As every webmaster would do from time to time I decided to see how easily my most popular article/blog post could be found when using the major search engines like Google and Yahoo.

First I searched for 'How to Make a Greeting Card Stand' and I was so thrilled to discover my blog post on How To Make a Greeting Card Stand was 3rd on the Google search result page out of over 200,000 results!!! and my video was 4th!!!.

The result was pretty much the same with Yahoo when the same words were searched for

Then I decided to search 'How To Make a Greeting Card Display' and again the result was not what I expected.

MY POST WAS ON THE FIRST PAGE, 3RD OUT OF 4.4 MILLION RESULTS IN GOOGLE!!!!

And 2nd in Yahoo/Bing out of 46 MILLION!!!! I was beyond trilled. Knowing I did this on my own without having to pay anyone else to do it for me, was very very encouraging.

SO HOW DID I DO IT?

How was I able to get my page on the 1st page of Google results? I must confess, I was not aiming to be on the first page. It kind of happened by accident and this has made me understand more (and better) how one can stand out or be found easily on the web.

I am by no means an expert in SEO or anything that has to do with IT. But I do know that simple things work and understanding the basics of how to get people to find your blog/website is key to getting your page on the first page of google search results for your keyword of choice.

Below are a few tips I can offer.

DO KEYWORD RESEARCH:

Keywords are the words and phrases that Internet users type into the search box of a search engine, such as Google, to find websites that match what they are looking for. For instance, my page ranked high for the Keyword 'How To Make a Greeting Card Stand' or 'How To Make a Greeting Card Display'.

You need to make sure that people are searching for that keyword and how many people are searching for it. This is where the Google Adwords Keyword Planner comes in.

With this, you can see if that particular keyword is being searched for and how many times in a month it is searched for. That gives you an idea as to how much traffic you should expect.

BE ORIGINAL:

It is important to write about something you have a bit of knowledge about as that gives your work credibility and makes it unique. I wrote about How To Make a Greeting Card Display Stand because I wanted to help others and it was based on something I had created with my hands.

While I was preparing for my Pinewalk Art Exhibition, I went searching for ideas on how to display Greeting Cards; bearing in mind I was not keen on spending a lot of money buying one.

When you go to Craft Fairs you learn to cut down on your expenses in order to try and break even. Besides, it is important to make your table stand out and to do that you need to get creative.

I trolled the internet for Greeting Card Display ideas but could not find any article or video that really matched what I wanted; thus I decided to make one and ever since I shared it has in one way or the other helped others.

Writing about it was easy because I simply documented what I did and it has helped to rank it high with the search engines. Of course, you also need to put as many of your chosen keywords in the article as possible.

USE IMAGES:

Good pictures/images make for good reading. They add colour and also help to put what it is you are talking/writing about into perspective. Include your keyword in the ‘Alt’ tag or title of your images.

You have to bear in mind that Google robots cannot read pictures thus the ‘Alt’ tags or titles come in very handy because that is what the robots can read.

AVOID ANNOYING GOOGLE/YAHOO:

Do not copy other peoples’ work verbatim and publish them as yours because Google would know. And your website could get blacklisted for that. Be original.

GENERATE GOOD QUALITY BACKLINKS:

The main source of the traffic to my blog is via Pinterest. How To Make a Greeting Card Display Stand has been pinned more than 200 times and each pin is a link to my website. To be honest it was when I noticed loads of people were coming from Pinterest that I started taking Pinterest seriously.

I am still getting to grips with it because I have always focused on Twitter and Facebook.

The moral of the story is to invest in developing a social media presence as this helps. Please click the share button to share.

All the best

Nkoli

“A few of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase through the link I would receive a small commission. I only link products I really believe in.”