How I Applied Some SEO for My Blogs, Kinda.
I applied some SEO practices on my blog, sort of like that but read the disclaimer:
Disclaimer:
None of the tips mentioned here is going to make your branding an instant hit. Growth takes time and hoping your name will get some viral traction online would take a lot of luck. The post was also written based off on what I know that works after months of casually experimenting with the algorithms. I am not an SEO expert. I just happen to be someone that used to ghost write content for websites for kicks and giggles. Please note that I’m not going to be applying every tiny detail of SEO tip I know on this post because I just can’t be bothered minding the tiniest details that would make Google’s crawlers love my blog more. There are no keywords on this post.
Background:
I spent around 3 years being a freelance ghost writer. The rules of search engine optimization change yearly as Google tries to improve their algorithms to produce the best user experience possible in searching for relevant content. I picked up some things practical to keep in mind while on the job. But most are just way too much work to apply that I just say meh, screw it let’s just blog for a hobby.
Let’s start with choosing your Hive name.
In my case, I picked adamada as a Hive name because it’s short for my real name Adam Daniel Amiel Mozzart Arch Desmonde Artates. No, I just wanted to remember my username and making it a convenient palindrome at the same time. But everything started with this accidental name.
You see, years back I had the long term goal of expanding the name cross platforms. If I didn’t start my blogging on the old blockchain, I’d be blogging somewhere else then. The drive of becoming a content creator was already there. So what the hell does this really have to do with SEO?
Fast forward where I came back on Hive trying to do a take two at the dream, I did some ego searching and found how my old profile on the old chain was ranking better compared to my Hive blog. What does this imply? It means those shitposts, art posts, serious posts, and random posts taht contained countless internal and external links off different sites have made the crawlers notice the adamada name a bit more.
I made it a semi-conscious habit to ego search once in a while to check if my Hive blog was fairing better at the ranking compared to the other account from the old blockchain. While I don’t have the receipts to show some progress, you’ll just have to take my word for it that searching for adamada now would yield a higher rate of the name being associated with Hive than the other blockchain.
Use that same name and build on other platforms.
The adamada name was already taken by an inactive account. So I decided to just whip up "artofadamada" just to have it some closer semblance to what type of content I was going for on DeviantArt.
Mainstream social media may not be appealing for purists advocating decentralized frontends but having no presence on these sites as a content creator can get you missing out on discoverability. The amount of traffic, the site authority established by these platforms, and how much ad revenue you can possibly receive if your profile kicks off is something to consider long term.
Sure I was a bit upset about the name being taken already but it’s not the end of the world as long as I can keep on building over the “artofadamada” name and just have it linked with the other name. The end game here is having some consistency with your branding and content being posted. While Google may consider reposting the same content as spam, if it’s tied to an established name, it can make some exceptions.
It would be a deterrent to user experience if artists out there are punished for crossposting. Just my opinion but I think it has something to do with associating the author’s name as being the same across platforms and putting in back links that helps with your visibility.
The point is having a lot of pseudonyms across platforms would just hurt your branding. It didn’t take a week long before the search engines began associating my twitter activity with my other social platforms being used and all I did was just being consciously aware to put unobtrusive links as much as possible.
I’m sure I could rank in better on Deviantart if I put more muscle doing public relations on that community but most of my time is spent on Hive. It’s in the long term plan to keep building an audience across platforms and directing them to Hive.
Secure the name and create some place holders if needed.
I have created several alts as part of segregating the content I would put up on each account. I did the mistake of blogging about several interests when I should have been just focusing on a single niche. Some of the people that follows me probably knew about me from an anime post, art post, or just plain shitpost.
If you’re just blogging for fun, this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme but if you switch gears and decide to take your blogging to competitive content creator levels, I’m sure your art fans off this platform won’t be interested in seeing your finance posts.
I created some alts to avoid having someone else steal the name for me and to segregate the topics I like to post about. Nothing wrong with a lot of interests and accounts on the platform, just don’t expect having multiple topics posted on your page would be pleasing to look at.
@aadamada to connect with my twitter (will be using it in the future for shitposting). @artofadamada to connect with my Deviantart page. And crawlers would just find a way to link two and two together especially when I consistently build on these accounts. Sounds like a lot of complicated work just to build a name right?
Ego search yourself once in a while.
Just to see which platform is giving you more visibility on the search engines and try to figure out what you’re doing right or wrong.
Can’t blame you if you’re just blogging for a hobby and not really willing to put in the work like other content creators that are competing for attention by improving their content over time. That’s in its own levels of stress. But for those that have plans to be serious about their blogging and growing to levels where their branding can become profitable, I suggest you start thinking about how you build an audience outside the platform.
Hive is a social bubble and most of the contents shared here can be overvalued because there are less content creators that are seriously putting in the work to be competitive compared to other platforms. Our ecosystem at the time of this writing has more “content creators” than consumers which really dampens engagement levels because everyone needs to take the spotlight or miss out on those rewards.
Outside this platform, I know content is king as you just can’t have a lot of audience if your content is rubbish. But here, even scribbles, traced visual art, half baked posts, and the likes get well rewarded. That’s why people can get deluded thinking their content is all that when they can just be bigger fishes on a small pond. Not trying to one up my stuff as I know I got a lot of trash posts to improve on before taking on the bigger stage outside the platform.
Cross posting content and including your Hive link is already doing your part to get more users onboard. The takeaway here is that thinking about SEO at the back of your head when doing personal blogs on Hive can help you out in the long term. It’s consistency in your brand name, content, engagement, and link building that can get your name across platforms.
Keyword: "adamada a hobby illustrator"
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I should make a conscious effort to do the opposite.
That name's a mouthful, if I didn't know there are some cultures where they have a lot of names and/or surnames I'd almost call you a Mary Sue as excessive names are a common Mary Sue trait ;D
If you want to be popular, don't pick a nym like mine that makes people cry when they look at it ;D
I don't do vanity searches because I'm probably the only person that remembers how to spell my nym.
I have to admit I didn't really care about Google (or any search engine ranking for that matter) even when I was supposed to (running a webdev business x_x) as the rules kept changing and keeping on top of all that nonsense was two full time jobs and I was already doing three. The stuff we were doing at the time seemed to be working so there was that.
One guy from my country I think has like like 27 or 29 words to his name. The real protagonist probably. The old Spanish influence also had a lot of flare for their names so even "y" gets to be its own word and pronounced as "ee".
I occasional check the spelling of your name whenever I ping you. Sometimes it's a victory to just spell it out without do overs.
I think the value of SEO is more important to webdevs compared to content creators. Minding the tiny details can ruin some creative freedom in exchange for visibility. I'd liken it to content that's not popular unless it follows a certain format of presentation but not necessarily mean the content is bad.
As an artist, SEO should become secondary to content that expresses freedom words could not express. most SEO articles are just words while the visual, film, and music content would rely on the labels, site authority, brand and back linking to make them more palatable to the crawlers liking. Written content has its own world's of challenge.
Content should be the focus of the creator while webdevs would negotiate with the content to make it work. Another thing I think artists shouldn't be too engrossed with SEO is how they are promoting themselves rather than promoting a site ranking.
LoL! Must be XD That is quite a name O_O
I was using Drupal for a lot of my sites and it does a fair amount under the hood (which I didn't mind as it made my life including all the seo nonsense easy but apparently it was a source of anger and stress for others). My next curiousity whenever I get around to it will be to see how a jamstack site compares as I'll have to try and remember how to do all the meta shenanigans I haven't had to think about for years XD
though I did notice vue makes an attempt to put some in
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that's a long real name adam, haha I am having the urge to search you up on every social site, em' so curious!🤣
You're not missing much. I'm just an average face. Makikita mo minsan sa mga ads meet cute singles near your area.
hahahah
So this is SEO? Or am I the only dumb with a name like mine?
Anyway, not long ago I was talking with a friend about this SEO thing, I remember a little bit about terms like "keyword" and some other stuff with external links, maybe it might be interesting to give it a try on my blog.
It's something I think you should mind if you ever get serious about blogging. There is a gap between regular posting for rewards between posting to create content. The latter has a broader direction while the former just deals with scribbles and fish for rewards.
It really depends on what goals you set out for yourself with your hobby time. If you are really serious about blogging, I suggest it's time to segregate and do away with content that isn't aligned with how you want people to know you with.
I am just being borderline from these two routes but already set out from the start that I blog because I want to be better later on regardless of whether steem or hive exists I would be blogging elsewhere. Its just by chance I came upon this platform first to start.