Blogs, and Google Search

~ beetleypete

I noticed a few comments recently that suggested the popularity of some posts on here was down to Google search results. That got me thinking, so I tried to work out how this might be happening. After a lot of trial and error, the light-bulb moment came, and I realised why this was.

Google searches combine words to find the best match. When you search a name or a place, they tend to be the only ones with that combination of words, so you get an immediate hit, high up on page one. Some websites actually pay Google to be featured as one of the top searches, so in those cases, that word combination doesn’t necessarily apply.

The titles of my blog posts are sometimes random. One good example is the post ‘Camera Conclusion’. Conclusion of what?. You might well ask. I used that title without thinking about it, because I had published previous posts about choosing a camera, and believed regular readers would get the idea. But that combination of words is so unusual, that it gets first place on Google UK, for anyone typing in that search. It had never occurred to me, until I tried to find out why so many people viewed that post.

I published a photo post about a visit to a housing estate in Pevensey Bay. I gave it the title, ‘Beachlands, Pevensey Bay’. If you type that into the search engine, my post is the third one down, only preceded by links to two estate agents, who pay to be at the top. Because I chose to combine the name of the 1930s estate, and the seaside location, rather than separate the two, there is no other article with a similar title. As a result, my post is viewed on a daily basis, and until now, I always wondered why.

That leads me to the phenomenon of this blog, the post ‘Whatever happened to? : Jamiroquai’. After lots of digging deep to try to discover why that post was so enduringly popular, I at long last typed the words into Google. My posts about this band appear as number three, and number eight, both on page one. It appears that many people are keen to discover facts about the band, and I get a lot of views based on my Google Search placings.

This research has been of some interest to me, and has led to a little more understanding of the vagaries of Google. Use unpredictable titles, with unusual combinations of words, and you will undoubtedly bump your blog up on the pages of search engines, free of charge.
If that is something you wish to do, of course.

45 thoughts on “Blogs, and Google Search”

  4. From my work translating, when they send me keywords that must be used in the articles, sometimes even if they make little sense, people who do SEO work gather information about what words and combinations of words people look at. The problem is, that as you say, if you choose combinations that are tremendously popular, you will face plenty of competition and lots of people (well, companies) will pay to get their posts high-up. If you choose less common combinations, perhaps not that many people will look for it, but those who do are likely to find you as your post will appear higher up. I’m not sure about here but the blog statistics in WordPress.org do include how many people have reached your post via search engines as well as everything else (Twitter, Facebook, WordPress reader…). As I share my posts in Triberr where people tweet about them, I try to ensure I include tags and Twitter names in the title…. Oh well, as soon as we get some inkling of what they’re doing they change it again, anyway. Have a great week, Pete.

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  6. You are so right leggypeggy. I try to teach my wife not to waste effort typing out a total description for something in a search. Google (and many others) will add the or, to, and, in etc. She wants to type, Show me a Picture of a 1987 Ford Thunderbird blue in color. She could get the same results with “1987 Thunderbird blue images”.

    The great thing is, it’s not just the title, but the content is searched also. If you mentioned an item in your content, someone will find it by search. You never know who may fall in love with your Blog from a search.

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  7. I learned this a long time ago but never gave it a thought. I attended a seminar on niche building before I even started blogging. When you have a nice content, people will find your blog.

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  9. I must admit, I don’t understand quite how Google functions so this was interesting reading. 🙂
    Bets regards from Cley, what a lovely sunny day it was today . 😊

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  16. This is one reason why some people spend a lot of time and/or money coming up with titles for their blogs. I don’t. I just write what comes. Interestingly, the post on my blog that gets most hits has the line from a song as it’s title. It’s not the first line because it was chosen to fit the post rather than to help people find the song. Also, the song itself isn’t a popular one. But the post still gets hits for exactly the reasons you outline.

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