Blogging by hand for on-site SEO

[MechElec]

I have a site that I made by hand and I like it now that I am finished with it.

For SEO purposes I would like to add a blog, just a basic www.mysite.com/blog/. I only have about 5 articles in mind, maybe in a year I'll have 10, maybe 15 in 5 years (I doubt that many).

Instead of installing Wordpress or some other CMS and learning how to use it and then taking the time to get it to look like my existing site, I would rather just do the blog by hand since I already have the header, sidebar, and footer made up.

My only concern is what the blog needs for proper SEO? Is it as easy as pasting an article to a page with the normal header, sidebar, and footer? My plan was to make the index.php blog page be a menu of all the articles, nice and simple. When an article discusses something that is on my main site, I would link it tot he page. Do I need to have a breakdown of all other articles on a sidebar on each article page? Anything else like that? Basically I am just looking for those little things that may make a different to SEO.

[Stevie D]

I have a site that I made by hand and I like it now that I am finished with it.

For SEO purposes I would like to add a blog, just a basic www.mysite.com/blog/. I only have about 5 articles in mind, maybe in a year I'll have 10, maybe 15 in 5 years (I doubt that many).

Instead of installing Wordpress or some other CMS and learning how to use it and then taking the time to get it to look like my existing site, I would rather just do the blog by hand since I already have the header, sidebar, and footer made up.

My only concern is what the blog needs for proper SEO? Is it as easy as pasting an article to a page with the normal header, sidebar, and footer? My plan was to make the index.php blog page be a menu of all the articles, nice and simple. When an article discusses something that is on my main site, I would link it tot he page. Do I need to have a breakdown of all other articles on a sidebar on each article page? Anything else like that? Basically I am just looking for those little things that may make a different to SEO.

If you're only planning to write one article every 2–3 months, you're probably better off presenting them as just a regular part of your website – when people read blogs, they usually expect them to be updated a lot more frequently than that!

What a blog needs for SEO is just the same as what any other site needs for SEO – quality content, properly coded, inbound links from sites with a good reputation, decent site navigation to find each article from your home page. And while that's particularly true for new articles, so that Google can easily find them in the first place, it's important to keep those internal and external links in place even when the article gets older.

[MechElec]

Thanks for the reply. You hit the nail on the head. Seriously, how often are you going to go to your plumber's or carpenter's blog to see what he is up to??

I think I could write some articles that people may be interested in, however, it will only be a few- it's not something I could do on a normal basis (nor would I have the time to do it since I am an electrician and not a writer).

That's why I figured I could just write up some articles and post them on my site. I could put links in the articles to my site's pages that are relevant.

It would be easy to just post the articles myself, but my concern is if it would SEO as well as if I used Wordpress?

[Stevie D]

It would be easy to just post the articles myself, but my concern is if it would SEO as well as if I used Wordpress?

Wordpress is just a tool ... there's nothing that it can do to help your SEO that you can't do just as well coding it up by hand. (And there's plenty of things that you should be able to do a whole lot better). Wordpress by itself doesn't do anything special for SEO at all, it's only when you start adding in plug-ins that it looks a bit better, but even then, remember that it's only code ... if the plug-in can write the code then so can you!

[molona]

Thanks for the reply. You hit the nail on the head. Seriously, how often are you going to go to your plumber's or carpenter's blog to see what he is up to??

I think I could write some articles that people may be interested in, however, it will only be a few- it's not something I could do on a normal basis (nor would I have the time to do it since I am an electrician and not a writer).

That's why I figured I could just write up some articles and post them on my site. I could put links in the articles to my site's pages that are relevant.

It would be easy to just post the articles myself, but my concern is if it would SEO as well as if I used Wordpress?

You guess it right... not very often... but then, if the information there would be interesting... then I may go much often. As an example, if the blog would give me tips and tricks of the best products to buy so my pipes stay clean but that not damaged, or best practices to know which plumber is a serious professional or how I can know that he did a good job... or small videos of DIY... probably, the frequency would increase dramatically

[MechElec]

You guess it right... not very often... but then, if the information there would be interesting... then I may go much often. As an example, if the blog would give me tips and tricks of the best products to buy so my pipes stay clean but that not damaged, or best practices to know which plumber is a serious professional or how I can know that he did a good job... or small videos of DIY... probably, the frequency would increase dramatically

That was my plan, to do things like that. However, there is only so much that could be written on this topic that a layperson would care about and people are only going to be interested in a small portion of it. They aren't going to check on it daily or weekly or monthly because once their bathroom DIY remodel is finished their care-o-meter is going to taper off quickly.

[molona]

That was my plan, to do things like that. However, there is only so much that could be written on this topic that a layperson would care about and people are only going to be interested in a small portion of it. They aren't going to check on it daily or weekly or monthly because once their bathroom DIY remodel is finished their care-o-meter is going to taper off quickly.

I don't think so... I think that there are lots of things that you can speak about the topic but if you need inspiration, simply try to read a magazine specialized on the topic...

Or I should say that there is only this much that you can talk about one particular topic? Every subject has its limits and its potential...

Anyway, if you don't have so much to speak about it, you can also write articles that are non-directly related. As an example, if you speak about the right material for a home pipe when you're re-buidling your bathroom, you could also talk about decoration and/or the materials used to create a nice looking, easy to clean but durable bathroom.

I confess that we had a hard time when we had to re-do ours because there were lots of problems fitting the WC. Not everything would fit in there.

You may from time to time do a bit of research about what people would like to read about... and maybe find some inspiration there... or visit specialized forums or wherever people ask... and get even more information on what you should write about...

The trick is to speak and give them what they want and need... but not all... leave them wanting more