You've Done All You Can, So Just Go With The Flow

A common theme across most bloggers is this feeling that we should all be doing better than what we are actually doing. So at what point do we say enough is enough? When can we just sit back and admire the fruits of our labour? Maybe never. 

I always talk about SEO and marketing and those things are something we have to keep on top of and monitor frequently, but the trouble is, we end up doing nothing but that. We work continuously hard on our posts, our optimisation and our promotion purely because we never see instant results. We keep pushing as hard as we can but whilst we're pushing, we miss the tiny progress we are making. 

Seeing the results of your blog, both in followers and in your analytics takes a lot of time and patience. Set up blocks of time, this could be a day, a few days or even a week where you focus solely on your SEO, come up with that months promotion schedule and marketing plans. I like to do this at the beginning of every month, I usually spend a day purely on updating and optimising my social media, a day working on my SEO and analytics and two days coming up with a content schedule, a promotional plan and updating my progress reports (I like to use excel to keep track of followers, traffic, post likes etc). 

Once you've worked you butt off for a few days, relax and let your hard work run its course. By all means, keep an eye on how things are going, do a quick check to make sure there's no major faults and do general maintenance whenever you have a spare second. Then, when the next month rolls around, you can have a look and see wether last months work has had any effect. If you find your stats have gone down, have a look into why that might be and rectify it. If your stats have increased, take a look at what areas haven't done as well as others and tweak them slightly to give them a little boost. 

If you take a look at your analytics and followers and find that nothing has changed, leave them be and check back the following month. It might be a case that your hard work needs a little more time to develop. 

It's so important, especially if you're trying to balance a blog with a full-time job, that you don't burn out. You don't want to get so caught up in stats that blogging becomes a stress rather than a release. 

In March's newsletter, I'll be including a FREE content audit sheet to help you keep track of which content is doing well and which subjects you should focus on more. A content audit sheet is a great way to start off your blog reporting, especially if you only have time to focus on one area every month. It'll be released at the end of March with a few handy tips to get you started. 

Why You Should Know Who Your Competitors Are

When you're blogging as a hobby or just starting out as a freelancer, you might not want to go down the seemingly negative path of competitors. The word competitor naturally makes us think of aggression and battling against each other, but that isn't always the case.

A competitor is someone in your field that is offering the same or similar services/content you are. Thy aren't your mortal enemy, they are not solely there to bring you down and laugh at you as you lie in the smouldering rubble that was your business or blog (maybe a tad dramatic). If anything, competitors can be the driving force behind your business, they can push you to reach goals you never even dreamed of. 

There's nothing wrong with some healthy competition and if you've got a firm list of your main competitors, it could greatly improve your business. You can keep track of their social activities, offers, business decisions etc to really get a feel of what direction you want your own business to go.

Really do your research and pay attention to there comings and goings, make notes of what you feel they could do to improve their business and then see if you're doing it for your own. Sometimes analysing someone else's work can shed some light on things that are missing from our own projects.

Once you've written down your competitors, the positives and the negatives of their businesses/blogs and have a firm list of what aspects you want to include in your own, you can set yourself some goals. Maybe one of your competitors has 10,000+ followers on their blog and you want to be able to get to that point as well, you can use your findings to develop your own path. 

Finding your competitors doesn't have to be a negative thing, use them as your goal setters and inspiration and you could see a massive improvement in your business.

Have you identified your competitors yet? Does the word competitors scare you a little? 

4 Apps To Keep You Organised and On Track

I am one of those guilty people who have their phone stuck to their hand 24 hours a day. I check it before I go to sleep and I check it again as soon as I wake up. But I have an excuse, so hear me out. I'm currently doing a full-time internship in Manchester, as well as working weekends at a part-time job and running this blog (which I've been working my little butt off on these past couple of weeks) oh, and I'm training for my first ever 5K. 

As you can see I'm fairly busy, which means that I have to be more organised than I have ever been in my life. To do that, I need a trusty handful of apps to keep me up to date on what I'm doing that day and anything I'm yet to get round to. 

Calendars - My first priority is to keep my time scheduled. On my iMac I use Google Calendars to keep all my posts, admin, intern work and extra blogging stuff scheduled down to the minute, but unfortunately Google haven't released a Google Calendar app yet. So instead I use the Calendars app, it syncs perfectly with Google Calendars and allows me to see everything I have to do and edit anything that needs moving around. 

Evernote - You can't have a list of super helpful apps without mentioning Evernote. It took me a while to really get into the swing of using it, but now it's a must when new blog ideas come popping into my head. I love that they are cross platform, so I can look at all of my notes on my iPad and on my desktop, making it easy to keep track of all my ideas. 

Google Drive - I used to be an avid fan of good old Dropbox, but recently I've really been loving Google Drive. It just feels a little easier to use and I've been using it to store PDF's on my phone so that I can easily apply for jobs on my job apps. If you have to share large files with a team or a client, this is super easy to use and easy to keep track of what you've sent and what people have sent to you.

Pocket - This is a great one for bloggers. This handy little app allows you to save any articles you find or videos and keep them all in a little 'Pocket'. It's great if you are on your daily commute and find a really interesting article you want to reference in your next blog post, you just click save and it goes zooming over to the app. 

What are your favourite apps to keep organised? Do you like to keep as scheduled as I do? Or are you more of a 'go with the flow' person? 

Choosing Your Social Media Platform

If there's one thing I've learnt during my internships, it's that digital marketing is still in its infancy. The 'pro's' are actually just fumbling along trying to figure things out like the rest of us. The Marketing Executives who have been around for the last few decades, are still trying to wrap their heads around this new and amazing digital platform, capable of inviting them into their consumers homes, no questions asked. 

Social media has become a huge part of the digital marketing wave. These days, new platforms pop up like daisies. If you are a new blogger, freelancer or just starting to launch your small business, the plethora of platforms can be a little overwhelming. So which platform will serve you best? Which one will help you rocket your new venture into the stratosphere of the internet? 

Social media can either be extremely visual, or all about the chat. Depending on what service or type of content you provide, some may be more suited than others. 

Facebook

Best for... Ecommerce businesses & Creative Freelancers. If you have an online store or offer freelance services, it can be extremely beneficial to create a Facebook page to build your loyal customers. Facebook gives you a great platform to offer things like special discount codes and offers to loyal followers. If you are a creative freelancer, Facebook can help share your amazing work and if you're lucky, it may go viral. That's how I found the amazing freelance photographer Kirsty Mitchell.

Twitter

Best for... Freelancers & Bloggers. Twitter is more of a conversational tool than Facebook. Its real time style is perfect for networking, making it great for bloggers to interact with each other and the occasional PR company. It allows freelancers to find others in their field as well as people looking for their particular services. *Handy tip* Tweets that include images generally get more 'favourites', clicks and retweets than text heavy tweets, so try and include your blog images in your tweets. Essie Button is by far my favourite blogger on Twitter, she engages with her readers and has just the right amount of tweets every day. 

Pinterest

Best for... Ecommerce, Graphic Designers & Bloggers. Pinterest is really storming up the social media ranks and it is quickly becoming one of my favourite platforms to use. It can help to give your brand a more personal touch, allowing your customers and readers to see what kind of things inspire you, make you laugh and what projects you may be working on. Pinterest is a very visual platform, which makes it great if you are a graphic designer wanting to showcase some of your work. For an excellent example of a graphic designer's Pinterest account, check out cocorrina. 

Instagram

Best for... Photographers, Graphic Designers & Ecommerce. Another visual heavy platform, Instagram is the leader in photo sharing apps. If you are a photographer, you can post some of your recent photographs to gain more attention for your projects. I've also noticed a lot of ecommerce sites utilising Instagram lately, posting images of new stock and offering discounts to their followers. For an example of a great ecommerce Instagram, check out Shop Dixi. 

YouTube

Best for... Filmmakers and Ecommerce. YouTube can be a difficult one to navigate, the trick is to keep videos short and to the point. Small online shops can create small reviews, DIY's or how to's using the products they sell to drum up interest. 

As a film student, I greatly appreciated the free platform that is YouTube when I wanted to showcase my student projects, it meant that I could get an audience for my short films without paying for film festivals or distribution companies. You can even film some short behind the scenes videos to really engage your audience and gain a loyal following. For a great short film YouTube channel, check out my friends over at Flawless Films, an online production company making their own short films and parody's. 

Tumblr

Best for... Photographers, Graphic Designers, Illustrators, Artists and Writers. Tumblr is still a little tricky to understand, it is widely known for being the home of all fandom. The advantage of that is that a lot of the members of those fandoms are very creative people (can you say fanfiction and fanart?). Tumblr is by far the most creative of the social media platforms, it houses some amazing art, poetry and photography and it's a great place to get in touch with like minded creatives. To see an amazing example of an illustrators Tumblr page, check out Sirin Thada. 

Vimeo

Best for... Filmmakers and Videographers. YouTube's more professional counterpart, Vimeo is the home of the pros. You can find some truly stunning videography work on Vimeo and it's a great place to showcase your work if you are a wedding videographer or make HQ short films/documentaries/art films. You do have to pay if you want to get the most out of it, but for independent filmmakers, it's the best platform to be taken seriously. For a truly stunning Vimeo channel, check out Timothy Melville. 

The list above hopefully gives you an idea on the best platforms to start with. Of course, if you have enough knowledge of a platform and a bit of time and creativity, any social media channel can be used effectively, no matter what services you offer. It all comes down to you knowing your brand and in what direction you want to go. 

Which social media platform does your business or blog suit best? Do you feel a little overwhelmed by the massive amount of social media choice? 

Personal Branding & Why It's Important

When you think of branding, what do you think of? Big businesses? Fancy logos? Coca Cola? 

It can be hard when you're a freelancer, blogger or small business to think of yourself as a brand, but you are one. If you offer any kind of service, whether it's informative blog posts or a small Etsy shop, you need to start thinking of yourself as a brand if you want to push your business to the next level. 

Personal branding can take a lot of time and patience, but a lot of it is all about the planning. You might feel eager to get straight into the interesting creative part of branding yourself visually, setting up a website and getting those all important business cards printed. Before you can do any of that, you need to create a brand identity for yourself. So where should you start?

Personality
You first need to understand the personality of your business. I find that the easiest way to do this, is to think of my business as a person and ask a few important questions like:

What would they wear?
How would they talk?
What kind of music do they like?
What's their favourite colour?

That way I can get a clear idea of who this business is and what style it should have, both visually and its tone and approach to clients.

Goals and beliefs
What are your businesses main goals? what do you want to achieve with your venture?

Make sure you know exactly what kind of service you're offering and why you're offering it. Is it because you want to help others like you build a career? Is it because you want to be the best in your field? Once you know the reason behind your actions, you will have a better idea what tone of voice you want your business to have.

Having the right tone of voice is crucial as it determines what kind of clients and readers you attract. For example, if you decide your business should have a very formal and serious tone, then you will most likely attract corporate clients. If you decide you want a more informal and friendly tone of voice, you may attract more laid back creative types.

Visual branding
This is the fun part (well, for me anyway). Getting the visual part of your branding right is extremely important, as it tends to be the way people remember and associate with you. It's also extremely difficult to finalise!

To help you come up with the visual aspects of your branding, take a look back at your personality profile and keep it in mind whilst building a mood board. You can use a few different tools to do this, my favourite being good old Photoshop, but you can also use PicMonkey's collage tool.

Some of the things you want to touch on when making a mood board are:

• Fonts for main body text, headers and logo
• Your colour scheme
• Any design elements you want to include e.g. logo images 
• Any patterns and textures you want to use
• Any images of style inspiration

Once you have that you can use it to design business cards, newsletters, emails, blogs and websites. Or, if that seems a little daunting, you can always look at getting a professional graphic designer to take a look and come up with some awesome ideas.

These are just the foundations of personal branding and you may find that once you get going you come up with a whole notebook of ideas for your brand. These little notes should give you a firm idea of who you are as a brand and hopefully get you noticed by your target audience.

What would your brand look like? Have you sat down and really thought about your personal branding yet? 

Creating An Archive And Why Your Blog Should Have One

Since changing the focus of my blog to marketing and SEO for bloggers and creatives, I decided that I needed a good archive page to make sure my older posts don't get lost forever.

You'll notice on the navigation bar a page called 'Archive' this houses links to all of the labels I've used on my blog over the last few years and also categorises the posts into month and year. It's very similar to the blogger widget that used to grace my sidebar, but a lot nicer to look at. 

Having a blog archive never seemed too important to me until now, but there are a few reasons why you should think about creating your own unique archive page. 

It conveniently groups your posts by their label, allowing for an easy to navigate experience for your readers. Someone may stumble upon your blog and want to read more posts on that particular subject, if you make it easy for them to find it, they'll spend longer on your site, which will improve your sites bounce rate (the average time readers stay on your site). 

An archive can increase views on older posts. Sometimes a post you are really proud of can get lost or not receive the views it deserves. If it is archived correctly and is easy to find, its views could be greatly improved over time. Someone may have read the post when it first went live and wish to find it again to link to it or mention it on their social media, how terrible would it be if it was impossible to find?!

Increases your blogs credibility by showcasing its history. In the world of the internet today, there are blogs and websites popping up all over the place, so which one should you trust? By human nature, people will gravitate to sources with a firm history, if you can show that your blog or website has a long established history, you can gain a degree of credibility. 

Try and make your archives as visually engaging as possible, if your readers are looking for something in particular, their eyeballs want to to see a simple, easy to read archive. That is one of the main reasons why I designed my archive like I did, it's pleasing to the eye but simple to understand and navigate.

Have you given any thought to your blog or website archive? Do you find yourself looking in other sites archives to find relevant content? 

SEO Tips For Beginners

The world of SEO has always been a tricky ocean to navigate, the reason being is that it is ever changing. Don't let that put you off learning all about it though, it still plays a massive part in the success of your blog or website. 

Let's start with what SEO actually is and how it works. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which refers to where your blog/website ranks in the search engines. If you own a beauty blog and you type 'beauty blog' into Google, are you amongst the 1st page results? Those that are will probably have worked on their SEO to get there. 

Search engines send out tiny 'spiders' to catalogue the gigantic amount of information on the internet, so that they can store it in a massive online warehouse and pull it out when someone is searching for it. These 'spiders' can only read though, they can't look at pretty pictures or watch cat videos on YouTube. This means that you have to make sure you are including relevant text in your posts, in your HTML and in your descriptions, because without it, the 'spiders' won't know how to catalogue your information in the giant internet warehouse.  

There are a few ways you can quickly and easily improve your SEO no matter if you're a blogger using Blogger or Wordpress or if you have an awesome website for your business. Here are a few basic things you can think about to get you started in the world of search engine optimisation. 

Name your images before uploading them. This is so important and easy to do. When you name your images on your computer, be sure to give them relevant names that correspond with your post or web page. You will often find images from blogs and websites on Google Images and they show up when you search because they've been named relevantly to what you're searching for. 

Target your keywords. I wrote a post all about finding your keywords and how to use them, which will help you to make a list of your blog or businesses keywords and phrases. You should use these in all of your posts, page descriptions, social media descriptions and in your image titles. It's also great if you can squeeze one or two into your page/post title. This will make sure the 'spiders' know what your page or post is all about. 

Use Title and ALT attributes in your HTML. You don't have to be a HTML wizard to do this, simply head to your HTML and find any links, tables or any structural elements and give it a title. It will usually look like this: <a class='Link' href='https://URLHERE.com' title='title of link'>

The title tag explains what the element is about, it's great for naming specific pages on websites and you'll see it a lot in the <head> section of your HTML. 

The ALT attribute is used for images, it helps catalogue images for those poor 'spiders' that can only read text. it comes inside the <img> tag before the last > e.g. <img src="http://URLHERE.com" alt="image for post">. You can make sure your blog images have these by going into your blog HTML. If you use blogger, you can do it by creating a new post/edit post and adding your image, switch to the HTML view in the post and add it to the image HTML.

Build your backlinks. Search engines love a good strong backlink and they can be tricky to get your hands on if you're relatively new to the game. The best way to get a few links under your belt as a new blogger or business, is through guest posting. Contact a handful of blogs you really love and feel like you could write a small post for and see if they would like to feature it. 

Another way is to make sure that you're posting amazing and helpful content that people actually want to link back to. This might sound extremely difficult at first but if you have patience it will be more rewarding than anything else you do.

You can of course pay for an ad space on other blogs, the only thing you will have to be wary of is if those links have a 'no-follow' attribute in the code. If the links on your ad space have 'no-follow' in them, then the link won't be counted as a back link. You can do a bit of code research to find this out by using Google Chrome web browser, going to view > Developer > View source and searching for your ad link.

Are you new to SEO? Are you putting some time aside to really focus on optimising your website for search engines?

How To Tame An Indecisive Mind

The first step of taming an indecisive mind is admitting you're an indecisive person. I will throw my hand up and admit that I am horrendous at making big decisions. I struggle when faced with the smallest ones, like what cake to eat at a coffee shop, or wether I should get the grey coat or the black one. 

No matter how terrible you are when faced with various choices, you can always improve and learn to make those important decisions quickly and easily. So how can you figure out where the root of your indecision lies? What can you work on to make decision making a little easier?

Listen to your gut and don't worry about what other people will think. Depending on what kind of decision you have to make, you may find that other people will try and tell you 'what they would do'. The fact is, it is you and only you that can make the choice. You will be the one living with the consequences of your actions, so don't be afraid to listen to what you heart and mind are telling you and ignore the outside voices. 

Write down how you feel about all of your options. Maybe you have to decide whether to take a year out before going to University, or decide whether you should take that amazing job 100 miles away from home. Draw a column 'for' and 'against' and write down your positive and negative emotions towards both, this will give you a better overall view on how you're feeling about the situation. It's all well and good being logical and letting your mind make all the decisions, but it's pointless if your heart isn't in it. 

Learn to trust yourself. In my opinion, the main evil of indecision is mistrust. The lack of trust in yourself is what makes it so hard to make a decision. Your brain is basically telling you that you are not capable of making a decision and determining your own fate, but your brain is wrong. You are more than capable of making the right decision for yourself. Even if it doesn't go exactly like you planned it, you are capable of handling whatever comes next. 

Think about the negative outcomes, then think of the solutions. Having a backup plan or strategy will help eradicate any unease you have. If you know what you would do when it all goes Pete Tong, you won't have any excuses not to throw caution to the wind and take that leap. 

When all else fails, flip a coin. I do this more than is necessary. The best and fail safe way to truly test how you feel about something is to leave it to chance. Flipping a coin can instantly tell you how you feel about a decision, if you're happy with the outcome, than that's the road you should take, if you're not, than take the other road.  

How are you with decision making? Do you find yourself stood too long in the sweet isle picking a chocolate bar? Do you have a big life decision to make and can't handle the stress of committing? 

* Check out the Cat Crawford Facebook page for weekly marketing tips to improve your blog, tutorials & more. 

The Art Of Balancing Stress

It's a common misconception that you have to avoid any stress at all costs, however if you live on a planet called Earth (which I'm assuming you all do) it's virtually impossible. Stress is a necessary evil, it's part of being human and experiencing real human emotions. Yes, some of us get stressed a little easier than others (I'm definitely one of them) but it's not about eradicating it completely, it's about finding the right balance. 

I've learnt how to manage stress throughout 2014, after having a mental health breakdown during my final year at University. I needed to learn fast to be able to get through to graduation and move on with my life. As a result, I ended up doing a massive amount of research into stress management and would do whatever it took to relieve some of the crippling anxiety I was feeling due to stress. 

I found one of the most effective ways to relieve some of the stress, was to unplug. Take yourself off the internet and just concentrate on whatever is getting on top of you. Give your a brain a little break from constantly ticking over and actually take in your surroundings and situations. You may find you're online more than you realise. 

This also pairs nicely with my next point, pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. Really take time to sit on your own in a quiet room and listen to the thoughts zooming around your head. Are you surprised by what you find? Pay attention to how you body feels, do you feel tired? Any muscle aches? Focusing on your own body is a great meditation technique and it allows you to centre yourself in the here and now. 

If you find that you just can't switch off, not even for 5 minutes, try focusing on the positives. I know that is a lot easier said than done (my friends and family will all vouch that I'm not the most positive person in the world) but by focusing on the positives, you can change your mood completely. For example, if you're stressed out about work, think about 3 things that you actually love about your job. By comparing the stress your going through with the overall positives, you'll be able to place your stress into context, balancing the good with the bad. 

It all comes down to changing your own perception of a situation. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's an easy thing to do because it's not, it's actually really freaking hard. But like anything, practice makes perfect and by doing any of these on a regular basis, you'll find your brain will retune and balance out your stress a lot more easily and naturally. 

Great stress management resources:

Calm Meditation App

Headspace

Be Mindful

Helpguide Stress Management

Have you struggled with stress in the past? How do you deal with a stressful situation? 

5 Ways To Breakout Of A Creative Drought

Ever since leaving school when I was 16, I have always known I needed to do something creative with my life. Since then, I've gone on to do courses in Audio Production, Media and a degree in Film Production. However, despite always dropping myself into the creative person category, I do have a lot of moments when creativity just isn't flowing like it should. 

It used to rear it's ugly head a lot in college and University, a lecturer would point their finger at me and say 'come up with an idea for...' and I'm sorry, but my brain does not work that fast, it freezes under pressure. One thing is important to remember though, creativity isn't something that just comes to you one day out of nowhere, it's like a river, it is constantly flowing. Your creative juices are there waiting to be released, but sometimes they need a little coaxing.

You may be sat at your computer screens or in front of your tablet or smartphone and not feel creative in the slightest. I'm here to tell you that right this second your brain is being creative, it's always thinking of something, even if you're not conscious of it. 

If you are stuck in a drought and desperate to tap into some of that infinite creativity lurking in the back of your mind, try these 5 ways to turn on your creative tap and get ideas flowing (see what I did there, drought metaphors).

• Create a mood board. Mood boards are a more visual way to brainstorm ideas, they tend to work best for designers, but they can be used for any kind of creativity. It's up to you how you create them, maybe you prefer to do it digitally via tools like PicMonkey or Picasa. Maybe you'd prefer a hard copy, in which case you can get a large sheet of paper and start sticking, or buy a scrap book. 

• Create a Pinterest board. I am forever creating Pinterest boards to inspire me. Not only does Pinterest provide visual inspiration but it's also a great way to find blog posts, a lot of bloggers now post their main post image to Pinterest, so it's definitely worth having a browse and seeing what you can find. 

• Take a trip somewhere new. It doesn't have to be a full on holiday to the Bahamas or Disney Land, it could be something as simple as visiting a new town or landmark. Living in Cheshire, I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by beautiful scenery and in close proximity to loads of landmarks and architecture. I always feel more inspired once I've explored a new location and it get's you out of the house and away from your computer. 

• Watch a visually stunning film. As a Film graduate and lover of beautiful cinematography, I gain a lot of inspiration from movies. It can be anything from Life of Pi (2012) to a more recent discovery The Fall (2006) (thanks to my current Lee Pace obsession). I always get inspired by the vivid colours, wide angles and epic film scores. Put on The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and tell me you don't feel epic.

• Create a calming playlist. Music is another medium that has the power to control mood and really tap into your subconscious. My love of discovering new music has allowed me to find some truly amazing songs and artists over the last few years. I love heading to Spotify to browse through the genre playlists and just listen to whatever pops up. Creating a calming playlist and just sitting and listening helps you to relax and when you are relaxed, your brain is relaxed and things flow more smoothly. 

The worst thing you can do when creativity just isn't flowing, is to force it and get yourself frustrated. By taking some time to yourself and time away from a project, you will find that things start to become a lot clearer. 

How do you get your creativity flowing? Are you guilty of getting frustrated when creativity just isn't playing ball? 

Finding Keywords And How To Use Them

If you're starting to get serious about your blog or small business, you might want to delve a little further into SEO. Yes, for someone who isn't all that clued in on digital marketing, SEO looks like one of those scary, complicated abbreviations that only men and women in business suits throw about. In truth, it can be a little difficult to navigate, which is why it's always good to start with the basics. 

SEO simply means Search Engine Optimisation and one of the best ways to ensure search engines are noticing your blog or website, is by targeting specific keywords. Keywords are not the be all and end all however, SEO is a combination of many different things all working together to give a ranking. Understanding your keywords can help you understand where your competition lies and can also help to focus your business to a more niche audience. 

Google Keyword Planner

The best (and free) keyword tool you can use to do a spot of keyword research, is the Google Keyword Planner. The Google Keyword Planner searches for your chosen keywords and lets you know the average monthly searches for those keywords, the competition for those keywords and how much they cost if you were to run a PPC campaign. 

The best way to use the Google Keyword planner is to compile a list of keywords you want to target in you blog post or website page and find the ones with the highest average searches and the lowest competition. 

Keywords or Key Phrases?

If you are a small business or blog starting out with very low domain authority, it's usually better to target phrases rather than keywords. Unless you are targeting a very specific keyword, a key phrase can help to really focus your content and ensure it is reaching the people who are searching specifically for your type of content. For example, instead of targeting 'makeup' you could try and target 'cruelty free makeup' or 'makeup tips for 20 somethings'.

Targeting key phrases can help you to get your foot in the door of SEO. By targeting your niche, you have a better chance of building your sites authority, gaining quality back links and it will eventually allow you to be a competitor for some of the more popular keywords. 

Keyword Rich not 'Keyword Stuffing'

It can be very easy to get carried away with keywords, you want to include a healthy amount of keywords in your content and not 'stuff' your content in hopes of better rankings.

Here's what Google says about 'keyword stuffing':

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. 

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
  We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

Google does not take kindly to sites that value keywords over content, make sure you are writing around your keywords and not to purely 'promote' your keywords. 

Have you ever given a bit of thought to what your keywords and phrases are? Do you keep them in mind when writing your posts or website copy? Do you think about them when writing your 'about' profiles on your social media profiles?