How I used keyword research about baby swaddles to run a micro SEO experiment

Can a solopreneur significantly improve results in organic search without time or money? An ongoing experiment.

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The term SEO is thrown around so much it’s lost all meaning to me.

As a small business owner, I basically tuned out any discussion of SEO over the last several years—for a few reasons.

Why? First, my businesses were hyperlocal, so I thought SEO didn’t matter. As part-owner of a triathlon club and cycling studio, me and business partners were selling local services in a teeny niche that relied on referalls.

Not only that we were in Atlanta, a traffic nightmare where if you don’t live or work within a couple of miles of whatever training session or event is taking place, you won’t join. No one in, say, Indiana, was going to find us and move to Atlanta to join.

So I basically ignored SEO.

To make it seem even more like not-a-real-thing, I’d get solicitations on the reg from “web developers” and “SEO experts” promising amazing results in their poorly-worded emails full of jargon and technical terms.

So I mostly thought of the whole thing as a scam.

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I figured if you use good keywords, have a professional looking site, and are legit, then the people will come.

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That’s pretty much what happened, although I’ve learned enough to realize that our remote coaching service could really benefit from a bit of optimization love. Perhaps I’ll tackle that in a future article.

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How I became interested in search

My original interest in search began earlier this year when I started creating content for people outside my real-life community: mom bloggers, writers, authors, and small business owners.

Not knowing any real-life ideal readers, I had to figure out how to reach full-on strangers.

My IRL friends are on facebook, but the things we have in common are mostly related to our athletic pursuits. So it’s like crickets if I try to post something to help writers.

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An accidental experiment

I started experimenting in January, targeting a few different arenas. In many ways, this didn’t start as an experiment. The experiment was on what topics could hold my interest as much it was on the nature of Google.

So I started playing around, writing whatever I felt like, and sharing my efforts on a few different platforms. Gradually I became more interested in three different areas:

• Pinterest -I had many misconceptions about Pinterest, like it was all recipes and DIY tiny-houses made from popsicle sticks. When I started in early January, I had about eleven followers and no engagement. My boards were called “bikes” and “best doggies.” So yeah, I knew nothing. but after growing my views from 124 to 170k in the first month I was sold.
• Medium – I put virtually no effort into Medium at first, but would occasionally throw up a previously published blog post. Also, I applied to a few publications and was accepted to Marketing and Growth Hacking, Writers Guild, The Ascent, and Writing Cooperative.
• Organic Search– Originally, my interest was piqued while taking the course Ready, Set, Blog for Traffic which helped me get started with blogging and with Pinterest, and listening to The Blogging Millionaire, which has amazing advice. And the more I wrote and researched the more I became intrigued by organic search.

Something else happened, too. I started ranking on the first page of google for the term “nursery items checklist” with only the most basic SEO box-checking. I was pumped.

Great news, right?

But then, after I decided to “improve my post” I stopped ranking altogether. Wah wah.

Clearly, I needed an actual strategy and not just a shoot-in-the-dark keyword approach.

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Here was the basic question I wanted to answer:

Why do I rank in these searches…

“runners are annoying”

“preaching in pumps”

“tomorrow’s clothes layed out”

“its crush night tonight”

I’m not 100 on what this is but it sounds like something they used to say on Jersery Shore

And more importantly, why didn’t I rank in any of the terms that matter to me?

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My experiment: How effectively can one person move the needle on a group of related search terms?

One thing was clear. Now that I’m interested in helping writers and authors improve their online presence, I need to pay more attention to SEO.

In my old niche, I was obsessed with the numbers and could accurately predict paces, power, and race performance of any number of training partners or competitors.

What if I could do cool things with numbers in my new niche?

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More specifically, could I take an old post, Top 5 Swaddles for Newborns Ranked, and get it on the first page of Google? Was it even possible without spending time or money?

I picked this post because I ranked for a good number of search terms (14), they had an okay monthly search volume, yet were not too competitive.

I also had a few pins for the post which were doing decent on Pinterest but not amazing.

Here’s a look at my keyword sitch on Moz when I first decided to revamp this post:

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I started changing things on April 5th.

Here are all the factors I manipulated, then below I’ll go more into detail on each one.

1. Checked out my keyword sitch in Moz
2. Commented on ranking articles
3. Linked to top ranking articles and video
4. Increased the wordcount
5. Generated new pins with non-stock photos

1. my keywords in moz

Like I said, I picked this post because I ranked for a good number of search terms (14), they had an okay monthly search volume, yet were not too competitive.

2. commented on ranking articles

Apparently, commenting is still a thing. I thought it was an outdated practice from the days when few of my friends had blogs. Also considering all the nonsense spam comments I get linking back to jerseys, sunglasses, or the latest-weirdest, HVAC services, tends to pound home the idea that comments are well…spammy.

Plus, I never got in to commenting because it felt borderline creepy, like I was listening in to someone else’s conversation. Confession:when I used to blog, I hardly ever even commented back.

Clearly, it’s time to drop my commenting baggage which I’ve mostly done, in part from beginning to freely comment on Medium.

Here’s how I figured out where to comment:

In Moz, I listed out my fifty ranking search terms and looked up the top ten list for each terms. Then I went to the posts on the site and commented where allowed.

This sounds convoluted but it actually took about three minutes per post. Here are the terms I selected based on search volume, and my relative rank.

If I feel like it later, I’ll go back and comment on more posts, but for now I stuck with five of the highest ranked ones.

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3. Linking to other relevant articles

But when it comes to building relationships in your niche by generously linking out to relevant resources—and subsequently ending up on the radars of site owners as a result of doing so, which may indirectly lead to links from them further down the line—well, that’s a good strategy in my eyes.

from Reciprocal Links: will they hurt your SEO in 2019?

There’s a lot of chatter over whether reciprocal linking leads to penalties, but my research assured me that natural linking is an okay thing to do. In my swaddle post I linked over to several of the top related posts as well as my all-time favorite swaddling how-to video.

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4. Wordcount

My content was a bit thin and I know Google prefers longer posts. I checked on the stats of the top two ranking post for comparison: 1760 and 1560 words. My post weighed in a paltry 804 words so I beefed it up to 1200 plus.

5. Generated fresh pins

Finally, I generated fresh pins with non stock photos from Unsplash. I added keywords suggested by Moz and replaced the ones suggested by Pinterest.

Here’s one of my new pins.

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Now what? Now I’m excited to see what happens next. What do you think? Think I can make it on the first page of google or will the higher domain authority of the other sites crowd me out?

I’ll post again with updates soon!

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Ideas for writers and solopreneur:

• The secret trick to writing when stuck
• How to stop [endlessly] editing your writing
• How to reset when you feel stuck
• How to get up early [and make space for goal getting]

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Ready to start your writing project?

I want to help! Does this describe you?

You’ve thought of starting a blog–or writing a book–yet aren’t sure where to start.

I’ve been there and want to help you avoid the same mistakes and hangups I made while writing Courage to Tri.

Throughout the month, I’ll discuss the mindset barriers that keep us from pursuing our writing dreams and how to start overcoming them today.

You’ll learn:

• How to figure out what to write about
• How to find time
• Finding accountability and community
• Overcoming imposter syndrome
• Tips and tricks for when you get stuck.

join 1028 other writers rocking their online presence and keeping their life-changing message in front of the world.

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Hi, I’m Bethany–coach, author of Courage to Tri, 2x Kona qualifier, and twin mom. I help writers and authors grow their online presence and keep their life-changing message in front of the world.

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Next up: 7 reasons your readers click off your website hella fast [and how to fix them.]

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