Week 14: Google Gold

1). As our guest speaker mentioned in the beginning, I mainly focused on keywords and writing a lot of quality content. For each post, I was sure to meet the assignment criteria, but also tried to tie in key words whenever they fit in naturally. Explaining my business concept at the beginning of each post, even if it was just a couple sentences, was also important to me because it helped keep the reader up to date if they hadn’t read previous posts. This also helps keep many of the same words and idea so the blog is cohesive overall.

2). I tried to use key words central to my overall concept. Since my idea is a grocery store that focuses specifically on the needs of those with dietary restrictions, I used words such as market, grocery, fresh, and dietary restrictions. I selected these because they were natural in many of the posts, but they also related to the business concept. I changed slightly over the semester in trying to be more specific, but I used many of the same key words because they’re still very applicable.

3). I did not share my blog on any social media outlet this semester. Linking my YouTube account and blog gained a lot of traffic, but I never shared the link to my actual blog on Facebook or Twitter. In my opinion, Twitter is the best social media outlet to get the word out about new and exciting information, and I do not have a Twitter account, so I did not use social media to promote my content through another source. I think social media would be receptive if I were to share it though because my business concept relates to me on a personal level. As someone who has a dietary restriction and went through a few health scares in the last few years, I believe my friends and family would be supportive if I decided to share it one day.

4). My most viral posts were elevator pitches 1 and 2, tied with equal number of page views. It is interesting that these two posts obtained the most traffic because they are a great overall description of my business concept and my blog as a whole. It is not surprising because it is linked to my YouTube channel, which has been around much longer than my blog, so it has more followers. In addition, my blog post and videos share the same titles, so keywords also help to obtain more traffic because they are linked.

5). I did not make it to the top of Google for dietary restrictions in general, but the more specific you get with key words, the more of my posts begin to show up. For example, if you include dietary restriction and Michelle Kelley, two of my posts come up on the first page. Basically you have to include at least three specific key words, or one key word and my name, and my blog comes up on the first page of Google; not bad for my first blog and just 14 weeks.