So improving the SEO on one's blog may be a thankless task, but THANKFULLY I've wierdly gotten into it over this last week.
I feel like i've learned a lot, achieved something, and figured out roughly a plan for the next few weeks and months and year of improvements!
There's a lot of uncertainty still and caveats, but I feel like I'm heading in the right direction!
I need to do A LOT of keyword research!
Honestly I have never done this in the past, I think I rank for some keywords out of sheer luck, but I've got a lot of double-pages competing for the same keywords and some pages are targeting key words which are just too competitive.... I'm NEVER going to rank above the BSA for example, so I need to tweak my keywords away from what other sites are ranking for.
I've also learned about writing blog posts targetting related key words, the breadcrumb method is handy here.
Silo Structure needs refining...
I've already got this in place, again by luck, but it needs refining.
I've basicaly got ATM Hompage-Subpage-40-60 topics off that page.
What I think I need to do is add in another layer of subtopic and then have 5-10 topics of each of those, it feels natural, I'm gonna experiment with my lowest ranking page and see what happens.
This way I can then link in a bunch of non-linked pages into the above structure. Honestly MOST of what I've written over the past 4 years isn't really linked in.
I also think I need to do a few other MAIN pages off the homepage, probably not too many, but I've got some posts which naturally lend themselves to new main areas. I haven't quite thought this through yet.
I've got a LOT OF MAPPING OUT TO DO!
Tidying up pages and posts keeping in mind the above
Urrggh, I'm ashamed to say I've got a few dozen 404s, NO IDEA how I've misssed these, but I am going to just get rid and update where I can.
When I do that I may as well make sure these posts are linked properly too, these are mainly low performing posts, I may no index the worst.
Once I've dealt with the 404s I'm gonna go through each and every of my 1800 posts and just check everything, all the basics:
- BRIEF keywords optimisation
- Check all inks, including redirects.
- Link into silo structure.
Mega update on ONE topic area...
My Social Theory section needs an update, so I may go hard on this and proper update eveything, or I might go for research methods, it's one or the other. Proper make them nice, they are obvs related, I think they have the same leverage, need to do this based on search volume and competition. Probably theories is my best bet, I think methods is more swamped.
Final thoughts....
There's a lot to do, I want to get updating, and I will do something every day, but I need to do my keyword research first, so one ahead of the other!
There's about 3 months FTE work here I think, and that's just updating and refining! Given that I don't work full time on this and I like a slow pace, realistically this is all gonna take me a year.
NB that's also probably with AI!
I'm gonna give this until the end of August, learn as I go, and then look at outsourcing, once I know what I am doing it'll be easier to give instructions and check if someone I pay is giving me value for money, ATM I wouldn't have a clue!
PS thanks to a couple of people who gave me a few tips on my last post, much appreciated!