Is there an alternative to SEO to get blog traffic?
The following is a guest post from WordPress Designer Alice Elliott:
Search engine optimisation, also known as SEO, is seen by many organisations as the way to get traffic back to your site.
Let me tell you about SEO first, before I offer you an alternative to SEO.
First of all, it is notoriously difficult. The goal posts are constantly moving, and especially now since AI has got its sticky little paws into it as well.
You have to be blessed with quite a healthy digital marketing budget to be able to do SEO reasonably well, let alone a lot of patience, excellent writing skills and totally knowing your target market.
Where do the keywords come from?
Some people think if you stuff the right kind of keyword into your writing, the search engines will see it and then somehow magically place you onto the correct search page.
Well, yes, this was certainly the case in the distant past. But now the algorithms which monitor keywords are stimulated by popular search, rather than relevant search. And this is not good for bloggers who wish to put SEO into their posts.
This is because people have become sloppy in what they type into Google. And AI works out what they think the search request means, before offering a solution. And whether this is correct or not, the concept is ‘learned’, without any consideration as to whether the words put together made sense or not.
So, when you do keyword research, the ‘best option’ offered to you is usually a load of gobbledegook, totally unsuitable to include in your blog post as a SEO term.
And we can’t use gobbledegook!
Any blogger worth their salt will refuse to use such a keyphrase, as this is what works best rather than single words, if it is something which cannot be worked into a coherent post. I certainly do!
OK, if you’re a successful digital marketing agency, you will be able to pay subscriptions to expensive sites which help you find optimal keyphrases, which are high in relevance and popularity, but low in usage by others. This is shown as a traffic light system, green being the best and red definitely to be avoided!
So what is the alternative to SEO then, if the ordinary blogger mortal cannot compete with the big agency boys?
Well, we abandon SEO altogether! Yes! There are more important things in blogging than worrying about keywords, keyphrases, search engines and the like. And my alternative to SEO will get you much more relevant traffic to your blog, as we won’t be at the mercy of AI or algorithms.
Who do you write for?
Your readers, of course! (If you’re not writing for your readers, then don’t bother continue reading this post!) And the best kind of traffic would be interested readers who want to read what you write about – yes?
So how can an algorithm, tainted by AI, know what kind of reader is best for your blog? It can’t, it’s not human. But you are, and so are your readers (hopefully). This means you have the power to communicate with them – effectively and correctly.
Communication occurs with words. Words in your posts, in comments, when socialising online. And these words are spontaneously created in a reactionary way to what we read, hear, understand, appreciate, acknowledge, consume and how we wish to relate or impart.
Blogs are designed to be a dialogue with your readers. Encourage them to participate in your blog. Find out what interests them, and offer it to get a response. Ask them questions, seek their opinions, value their responses and, above all, communicate!
My alternative to SEO
As women we are naturally garrulous. We like talking to each other. Even some introverted bloggers who prefer to write rather than speak (I was like that for many years), we are still using our blogs to communicate with our readers.
But it doesn’t have to stop there. When I started blogging social media didn’t exist (yes, it was that long ago!). Now that it does, we can use it to our advantage – to find real, interested, useful, valuable readers.
Put on your virtual deerstalker hat, and step into places where you know your ideal readers hang out. But first, stop and listen. What are they talking about? What makes them comment? Which subjects stimulate them? Are they in a similar mindset as you?
You are socially stalking them. This isn’t creepy; consider it as marketing research, or, better known, social listening. And once you’ve learned as much as you can about your readers, drop into the scene and start having conversations with them – on their terms.
It’s all about them
This is not the time to promote your blog. Your focus should be to create a social relationship with these ideal readers. Give them solutions to their problems, answer their questions, showcase your expertise and altruistically help them to get noticed for the right reasons.
And by getting these readers to know, like and trust you, they will be more inclined to voluntarily visit your blog. And if they like what they see (because your social listening has revealed the subjects to write about which they want to read), they will be compelled to comment, share your posts and hopefully return for more.
This is the alternative to SEO by algorithmically induced keyphrases going hopelessly wrong and placing your posts in front of totally unsuitable visitors. You are targeting much more appropriate readers who would value entering your blog to read your posts.
This is going to require a bit of external effort on your part. But doing the right kind of research into ideal readers and correct topics to write about is only one step. The other is to actually go out and communicate – outside of your blog!
Check out the competition
Oh come on, isn’t it more pleasant to have a social conversation than to do battle with an inappropriate keyphrase? I’ll admit there are some people who would rather stay in a technical cocoon. But it is so much more productive – and enjoyable – to connect with human bloggers.
This isn’t only to learn more about your readers, but to visit their blogs as well (if they have one). Read their content (thoroughly), make an effort to really understand it, and leave a well considered comment. You never know, doing this could make their day!
Repeat this on several occasions, always leaving value added contributions which are appreciated by the author, and eventually they, and their readers, will want to visit your blog to find out more about you. Hint that clicking on your name in the comment will get them to your blog.
The result is a much more suitably optimised reader. This alternative to SEO produces reading visitors who take action, rather than merely impressions and views which go nowhere and achieve nothing. I know which kind of stats I would like to see.
Revel in your lovely, real readers!
A popular blog, heaving with readers who worship what you write about and comment like fury, is certainly going to be attractive to the search engines, but this time with more favourable results. But this isn’t going to happen unless you make it so.
Certainly doing conventional SEO won’t achieve this. But being sociable will. Conversation outreach, if you like to call it this, can have huge benefits to not only your blog and readership, but to your mental health as well!
Don’t put all your trust into mathematically created robots to get you traffic. We are human and should shout out about this across the rooftops. We know which readers we would like to attract, read our content and engage to help create a community round the blog.
If you have got this far, let me know what you think in the comments below. Go on – I dare you! If you disagree with me about SEO, all the better. Or if you have any questions about my alternative to SEO, we would love to read them, and I will do my best to answer.
