Two days ago, in my usual fashion, I was scrolling through my older hive posts. It's something I do regularly to draw inspiration or so I can know how to better improve my current posts. I then stumbled into a product review post I did last year.
I immediately noticed the number of views on the post and I was so shocked. This is the highest number of views I have ever gotten on hive and it was unbelievable. The post had 200+ views on Peakd as at the time I checked and today, it is at 250+ views.
Peakd screenshot
It was also surprising to see the number of views on a post all the way from last year. What I noticed on Peakd is that you can only see the number of views on a post that's within one month from the day you check. So I take it that this case is different because it's the highest number of views I've had on Peakd ever.
Let's not forget that this doesn't include the number of views on the other hive front-ends like hive.blog and ecency.
The post in question is a product review of the Gavia sunscreen that I had begun using last year. I never wrote the post with an intention of SEO but it happens that the title alone did all the SEO there is. Let's say, unknowingly, I am an SEO expert 😄
I decided to actually check on Google to clarify if that's where all this traffic came from within the past one year. I switched to incognito mode and typed in 'Gavia sunscreen review'.
There were about 5,290 results in 0.67 seconds and just after the first blog search result and the three YouTube video results, my Peakd link was right under. I used another Google account to be sure and it was still on the front page.
The estimated monthly traffic of the page on Google Search and the fact that it makes front page shows that the page views actually come from Google Search. Related searches using key phrases also had my link on the front page too. This is all specific to Nigeria of course, I doubt it'd be the same in other countries.
Google Search screenshot
I never really put SEO into consideration in my hive posts because I didn't see a need to, I felt that I wrote for hive readers only. I only recently started doing it consciously on specific posts to gain outside traction and also as practice for my freelance gigs.
Focusing on writing more SEO-friendly articles on hive will definitely push more traffic here. I just wish there was a guest comment feature for outsiders, I think that could garner more interest and encourage people to sign up.
I have had someone contact me on Twitter before about a particular post of mine he read on hive. He had randomly searched on Google for where to get his Nigerian passport in his city and my hive post popped up. He complained about not being able to drop a comment so he had to reach out with the Twitter link on my hive profile.
The whole point of this post though is to let you know that being intentional about SEO can get you traction to your blog and you never know how that might help you. It looks good on your writing portfolio and you also help build hive in the process so it's a win-win for everyone.
You can read up about how to properly make use of Google's SEO and make front-page without Google ads. You can learn how to improve your title headings, use meta-tags, and use the right keywords and keyphrases to better optimize your articles.
Do you already make your hive posts SEO-friendly? How's that working for you?
Thanks for reading!
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