I’ve discovered that a good way to find a place in the hearts of work colleagues is to bake them some biscuits. It shows a lot more love that just buying some cakes from the shop. As I started at Betley Whitehorne just before my birthday it was the perfect opportunity for me to don my apron and get creative in the kitchen. In the past I’ve posted my creations on my website for all to see.

Using google analytics I found that most of the visitors to my site were not looking for information on myself, my design, websites, or portfolio, but rather to look for a tasty rocky road square, or chocolate heart recipe. It seems my cookery skills had taken over my site. Why was this? Well it seemed that google, live search, et cetera were ranking my page rather highly when someone searched for those various recipes. It showed that it’s very important to make sure the content of your website is relevant, with personal sites like mine it’s okay, but if you’re a business you need to carefully edit what is allowed. This is even more true with the prevalence of business blogs, such as the one you’re reading, where members of staff are given more freedom with what they can post.

Whilst such blogs currently tend to be limited to web and software firms talking about their products and creations, more and more companies are adding staff blogs to their sites. They can really help with your search engine ranking; if you’re posting useful, and relevant articles the chances are other sites will link to yours boosting your rank. As a result of our blog we’ve already seen an increase in website traffic. Blogs also tend to be written in a more conversational style of language than other areas of your site. This can be of benefit when people are searching in google - the phrases they type into the search box are often structured in the same manner as the way blogs are written. On my cookery pages there are many words like delicious, tasty, nutty, creamy and textured as well as commoner search words like biscuits, and chocolate, these combined to give my pages a high ranking.

By looking at your website’s visitor statistics you can tailor your blog posting and content to reflect what people are really searching for, using plain English, not just marketing speak. This can help bolster your position in search engine rankings and make your site more likely to appear when people search using common language and phrases. As a special treat for those of you who have read this far, here’s a link to one of the sites Microsoft’s Live Search team rate very highly in terms of the way it’s content is written, and it also carries on my food theme! Take a look at Pinch My Salt.