Ep 011-e
===
Welcome to the SEO Day podcast. I am Kim White I'm the official mail bag keeper, and I am here with the Findability queen herself, Denise Millet. Denise, thank you for answering all the questions from across the world that entrepreneurs and business owners have about those three little letters. SEO.
Oh, Kim, thank you for being here with me again today.
Uh, I love that we get to spend this time together.
Me too, Denise, and I wanna get right into the mailbag. I dove in and pulled out one that had three questions to begin with from the same person. I'm very excited about this one. It was sent in, submitted by Donna Bender, the founder of the Donna Bender Company.
She's a branded product specialist who helps businesses use. Branded products and gifts to build relationships that actually impact their bottom line. Her first question today, is the title the most important part of a blog post?
Yeah. Well, Donna, I would say it's very important. I am not sure it's the whole most.
I don't like to say most or the most, but I would say it's, it's pivotal because from a search engine perspective, that is the biggest clue they have about what your blog post is about. And the words, phrases that you use in it have the potential to match up with the person who's doing a search. So if you're looking at the connection value, that's where a lot of the connection comes from.
Is your title. And I don't wanna say that it has to be this huge, include everything. It just has to be something that is close to what someone's thinking when they sit down at a keyboard. And if you can make that connection, you have a better chance of having it shown to them in a search engine.
Thank you, Denise.
Well, Donna's next question is how long should a blog title be?
That's a great follow up. I wanna rewind a second and have everybody consider what shows up in a search engine. On the page, on the page, you get a link and a description of things that aren't ads and other stuff, right? So that link is actually built from your title.
So your title is the link, but they can't display everything, so they display between 60 and 80 characters. It's actually a physical space they're filling. That's why it's not a hard and fast, whatever. 'cause characters measure together differently depending on what characters they are and how many capitals and how many lowercase.
So you wanna make sure that your important topic. Keywords are in that beginning that the person that sees it is going to say, yes, that matches what I'm looking for. So it's not that the search engine matches those words because the search engine is gonna read a whole title no matter how long it is.
They're gonna read the whole thing, and that doesn't mean you have to stuff it with things to make it writ, you know, hit more. You want the juicy part in the beginning, and that gives priority to the beginning is the most important part of it. But you can have more than that. So don't count characters per se, but make sure that the beginning part of it that they're gonna see is what is gonna make them want to connect and click on it.
Great answer, Denise. Question number three from Donna today is, what does it mean to have links in a blog post?
This is a good one. This confuses a lot of people. So a link in a blog post. Naturally, when you create a blog post, wherever you create your blog post, whether it's on your, uh, WordPress site or whether you're on a blogging site or whether you have another provider for your website, they naturally have a.
Next and previous arrow that you can go, and those are links. It goes from, you know, the blog post that someone's reading. They can go to the previous one or they can go to the next one, right? So that's kind of built in. But what I believe helps you a lot is if you topically put a link that says, here's something else that adds to this idea.
Kind of as the next thing. So if you put a link in there that shows that there's more information about a topic that's valuable, because the search engines as they're reading are gonna read that link and say, oh, well I have to go read that thing too. And that reinforces your experience or authority around a topic so that they, you're connecting the dots for them, that topics connect together.
And then you're doing that for your reader too. So your reader is seeing that you have more, so not so much next in previous that's built in. Usually you wanna make sure that you connect the dots for them about the topic, that there's more. And then the other thing that you have to worry about is, is there something in the blog post that's not easy to understand?
Have you explained it well enough? If there's supplemental information, then putting a link. Two more information about atopic, whether it's yours or someone else's, helps them understand. So links are important because they help other people understand.
I love it. Well, we're back talking about blogs a bit today and then I just wanna say, Denise, I know you get a lot of questions outside the mailbag and so do I.
Like we get questions. Constantly, but this is one of the things that I would love to know. So this isn't out of the mail bag, this is outside the mail bag. So it's kind of outside my jurisdiction, but
totally acceptable. Totally acceptable.
I would really like to hear. More, um, about what kind of blog posts work best for SEO?
I like this one 'cause this is kind of one of these things that have changed recently. Uh, as, as we know, it's evolution with search. Engines and evolution with content and what's out on the internet, it never stays still. It's always changing and that's one of the reasons we don't wanna chase things in SEO is we wanna do the things that support you anyway.
Different topic, different question. Um, I used to say blogs were best if they were helpful and useful. Whatever you could answer that someone's looking for when they're searching, and that's still true. But we know that the search engines have changed recently to include some AI information at the beginning of a search results page.
And that information is answering basic things, basic questions, basic information about things. So if you consider what's gonna work well for you. To provide just basic information is not necessarily going to get you included because the AI is now supplying that information. So even the search engine people, the, you know, the public relations people or the, uh, people sharing information with the public from, from the search engine like John Mueller and, and others are saying it's now unique value.
So if you create a blog post that provides something unique that is not basic, right, then that is information that's valuable to them. 'cause that's not something that AI is necessarily creating or finding easily, right? So what that is for you and your industry is the challenge to find out. And so there's research that you have to do.
To see what the current conversation is out there on the things that you're talking about. See what's being included, and don't just recreate that. Try to find those things that are unique that you can provide, that can connect with people asking questions. And I know that seems and sounds like an extra challenge, but it's the evolution thing and I I, we can't avoid it at this point.
Does that make sense to you?
It does it. It means a little extra work, but I think there's a big payoff, so absolutely. Great, great answer, Denise. Well, our last question of the day is one that we're asked a lot as well, that I don't have someone in the mailbag to pull out from. I will just say that, but I, I'm curious to hear what your answer is for this one, and it is, is having a blog better for my business versus a podcast?
I do hear this a lot, and I'm sure you do too, as, as you're, you know, mentoring entrepreneurs and trying to help people figure out what's right for their business. And I guess that's the answer. It's you understanding your people, what's gonna speak to them, how do they, how do they consume information if they are listeners, podcasts, if they are viewers, videos.
If they're readers, you know. Blogs content, but I will say that what I like about both podcasts and blogs is that they're forever evergreen content. When you put them out there, they are not like the scroll by social media you create. That doesn't go anywhere after it's display. There's no guarantee it's gonna be in search engines.
It, it's just not living. But podcast episodes, as you know and you've talked about before, are out there. They're on the platform and they're in search results. They're gonna be there right for a long time, as well as your blog posts. So you get that longevity from either one, you choose, and either one can support your business.
In a, in a very satisfactory way. It's really, you have to decide what you can produce consistently, what fits for you and your style, and what fits for your people and where you think they are and what they need. So that's not a yes or no, but that's like a, here's what to think about.
Well, I have to giggle Denise.
'cause you know, I'm a talker. So podcasting comes a lot easier to me than writing a blog. So I think that that's an example, at least from me today of if, if you're a talker and that's easier, then I see why. There you go. There you go.
And that's, nobody can decide that for you. And that's the thing that I, I guess I'm trying to say is we are all in control of our own strategy.
And so you really have to do what, what works for you so that you'll do it to the best and it'll resonate with your people.
I love it. Well, thank you so much, Denise, for answering these questions. We're gonna close the mailbag in the questions for today, and we will jump back in next week. You did a great job of making it clear what SEO is and how we can use it for our businesses.
Well, thank you, Kim, for being here with me again. You are. You're my copilot and I love it. Thank you all. Who submitted questions, Donna especially, and. If you have questions, make sure that you follow the link in the show notes and submit them, but I also wanted to let everybody know that. I've created a guide for you about keywords, which are really, uh, the foundational piece of all of this that we're talking about, and it's called Quickly Find Your Perfect Keywords.
The Simple and Easy Guide to Being Findable. It's free, it's downloadable. If you would just head over to. The link in the show notes, you can download your copy today and hopefully it'll help you and reinforce your journey, what you're doing with SEO. And hopefully you can take the time and make Tuesday your SEO day just to get a few things done every Tuesday and, you know, make SEO work for you and your business.
