Ever heard of a little thing called search engine optimization (SEO)? If you've never had a website or tried to promote content on the internet, chances are your answer is "no." Yet SEO can be one of the defining factors in whether a website is found by thousands of viewers or is left to languish unread in the dark corridors of the world wide web.
If you've decided to start an MLM blog to get your name out there and expand your professional and commercial networks, you need to care about SEO. Everyone uses it – news outlets, marketing companies, nonprofit organizations – to make sure the content they put on their websites can be found on search engines such as Google and Bing.
Master some of the SEO basics
Find keywords. Keywords refer to some of the most common terms that web users enter in a search query. Take some time to get into the heads of your target audience members. For instance, think about what kind of phrases you would use if you were trying to get more information about a certain type of product. For an MLM blog, a term like "what is network marketing" might work, as your customers are probably unfamiliar with the term and would appreciate learning more about the industry. If you already have a website or blog, which terms are occurring naturally throughout your content? Keep in mind "content" can be in the form of blog posts, podcasts, newsletters and video. Don't limit yourself to written words when you're thinking about content!
Compile a keyword list. Once you have a list of potential keywords, do a little research. What kind of keywords are your competitors using? Try Google's Keyword Tool to get started on ranking your terms and figuring out which ones are the best to use.
Use the keywords. With your keyword strategy completed, it's time get those babies onto your website and/or blog. One best practice for keyword use in written content is getting the phrases into:
- The headline
- The first paragraph
- Every 100 or so words thereafter, when possible
- The caption of the photo, if you have one
- The meta description (this consists of the roughly 160 characters that appear on search results pages)
Your readers (and search engine crawlers) are going to be extremely sensitive to forced keyword use, so make sure you're not shoehorning these terms into places they don't belong. The trick is to create a list of easy-to-use keywords and then work them into posts, site pages and blogs as naturally as possible.
Mix up your content. As mentioned earlier, a blog doesn't have to consist only of written posts. You can also record podcasts, make video tutorials and share infographics to deliver your message to website visitors. To get the most out of these audio/video/visual clips in terms of SEO, it's great to accompany files with transcripts or a keyword-rich description of the content. Make sure you're working to fit keywords into video and podcast titles whenever applicable.
Get some data. There are a ton of free or inexpensive tools out there that can help you gather data on how many clicks your website is getting, as well as where those clicks are coming from. Depending on how much you like analyzing details, you can determine whether the bulk of your viewers are stumbling upon your blog through search engines, social media, other websites and more. Google Analytics is the king of free website analytics and lays out the data – like daily visits, type of traffic and number of active visitors – in a pretty digestible format. Another tool, Woopra, allows you to track profiles of individual users. You Might Know Me Agency points out in its own company blog there are still a lot of people out there using Internet Explorer, so if you're looking to get better insight on the web users who turn to Bing for their searches, it might be worth trying out Bing Webmaster Tools.
MLM businesses need to use every available channel to spread awareness of their operations and expand their client base. Blogging is a great way to deliver your message to an international audience. By using a few simple tactics to make sure the right people are finding your content, you may be able to achieve higher sales and a larger network.