The Knitting Fiend

Getting a comment about my ads made me curious. The mysterious term “SEO” made me curiouser. I had no idea what that meant. Some one else did. Maybe I could attract more knitters to my site and earn oodles and oodles of cash by totally reorganizing my blog!

So, to learn more, I visited some “how to make money ” type blogs. I read; then clicked. That sent me to similar blogs where I read, and clicked more. Every individual bit of information I read sounded reasonable. I had to agree doing “A” did sound potentially more profitable than doing “B”.

So, why did it all make me think, “uhmm… uhmm..”?

You ask, “Give me an example that made you think ‘uhhmmm…’?”.

Well, each blog ran articles with snippets of advice on making money by devising the perfect money making blog. They all suggest you can learn “so much more” by buying a pricey $$$$ advice book. (Uhmmm….)

Of course, before getting out my wallet, I read the advice to evaluate it. Here’s a the type of advice I found on several “make money blogging” type blogs:

1. Set up an account on Google Ads.
2. Pick a profitable “key word”.
3. Learn the “associated key words” so that search engines send visitors to your site. Learning the associated key words evidently involves visiting Google key word tool and entering words. (Although, I also learned I could pay someone $$$$$ to find these words for me.)
4. Write articles containing those profitable “key words” and all the associated key words.

Doing this is called working to improve your “SEO”. (I learned that’s “Search Engine Optimization.” Gotta love that!)

The pricey ($$$$) books evidently include advice about other topics, but let’s stick to improving my “SEO”. Why don’t I start now?

I already have a Google ads account. Now, according to the second bullet, I need a profitable key word. The blogs I read didn’t suggest what that word might be. But, I figure it should be a word that describes something people want and will spend lots of money on. (And yet, somehow, I suspect the word “free” might be a good key word.)

Despite the attractions of “free”, I pick “iPod”.

Now, I visit Google’s tool page to learn the associated key words for “iPod”. There I discover that to lure iPod lovers to my blog, I should include the word “itrip” and “20gb” in my articles. (Look, I just used them! Whoo Hooo! )

Having drawn iPod lovers to my blog, they will now. . . read about optimizing their blog to lure other iPod lovers. Of course, this will so fascinate them they will visit my other blog articles and discover I blog about knitting. Whoo hoo!

Ok, I think you are now thinking “uhhmmm”. People who visit looking for a “20gb iPod” aren’t going to read past the title of my blog, they aren’t going to bookmark a knitting blog nor will they tell their friends about my site! Needleess to say, they aren’t going to click on links to buy knitting yarn, needles or knitting patterns!

If I want to haul in mega bucks by blogging. I either need to blog endlessly about iPods, or something remotely marketable, or I need optimize on “knitting”, right?

Well, I don’t want to blog endlessly about iPods. So, I used Google’s tool to find associated terms to sneak into my knitting blog articles. There were zillions, including:

• knitting patterns. (Hhmm… so maybe I should blog about a free shrug knitting pattern generator?)
• knitting hats. (Hhmm… so maybe talking about my knit hat patterns would help? Oh, plus I recently knit a spiral hat just to increase my SEO? )
• knitting socks. (Imagine. I just blogged about my free hand knit sock pattern!)
• knitting yarn. (I described some hand knitting yarn this morning — and introduced rampant commercialism about yarn yesterday. I must be a pro!)

The list goes on and on; luckily, I can bunch things in categories which are:

• knitting brands (e.g. Noro, Cascade, Debbie Bliss, Boye, lionbrand and lion brand. Yes spell it both ways. In the same article. )
• knit items (e.g. , hats, sweaters, socks, mittens, and slippers)
• knitting terms (e.g. knit, purl, skein, yarn over, stockinet and stockinette. Yes, spell it both ways. ) and
• fibers (e.g. wool, silk, cotton, acrylic, rayon, hemp, soy silk.) and
• knitting tools (e.g. needles, DPNs, yarn bras, whatever.

If you are a knitter, you can pretty much guess most of the associations. After all, they are words you would add when searching for some information about knitting something by hand.

Hhhhmmm.

What to do? Well, here’s my advice knitters who write knitting blogs and hope to increase their SEO. Don’t write like this:

“I made this item using stuff I found in a bin in the basement.”

Write like this:

“I knit this hat circular with my Denise interchangeable needles using Plymouth Galway Aran weight yarn. You could substitute worsted weight wool yarn.”

After all, if you write a “knit this hat” knitters Googling for hat patterns might find your site; if you write “made this item”, they probably won’t.

Who’d a thunk?!

And here’s a bonus. If you use precise terms, when knitters do arrive, a few might even discover they’ve found a new favorite knitting blog!¹

Will this lead to fame and fortune? Only if you’re also funny.