Organic SEO Strategy – A Casestudy

Organic SEO Strategy – A Casestudy

This article is a continuation of our ongoing series on WordPress SEO. You’re encouraged to read the previous entries to better understand our organic seo and sem optimization strategy as laid out in the series.

So far we have discussed:

1. Laying a Solid Foundation for Your Blog’s SEO Strategy!

2. Enhancing Your Blog’s Essential SEO Elements with Plugins!

3. Debunking The #1 SEO Keyword Fallacy!

4. The Complete Guide to Nailing Killer Keywords to Get On Google First Page!

For our discussion today we will be doing something different. We’ll use a special example to show how to optimize your content with the right keywords.

A Swaggerlicious Kuntry Girl Request Blog Traffic Generation Tips!

A few weeks ago I received an email with the following message:

“Hello!

I know you get tons of questions about blogging and you may have already answered this in some of your posts, but here goes. I am new to the blogging world and I am sort of a fashion blogger. I am a thrift shopper and bargain hunter and then I post outfits that I have found at thrift shops around the state. I would like to figure out a way that I can make money on my blog. I just started the blog last month and I do love thrifting, but I am green here. I have no idea how to drive traffic to my blog or make any money from it! When I say green, I mean GREEN!! I would love any advice you may have on how to boost traffic to my blog and to also make money. I had this idea that I would travel to the best consignment and thrift shops in the country and post pics, videos and information about the different shops where thrifting is the best. Any advice would help!! Thanks!

Sincerely,

The Green Blogger!!”

Of course, I’ve replied that email with a few tips on traffic generation. However, understanding the importance of organic seo traffic, I suggested a more detailed write up like this one since an email reply may not be able to cover everything that needs to be said.

And so, this post is with special agreement with Stephanie the creator of http://kuntrygirlswag.blogspot.com which will be our case-study in this post. We'll take a close look at this blog with special interes on how to use keyword phrases in our content for better seo rankings.

Please take a few minutes and visit the blog so that you can better understand the situation we're dealing with.

The Good Points about the Kuntry Girl Swag Blog

First, here’s my assessment of the blog;

1. Pictorially Appealing – I must say Stephanie did a good job with the graphics. Though she claims to be a “green blogger” from what she has done with the KuntryGirlSwag blog I believe she has more up her sleeves and will definitely perform greatly with a little more experience.

2. Well written content – I also want to give kudos to Stephanie on the content. The level of the language shows that Stephanie is indeed a good writer. Her style of connecting with the reader in her content is a testimonial to a writer who knows what she is doing.

3. A potentially profitable niche – I also believe the niche is a good one profit-wise. However note that I said “potentially profitable.” I’ve simply done a simple research on the niche and from what I’ve found so far I believe the niche can be monetized easily.

4. On promotion I believe promoting this blog on the social media sites, like facebook, will definitely be a good idea.

Organic SEO – A Few Areas for Improvement!

I must also commend Stephanie in that she did very well SEO-wise! As I’ve emphasized in previous entries your content should be able to tell the search engines what your blog is all about. And the only way this can be done is through the use of your keyword phrases.

Of course the KuntryGirlSwag blog has some points in this area. For example, from the email I received from Stephanie which is quoted above, I understood that the blog is about thrift shopping and bargain hunting. I also verified this from the tag-line of the blog: “A Kuntry girl's guide to life, natural hair and shopping, (the thrift shop way)”

To check if the blog has some point in the area of search engine optimization, I simply picked the keywords “thrift shopper” and “bargain hunter” from the email and did a test on the blog.

Here is what I did.

I opened the Google Adwords keyword tool and did a keyword research with these phrases [I wrote a detail post on how to do a research for seo keywords in the previous post].

For “bargain hunter” here’s the graphic:

And for “thrift shopper” here is a graphic of the result:

From the above it is clear that people are using these keyword phrases in searching for information in this niche. Note also that a good number of advertisers are spending money in the niche and that is a good thing!

Next, I took the blog url and entered it into the keyword tool to see what keyword phrases the blog is presently targeting. The result? Here it is:

From all indication the blog is targeting those keyword phrases in the content. However, there's so much that Stephanie should do to better optimize the blog for organic seo traffic.

I've noted this before but for emphasis sake I'll need to repeat it again:

And so I'm offering the following suggestions as possible areas Stephanie can work on to optimize the blog. For details on how to go about this I advise that she read the previous post on seo keyword research.

Now, My Suggestions on How To Improve Search Engine Rankings

I'm very optimistic that if Stephanie work on these areas the Kuntry Girl Swag blog will gain more points on the search engines.

1. Use The Target Keywords In The Titles – I advise Stephanie to read my previous article on seo keywords research.  Use the information there and create a list of keywords to target. In subsequent posts always create your content around the keywords you've choosen and always use them in the blog titles.

Presently, this is not being done.

2. Use The Target Keyword Phrases In the Content – Like I said earlier, the content is great so far. However, there is room for improvement.  If you want to optimize your blog for the search engines you must ensure that every blog post targets a specific keyword phrase. Always have your list of keywords handy when writing your content. To help the search engine better place your blog in their index, your blog should be tight on-topic and it should be centered on the subject matter of your keyword phrase.

3. Keywords In Meta Tags – Unfortunately, Stephanie is presently using blogger and from my personal experience, implementing your keyword phrases in the meta tags with blogger is not really an easy task.  Though I did it some time ago but it is not as easy as using wordpress blogs. If you want to do that it will demand you opening the blog template's source code. But that may be a little too advanced for someone like Stephanie who says she is a “green blogger.”  However, if you want to do this, create a meta tag for your blog using any of the free services online. Once you've done that open the blog's template source code. I think you can do this in the dashboard area. Look the header area in the source code and paste the meta tag you created there.

If this is too advance please don't try it!

Besides, Russell Davison posted a comment here some time ago about something he is working on that will help with this. Maybe Russell may be of help here!

4. Move The Blog to WordPress – Ok, I really did not want to add this since I know it may create some controversy. There are many bloggers using the blogger platform who will readily say blogger is the best. But as far as I know, having tested the two, wordpress is much easier to implement these seo optimization strategies. With that I'll advise that Stephanie move over to wordpress right away moreso since she is thinking of monetizing the blog. Moving now will save a whole lot of things.

5. A Keyword Targeted Url – Another reason I think Stephanie should move to wordpress is so that she can right away change the blog's url.  KuntryGirlSwag.blogspot.com sound really swaggerlicious! 🙂 but it is far from being a good url – seo-wise. Moving to wordpress will afford her the opportunity to purchase a domain name which of course will become the new url. She will need to simply analyze the target keyword phrases and pick something that is more optimized for the search engines. Something like www.smartbargainhunteratlanta.com will definitely do. Note, that was just of the bat. I don't know if that is available but I think you understand what I mean !

Ok, that is it for now. In subsequent articles we may definitely touch on other things that will help the Kuntry Girl Swag to be effectively optimized for organic seo traffic. I do hope this is helpful.

It’s your turn: Are you using blogger or do you have other suggestions that Stephanie can work on to optimize the Kuntry Girl Swag Blog for organic seo traffic? Is there something you do not agree with in this review? Let’s have your views in the comments below.

18 Comments
  1. Moving the blog to WordPress is a good idea indeed, but even better would be going self-hosted as soon as possible.

    If the kuntry girl isn’t ready to go down this route yet, maybe she should stay with blogspot for the time being since they allow placing adsense ads (WP.org doesn’t); this would arguably the simplest way for her to get started monetizing available traffic.

    Also, I see you’ve focused mostly in internal optimization… maybe you could have mentioned to her the importance of link building as well as using keyword-targeted anchor text?

    • @Pedro Cardoso,

      Thanks for this comment. I truly appreciate your inputs.

      It does appear however that you got me wrong about moving to wordpress. Ok, I didn’t mention “self-hosted” but that is what I have in mind. When I advised buying a domain name it’s so that she can self-host. So thanks for the clarification. WordPress.com is definitely worst than Blogger in terms of monetization. Like you said, if she is not ready to move yet it’s better to remain with blogger than wordpress.com

      On link building, I’ve actually touched that some how in my email reply to her though not in details. I know how these things could be some times overwhelming when there are too many details. I’m expecting her to concentrate on a few things at a time. Remember, she is new to most of these things (according to her of course) so putting too many thing before her at once may be a drawback instead of good or don’t you think so?

      • @Chadrack, I agree! You did good not to bring up link building in your initial advice, since the excess information could be overwhelming. Besides, it’s always better to focus in internal optimization to begin with.

        I hope the kuntry girl achieved much success from implementing your good advice! Look forward to seeing a follow-up case study showcasing her impressive progress, in a year or so.

    • Oops, I meant WordPress.com does not allow Adsense; with the self-hosted wp.org variant everything goes, of course!

  2. Hi Chadrack! Organic SEO and as well as ranking are click on my mind. It is very interesting post to read as a SEO. I am slowing down on the details that i never heard before. Thanks to you!

    • @Shikha Singh,

      It’s always a pleasure when someone who knows about these things found it useful! 🙂 Thanks for the comment.

  3. Wonderful article. If I write for people and I never think about inserting commercial keywords. I can not monetize my blog?

  4. Chadrack, As a SEO can i create my own blog and as well as hiring people for my page ranking?

    • @Divine,

      If you mean hiring others to help promote your blog for the purpose of better ranking, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. It’s all about what you want to do. You could decide on the areas you want to concentrate your efforts on and then hire others to do the rest. In fact that of course will increase productivity.

  5. Its always good to get something regarding Organic SEO and it seems pretty useful from you.. Do you think one should compare Organic SEO with Paid services!!!

    • @bjohn,

      Compare organic seo with paid services? Do you mean ppc or paying seo experts to optimize your site?

      Any way, I think for stats purposes you may decide to compare your results from both paid and free seo strategies. Look at the time spent, the effort put in, and then of course the results. When you do your comparison any that is more viable will demand more attention from you. I think this is good business sense.

  6. If the kuntry girl isn’t ready to go down this route yet, maybe she should stay with blogspot for the time being since they allow placing adsense ads (WP.org doesn’t); this would arguably the simplest way for her to get started monetizing available traffic.

  7. Thanks for the mention Chadrack. As promised I’m creating conditional meta tag statements in blogger as we speak and I will send you an email with the code snippet for my site along with a code explanation for the layperson. It might be a good guest post in a few weeks time for September or October. Also, check out my disturbing revelation about the Google Keyword Tool gross inaccuracy to another one of your posts. Perhaps we could do a field test with 6 volunteers with site host stats and Google Analytics to nail this one down.

  8. Point number 2 is very valuable and something easily forgotten when steaming ahead typing. Always bear in mind the keywords you are targeting – otherwise how will the search engines know what you’re trying to rank for?

  9. When using Google Adwords, the key question for high traffic websites is, if I stop using Adwords, will I still get an equivelant level of traffic. In what Google are calling “Search Ads Pause Studies”, a group of researchers observed organic click v

  10. Everything in the world is amazing. Sun ripened organic apples found on drooping boughs, falling to the ground with no one to eat them… we gathered them together quickly on a sunny summer morning.

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