINUE – In time, I figured out the correct daily activities I needed to start. This time I was actually building authority for the site. Eventually, this became easier. This is combined with the hazmat cleanup. Also with the things I started doing which I had never done before. In the end, I have had about 16 straight days of consistent daily construction. To illustrate, here is my current daily workout routine:
This is my daily Workout Routine.
BLOG EVERY DAY – On the positive side, I have been either cleaning up or creating a new blog article every day. To this end I recommendation if you have wordpress then install Yoast. I take ownership of my own work. The work to do better pays off. I improved our site through this method.
COMMENT EVERY DAY – Do you know of a big benefit of commenting on blogs? Given that the blog often let’s you add your website. That is to say, a link for your website attaches to the comment. As a result, the comment gets approved. Then it is published as a comment on the article. Finally, that becomes a backlink for your site! In fact,
I didn’t know that. I was totally unaware.
Conversely, I can guess that nearly everyone on page 1 for your search terms knows. Moreover, they are doing that to gain additional backlinks. These are essentially “upvotes” for your site in the eyes of Google Search Results. You may not know how to look for places to do this. Corey’s com padre Dylan Howell wrote a really good article especially for this. https://dylanmhowell.com/best-wedding-blogs/
You must Feed the Beast during this 30 Day SEO Challenge.
SUBMIT EVERY DAY – Clearly, this is going to be a test of your patience. Because 90% of the time you aren’t going to get approved. But that just means it is a number game. In other words, if you want 5 approved submissions in 2019, you need to APPLY 50 times.
Just make it a numbers game. It is Just like leads turning into bookings.
You know that the more you do the more which will eventually pan out. See above for enough work to keep you busy for a year.
Social Media is a big part of the 30 Day SEO Challenge.
POST EVERY DAY – IG and FB – Firstly I fixed or created a blog post. Also I checked to make sure it was fully formed in every possible way. Secondly I would Push it out to Social Media. Specifically, I posted it first on our page. Then I shared to every group I knew about. Each little breadcrumb / test balloon sent out is another set of eyeballs.
Specifically, they see the preview and photo. They also see the link for that article. All for free. Why not push each article out to every possible channel? It makes sense. Can you dig it? I knew that you could.
Pinterest is a completely separate database.
PUSH OUT TO PINTEREST EVERY DAY – As Orlando Wedding Photographers, we really believe that. The reason to have images in your articles is clear. Basically it os to add alt text relevant to the photo. Also to push out even more of your content. Specifically into a visual database used every day. Certainly it is used by people searching for individual things. To that end, here is a pretty good article about that.
TAG EVERY DAY – This is really just about test balloons and breadcrumbs. Often others can assume ( unjustly ) that you aren’t working. Especially if you aren’t seen or heard. Reaching out to one person in your local networking circles helps.
Doing so every day in simple ways insures that you catch the eyes of (possible) sources of referrals and recommendations. Also they are reminded that you are out here still plugging away.
Be Seen and Be Heard in your 30 day SEO Challenge.
SUBMIT TO GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE EVERY DAY – If you haven’y connected your website to Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and Google My Business, then you are essentially getting ready for a race without even knowing where the track is located.
Here is a good place to start https://www.fuelyourphotos.com/guide-to-search-console/