This past weekend, I did my best to accomplish my Bloggiesta goals for improving my blog. Thank you to There’s a Book for motivating me to do this!
In short, I spend the month of March fixing the SEO (Search Engine Optimization = Coming Up Higher in Google Searches) for about 350 posts or the past 11 months. I am one month shy of finishing my goals. I use the WordPress plugin All in One SEO incorrectly for the past two years, blithely ignoring the character count for title and body. I got lazing with keyword tags, omitting commas, and adding in keywords that were not relevant to my posts like my blog name and tagline. Every post had to be corrected. I also failed to select a “Featured Image” which, it turns out, I want for my Yet Another Related Post plugin which shows more posts related to the one you are reading.
I also fixed the social media buttons by asking my tech guy to help out, so that was an easy fix.
But the upshot is that I messed up my permalinks in trying to change to a permalink structure that is better for SEO. I know just enough about SEO to be dangerous, and by dangerous, I mean to fiddle around enough to blow up my blog at least once a year in an attempt to improve it.
Bloggiesta and Blog Business
This year’s Two Steps Backwards/One Step Forward is Permalinks. It turns out that while you want a permalink that includes your post title (mine had a number instead) if you switch your permalinks YOU MUST REDIRECT THEM TO YOUR NEW PERMALINK OR GOOGLE WILL NOT FIND THEM. Oops. 2 years of posts — POOF! — GONE, at least in the eyes of Google. They exist on my site, but you can’t find them through any search engine.
Thank goodness that Vanita of After BedTime Blog is my Go-To SEO consultant. I hired her to help with my SEO and to fix the permalink error. By the end of this week (THANK YOU VANITA!), all should be well. By the end of next month, I should be seeing increased traffic by having her improve my keywords for 3 months of blog posts, my little SEO present to myself.
Finally, more good news! I was selected to be a BlogFrog Community Manager for their Random House Read and Play Community. Please join come to BlogFrog and join this community to meet some really great children’s authors!
Launch party of Read and Play Community, Wednesday, April 4th (tomorrow) at 9:00 pm. I will be there!
Tad Hills of Candecott Honor picture book, How Rocket Learned to Read, Thursday, April 5th, 9 pm EST. I will be there as well.
Chris Raschka winner of this year’s Caldecott, A Ball for Daisy, will be live on Tuesday, April 10th at 1:00 EST.
Rebecca Stead and Clare Vanderpool, winners of the Newbery will be Live Chatting, Thursday, April 12, 9:00 p.m. I will be there and I am so excited to meet both of them. I loved both of their books, When You Reach Me and Moon Over Manifest.
p.s. Related posts:
How To Get Your Book Noticed: Marketing for Authors
17 Easy Tips to Grow Your Blog Traffic
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My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
- Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
- 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
- Green Earth Book Award Long List
- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Girl thanks so much for the shout out! I absolutely love working with you and this blog is awesome. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure searching parents know that this great resource exists for them and their children. If only your blog was around when my teens were little. I’m so glad your reviews are available to me now for my toddlers. thanks again and great big hugs to you.
Thanks Vanita! I am learning so much from you and only wish I met you sooner so I didn’t make so many stupid SEO errors that now need correcting. Hugs!