Sail Donnybrook! and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I write this blog to share my experience.  Family and friends know about it.  Who else is finding it?

I've been curious about how Sail Donnybrook! ranks in Google rankings so I did some Google searches to find out.  Sail Donnybrook! is first when I search for "Sail Donnybrook."  Good!  Sail Donnybrook! is around 101 when I search for "Donnybrook."  Not so good.

I looked at some of the analytic tools available and found the top keywords for my site were "sail", "Donnybrook", "race", "Mac", and "Kyle".  Sail Donnybrook! is 86 when you search for "sail mac race".


Racing is a small part of what I write about.  True, the Mac Race is the focal point of Donnybrook's sailing season, but Sail Donnybrook! is more about sailing and cruising and less about racing.  The Mac race is just a quick way to get to the best cruising on Lake Michigan.  Sailing and cruising didn't even show up in the top 20 keywords that Google found.

I read several articles on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and learned this:

• The web page title is critical in search engine rankings.  I changed the blog title to Sail Donnybrook!  Sailing and Cruising Lake Michigan and Chicago because of this.
• The title of each blog entry should display in the browser title bar.  I changed the Blogger template to do this.
• Page links help your ranking.  The more sites that link to Sail Donnybrook!, the better.  To help this, I'll reference www.saildonnybrook.com when I post to other forums and make sure it's prominent in Facebook postings.
• The more a word or phrase is used, the more importance it has.  Because of that, I'll make a conscious effort to use keywords more often.
• Changing content helps.  Static pages lose their ranking.
• The more page hits your site has, the higher it'll be ranked.  Drawing people to your site will improve rankings.

There are many techniques to use but the above are the most obvious after some quick research.  There are even SEO Consultants who are paid big bucks to make sure a site is highly ranked.  In fact, Overstock.com recently got into some trouble because they violated Google's usage guidelines (see Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics, WSJ Online Feb. 24, 2011.)

We'll see over time how readership increases!