Wickedly Wise and Wonderful Wordpress Plugin for Keyword Research

If the 1st Commandment of Blogging is Maintain Control of your blog, then the 2nd Commandment of blogging should be:

Using the right keywords in your blog post title can make or break your blog.

Many bloggers seem to forget that their blog is built out of words… and the most frequently used words on any blog are, from the search engine’s point of view, the building blocks of the blog.

I you want to see what keywords are defining your blog, check out the tool Wordle… and for more about that, read the post Blog Diagnostic Tool – Wordle: Graphic Illustration of Your Blog’s Content

In the musical classic West Side Story, Maria sings,

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!

Unfortunately, when it comes to blogging, while it’s not necessary to feel pretty – sometimes it’s possible to be TOO witty and too bright!

I spent this morning explaining to a blogging client about keywords and how they can make or break your blog. Keywords are the words used by people to find information they want on the internet.

To find the lyrics I referenced above, I went to Google and typed in the words “I feel pretty“. I could remember that much of the song and by typing in those words, Google figured out what I wanted and provided links to sites which had exactly what I needed.

My results would have been dramatically different had I typed in “I feel beautiful.” Those results probably would not have included the complete lyrics from the song for which I was searching.

Which brings me to the point of how it’s sometimes possible to be TOO witty and TOO bright for your blog’s good.

You may have really GREAT content on your blog, but if you don’t target the right keywords, especially in the title, you’ll make it difficult for your audience to find your blog.

One great way to improve your blog’s “find-ability” in the search engines is to Run Your Blog Post Titles Through Keyword Research Before You Hit Publish.

Thanks to a great plug in for Wordpress from Semvironment checking your blog title keywords just got easier! Their Keyword Research Wordpress Plugin makes it easy to check your favorite keyword tool for just the right keywords for your blog titles.

If you’re not optimizing your blog posts for keywords, you’re robbing your blog of potential readers! It’s as simple as that.

For example, when I was composing the post Creating Blazing Hot Headlines that Attract Readers, the original title of the post was going to be “Writing Pithy, Punchy Headlines”. The only problem? No one is searching for pithy. It’s one of those words where someone would say, “Who TALKS like that anymore?”

Well, obviously I talk like that, but I always have had the vocabulary of an English Lit professor.

In the world of blogs, that’s a curse, not a blessing!

Five dollar words may impress your college professor, but on the internet, words like Secret, Cure and Fat are the words that win attention!

By the way, I used the tool to look up the title of this post. While no one is searching for “Wickedly Wise” or even “Wonderful”, they are searching for Wordpress plugin.

So the 2nd Commandment of blogging is KEEP KEYWORDS IN MIND AS YOU  CREATE YOUR TITLE POST!