Why is it important for ministry purposed blogs to incorporate SEO? {Day 11} Heart Matters

We are called to be ambassadors for Christ, right? Well, let ‘s just say that God spoke to your heart and asked you to go on a missions trip. You pack your bags, plan your trip, and once the plane lands you just stay at the airport and hope that someone comes to you to hear about the Good News.

What? You wouldn’t do that? Well then we can’t just park our blogs and hope that someone finds it and reads the message you are sharing. At times of course, God will absolutely make a way for some particular people to stumble onto your blog but if we are to be missionaries then that is a service requiring action. We can’t be missionaries unless we are doing something to reach out to others.

That is where SEO comes in. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. “Organic” search results occur from someone linking to you. This is another reason networking your ministry blog is so important. With each link your blog will increase in ranking bringing it higher up on the search pages. It is also the simple use of specific keywords withing your blog titles and posts themselves.

Check out this example:

When I searched for “todays cajun kitchen” my site was first on the list. That is excellent but anywhere on the first page is great. When I did a search for “proverbs 31 bible study” I found my blog on the first page a bit toward the bottom. That is still very good. By the way I am working on the revised version of that bible study.

I want to note that I have only recently begun employing these techniques for my blogs true purpose. As I previously mentioned in this post: 31 Days to Online Minstry {Day 2} Heart Matters, I have saturated my blog with keywords that aren’t specific to what I now feel my blogs purpose is. I had coded it for other purposes. Now, I have so many posts to go through and fix that it is simply taking a while to get through. The new overall theme and purpose of my blog is to help others overcome mindsets and to rest in His peace and simplicity. That will take on spiritual and practical topics. So what I will do is code my blog accordingly all the while remembering that this is not for my popularity but to get this message out there for the benefit of others.

The Google spiders need to find popular keywords throughout the website. Do a few searches for terms you would like to see lead others to your blog. Do you show up in the search in the first couple of pages? If you dont’ then simply follow these steps:

Add the keywords on several pages through the website. Research has shown that most people search for 3 or 4 word phrases. Consider your blogs purpose and the topics you use. Creating specific categories (labels) for your blog are helpful for this part. For my blog I will use terms like “bible in simple terms”,”effective homemaker”, “purposeful blogging“,and “fast easy healthy meals”. I will do that only on a few pages throughout my blog because Google doesn’t like keyword stuffing. Don’t overdo it.
Add meta tags to your blog. Meta tags simply tell search engines what your blog is about. Here is a tutorial for adding meta data to Blogger blogs: Add Meta to Blogger Blogs and one for WordPress: Add Meta to WordPress Blogs.
Create an “About (Insert Your Blog Title Here)” page detailing what you offer your readers. Check out mine: About Cajun Inspired. The keywords you have chosen should also be on that page. The bonus is that it gives your readers an idea of what they will find on your blog. I have a separate page for my “About Amy Bayliss” information.
As we previously mentioned, the number of people linking back to your blog is very important in search engine ranks. The more people you have linking back to your blog the better. Although I recommend networking, giveaways, and memes are great tools too. What is more important is that the anchor text on those external links include your key words. When you ask others to link to your blog it is a good idea to give them the exact html of the link so that we control the text. Here is an example of a simple one: Cajun Inspired provides<a href=”http://www.amybayliss.com/”>practical and biblical life skills from a simple Cajun woman</a>. This gives you a higher ranking because others are posting your links. You want to go easy on internal links (the number of your links that you put on your own blog for SEO purposes) but you want as many external links as you can get.

Darren Rowse has a very detailed post on optimizing your blog for search engines: Optimize SEO. Darren also has a fantastic ebook that will get you started on some basic blogging skills. In fact, it is the ebook that started all of these wonderful “31 Days to” series you have seen across the web. You can get it here: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog – Easy step by step ways to improve your blog presence!

All of these links are predominantly for business purposes but the basics are the same. The difference is the way in which we use the information. Amen?