Finally, a tool to optimize blog writing for search engines. Inbound Writer, created by Eightfold Logic, is available as a plugin free to WordPress users willing to place a badge after every post. I was so excited, I decided to experiment with it by typing this.
Getting Started
After download and activation, Inbound Writer places a box next to the post editer asking for three search terms relevant to your focus, much like Google Keywords. After researching your terms, it presents a dashboard with three menus: Steps to Improve My Score, Focus Terms, and Relevant Terms, all topped by a 1-100 score dial .
If you were to copy a paste a story, as I did simultaneously at Tasting Room Confidential, Inbound Writer would start picking apart your text with comments like “Your document doesn’t include the right number of Focus Terms” and “Your Focus Terms aren’t used soon enough in your document.” A bit of a nag, really.
Here, at this point of optimizing while typing, I haven’t yet reached the 200 word count to make the odometer move. The Focus Terms I entered were “blog writing, optimize and search engine and having typed them just now, the Relevant Terms box gives me their scores: optimize 3, search engine 2, blog writing 2. Now at 215 words, the odometer scores my post at 8.
Changing around the focus terms in the first sentence popped it to 16. We’re optimizing now!
Still, I still havent’ included the right number of Focus terms. And, I’m told, “There are no terms which have been emphasized in your document.”
Score hits 16 at 200 words!
That’s because I have not yet finished blog writing (21) to optimize (58!) for a search engine, er, make that web search engines. Still 58 at 288 words.
Meanwhile over at Tasting Room Confidential, the copy-and-pasted story popped from 63 to 67 by changing “wine maker” to “maker of wine” and adding “wine” before “bottle” in the opening sentence. Sweet!
Use More Focus Terms
I would definitely not recommend blog writing this way. While it is important to optimize for web search engines, you don’t want to write as stilted as I feel right now, watching that dial out of the corner of the eye, losing the train of thought. That score dial is becoming a hoary tyrant.
So far, the scores for my Focus Terms are “optimize” 6, “blog writing” 5. “Search engine,” at 4, is still stuck in the Relevant Terms box, but should jump to Focus Terms at 5.
At 392 words the odometer has slipped to 63. Time to pull out the big words!
In the ever-changing world of search engine optimization, where the god, Google, frequently alters the algorithms it uses to assign page rank, you have to stay up on what’s current. If Google says to use a keyword five times in the body, you have to do it, to please the search engine.
My keyword phrase, “search engine” has jumped from Relevant to Focus status! Whoo-hoo. Score 68.
I took its suggestion in Steps to Improve field by using a more highly ranked Focus Term in my title and adding “search engines.” My score dropped to 63. WTF! Even after starting the title with my focus term instead of the actual name of the plugin, it failed to uptick. Harumph.
Refine Your Focus
Is 65 the best I can do?Back to the Steps to Improve, I’m being told I should refine the focus of my document, as in, just change the focus entirely. It says, I should write about “Google Analytics” and “Google Trends” and “Facebook Profile” and “Social Media Optimization” instead. I don’t want to write about those things today, but when I do, I’m sure my score will be 100.
You can use Google Analytics and Google Trends to analysis the source of your blog traffic. Your Facebook profile might help, and social media optimization never hurts. You could even make money online at social media.
Damn, used all those Relevant Terms and still 63! Adding H2 headers didn’t bump it either. Nor did changing the title to the sleep inducing, “Search Engine Optimization For Blog Writing Using Inbound Writer.” At first, the dial popped to 72 but changed it’s mind and slid back to 63.
At 664 words my score is stuck on 63 and I’m through. I’ll publish Search Engine Optimization For Blog Writing Using Inbound Writer tomorrow and see how it floats in the real world of search engines. Although it may do better than my previous posts, I can’t say it’s made me a better writer.
OMG, my final score is 65!
Please leave a comment about your experiments with Inbound Writer
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Cheers!