While those short keyword phrases may look bright and shiny with their promise of hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, don’t be fooled by pursuing those straight out the gate. I can guarantee you that thousands, if not millions, of other blogs are attempting to rank for the same keywords—and a good chunk of them probably have a much higher domain authority than your blog.
Here’s an example to illustrate the difference between high-volume keyword phrases and long-tail ones:
High-volume keyword phrase: email marketing
Long-tail keyword phrase: email marketing for food bloggers or email marketing for startups
Instead of chasing after the most competitive search terms, shift your focus to long-tail keywords that are more niche-specific… so instead of writing a review of free blogging sites or writing a range of Bluehost reviews (with a lot of competition), you could instead start by targeting more niche search terms like “free portfolio sites for photographers” if a segment of free australian email leads audience includes photographers.
These are keywords, or phrases, that generally have three or more words. While long-tail keywords have a lower search volume, they more than adequately make up for it in the ROI they can bring you in your efforts to grow your blog.
For even more specifics on how to nail your blog’s SEO and choose smart keyword phrases, tune into these episodes on my podcast:
Backlinko’s Brian Dean on the State of SEO This Year and How to Generate 3 Million Blog Readers
Tim Soulo on Going from Blogger to Ahrefs CMO (and What it Takes to Create Top-Ranking Content)
6. Know where your audience spends time online
How to Grow Your Blog Know Your Audience Online
Let’s take a moment to think about the best places for you to promote your content (and thus grow your blog).
A common mistake I see with new bloggers is adopting a “spray-and-pray” approach when it comes to their social promotion. Promoting their new blog posts on every social media platform that they can think of. This kind of approach is highly ineffective—both in the fact that it’s a huge waste of your time and resources and that you’ll probably only end up with a disappointing ROI at best.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes.
Think about what sites they like to visit, what kind of forums they might participate in, and which social media platforms they’re most likely to use. For example, LinkedIn might be your best bet if you have a very business-oriented blog, whereas if you have a mom blog, then Pinterest is probably the platform for you.