As part of our Ask Aime Anything feature, we’ve been sent a couple of questions by Gabi from Chroma Stationery. Check out part one Chroma Stationery owner Gabi asks “How can I improve the SEO for my blog?” to read a bit more about the theory behind SEO for brand blogging. Now let’s deep dive into one of Chroma Stationery’s blog posts.
An SEO makeover of a single Chroma Stationery blog post
I’m going to take a look at the blog post New Year, New Diary on the Chroma Stationery website. A blog post subject that is packed with potential, but missing key opportunities to give Google more evidence for improving the search ranking of Chroma Stationery.
EDIT JULY 2020: The original blog post is no longer available, but rather than delete this article we’ve left it in place as we think there’s still loads of helpful blogging and SEO info.
1. The blog post subject
New Year, New Diary is a superb content choice for Chroma Stationery. It’s timely, on-brand and interesting, but it’s not being sold well. The article body is actually about different ways you can personalise a diary, so I would amend the title to:
New Year, New Diary: 5 ways to create your perfect planner for 2018
2. New Year, New Diary keywords
Ok, I’m not going to rewrite the entire blog post as that is definitely overkill, but I’ve nabbed a couple of key paragraphs to demonstrate how we can include more lovely evidence for Google without compromising on readability and content.
“With the New Year still fresh in our minds, it’s time to start setting some goals for 2018, and what better way to organise your thoughts than picking up a Chroma Stationery diary and writing down your dreams. Like anything else you possess, stationery should endeavour to reflect your identity and that’s why, at Chroma, we will go to any lengths to bring you a diary that truly reflects you.”
Becomes:
New year, new goals to finally get organised – right? With the New Year still fresh in our minds, it’s time for us stationery addicts to start getting our thoughts out of our heads and onto paper so that we can start crushing those 2018 resolutions.
We may be a little biased here at Chroma Stationery, but we think there’s no better organisation motivation than a colourful new personalised year planner diary. When you commit your goals to paper in a personalised diary you’re proud of, you know that job is getting done.
So here’s the Chroma Stationery run down of our top ways to create your perfect diary planner for 2018.
“The Goal Setter
You wouldn’t be seeing in the new year properly if you didn’t set out your aspirations for 2018. If you’re one of those people who can make a list and stick to it, or you’re looking to adopt a more focussed approach to life, then our diary is the perfect place to start. Whether it’s career aspirations, fitness-related goals, or to just do what makes you happy, the Chroma diary is here to keep you on the path towards your dreams.”
Becomes:
3. The Goal Setter: personalised diaries for people who get sh*t done
You wouldn’t be seeing in the new year properly if you didn’t set out your aspirations for 2018. Are you one of those people who can make a list and stick to it? We wish we were too. Whether you’re an organised pro or you’re looking to adopt a more focussed approach to life, we recommend the Chroma Stationery Meredith 2018 diary.
This spiral-bound beauty dreams of motivational quotes and personal messages in complementary (and complimentary!) foils and embossings to keep you on the path towards your dreams.
Whether it’s career aspirations, fitness-related goals, or to just do what makes you happy, write it down in your Chroma Stationery diary and get that sh*t done.
3. How Chroma Stationery can play with content hierarchy
Other than subject matter, content hierarchy is by far the biggest opportunity for Chroma Stationery to improve how Google ranks their blog.
We’ve already tweaked the body copy and title which is a great start, but there’s a long way to go. One of the quickest and most impactful structural changes is to start properly using subheadings. This Chroma Stationery article is really good at breaking up the content into managing chunks that are easier for readers to digest.
Unfortunately, at the moment instead of using proper subheadings the paragraph introductions and created using body text that is styled to stand out more. This looks fine to the reader, but give Google absolutely nothing useful and is a wasted opportunity.
This headings should be H2s (sunheadings) and H3s (sub subheadings), not bold text. They should also add a little more detail about the following paragraph – again all we want to do is give Google as much evidence as possible to decide that the Chroma Stationery website has the best answers and solutions for the right questions and problems.
Then there’s the image data. Chroma Stationery don’t got no lovely image data, and that’s a crying shame. Now, part of that is down to Wix, this website builder is not very friendly for image SEO management (Squarespace can be just as bad), but for a post chocked with pics there’s not a single image caption.
Not only is it failing to work hard for Google, but it’s also poor usability for anyone who relies on screen reading software to surf the web as image captions are how screen readers ‘see’ images.
4. And a few other small ways to improve the blog post
Add more links out to other websites. The web is a literal web. By linking to more websites from brands like your own, you’re again giving Google more evidence that suggests your website is the best option for the searcher.
I know some people worry about adding more exit points to their website, but the risk of someone clicking away and not coming back is far outweighed by the benefit of linking yourself to similar websites. It also encourages generosity in your content, and you should definitely write about complementary brands.
Chroma Stationery can talk about other exciting Bristol-based start ups, as well as illustrators, business women and lifestyle products too. All all these have a big audience overlap and are fun things to write about.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how Gabi can improve on SEO when it comes to the Chroma Stationery blog. We have a couple more Ask Aime Anything questions from Gabi to write up over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned and join our mailing list to see these first.
And if you have a question about how you can improve your website, branding, social media and more – you can submit a question via our website and you might just find your answer here too.
