Not so long ago I wrote a post on my rant blog about the Australian federal election. Being mindful of keyword selection, I included the names of the main party leaders in the post title. Just as I'd hoped, a reasonable number of people were including those two keywords in their searches and I managed to sneak onto the first page of Google for it. That particular post has well and truly slipped down the list but it did manage to bring in scores, if not hundreds, of visitors.
Something similar happened today. I read about a point blank execution in Dianella, which was the suburb I grew up in. Compelled to comment on the changing nature of Perth, I wrote a blog post on the chilling event. I thought about what people would most likely include in their searches and titled the post "Shooting in Dianella". Again, more than a few people were typing in those exact words, or something similar. And I've had dozens of hits as a result.
I know it's a pretty opportunistic, even ghoulish way to bring in some traffic. Still, there's no point in writing a blog unless you get people to read it, right?
And the lesson from this (particularly for bloggers who write about current events) is that you should always try and think what people will most likely type into a search engine when seeking information and opinions. If at all possible, you should include those keywords in the post title. If the post is about topical information there's almost certain to be very little competition for popular searches related to it. And if your hunches are correct (which they're pretty much bound to be from time to time) you can end up getting some really nice spurts of traffic as a result.
Something similar happened today. I read about a point blank execution in Dianella, which was the suburb I grew up in. Compelled to comment on the changing nature of Perth, I wrote a blog post on the chilling event. I thought about what people would most likely include in their searches and titled the post "Shooting in Dianella". Again, more than a few people were typing in those exact words, or something similar. And I've had dozens of hits as a result.
I know it's a pretty opportunistic, even ghoulish way to bring in some traffic. Still, there's no point in writing a blog unless you get people to read it, right?
And the lesson from this (particularly for bloggers who write about current events) is that you should always try and think what people will most likely type into a search engine when seeking information and opinions. If at all possible, you should include those keywords in the post title. If the post is about topical information there's almost certain to be very little competition for popular searches related to it. And if your hunches are correct (which they're pretty much bound to be from time to time) you can end up getting some really nice spurts of traffic as a result.
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