New To Wordpress. Basic URL and Title questions....

[Agrajag]

I recently moved my blog from a Blogger blog to a Wordpress blog. The bulk of posts are movie reviews from two posters.

I've read a bit about URL's from Blogger being an SEO issue due to their format of sitename/2013/02/postname.html

1. If that's accurate should I really take the trouble to switch everything over to remove those dates from the URL's?

2. How important are the titles? In the old days of posting I tried to be creative with title names and I think it got me into SEO trouble. My more creative names ended up getting lower hits as, I suspect, people couldn't find them. For example, for a movie review, should it just be the name of the movie? Should it be the name plus "Review", ie., "Les Miserables Review"? How much does category matter? Right now movie reviews (and all things movies like year-end recaps or discussions of theaters, etiquette, etc., get a "Movie" category.

I've looked at the top SEO plugins but they looked a bit convoluted and suspect to me on first glance.

Finally, the blog is wide-ranging so I haven't bothered with any adword campaigns as, frankly, I'm not sure what we'd put there given the breadth of topics. It's heavy in movie talk, politics, technologies and nostalgia but that's pretty wide.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[TcxAnthony]

Install the Yoast SEO plugin, it has a very simple user interface and will help you maximize your efforts. For your titles, you should put the keyword you are targeting in the title.

[Agrajag]

I did that a few days ago so that's done. I also decided to go ahead and remove the dates from the URL's because of Yoast's tool for redirection. The only problem is it failed entirely and there's no real support there for it. On the plus side it's not that big a deal but it is annoying. I manually redirected a few of the biggest posts.

What I did now is essentially leave the post titles basic and then used Yoast to add the tags to it. Thus a move review goes from, "Batman" to "Batman Movie Review" in the HTML Title Tag.

Keywords I'm entirely lost on right now.

[TcxAnthony]

For keywords, the best tool out there is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The tool is completely free, sign up for an account which is also free so you don't have to enter those annoying "captcha" things everytime you do a search. Basically you type a couple of keyword ideas like "batman movie review" and the tool will tell you how many global and local searches there are for that phrase and how high the competition is to rank for said keyword. Be sure to click on keyword ideas at the bottom of the search box becuase the tool defaults to ad group ideas. I believe yoast only allows you to use one target keyword per post or page but you can still enter other keywords into your posts and pages. Just don't listen to people that tell you about keyword density, that's been dead for some time, just make sure you use the keywords you've selected naturally. The best way to perform your on-page SEO is to make the content unique and amazing for the reader, Google loves this. Also, keep in mind that it may take a few months for Google to update your ranking. You may see what is called a honeymoon effect in the beginning which is ranking higher than you normally will when your content is new.

[Agrajag]

The big issue I'm seeing now is that, in movies, there are literally countless sites to go up against. This could be quite an uphill battle. hehe

Can you think of an example in a movie review that would make it unique and amazing for the reader that Google would identify as such?

[TcxAnthony]

The best way to do it is to take your time with your keyword research and do some of the things your competitors are doing, just be sure not to copy anything they are writing and make everything your own. Starting out, with your keyword research just pick terms that have low competition, these may have lower traffic but it is specific traffic that will convert better. Find a site that does what you want and is currently in the position you want to be in and work your way up to their level.
It takes a bit of work and time but your traffic will increase substantially. Try to personalize with your audience, and pick a writing style, just don't mix up different writing styles in the same post. You can try direct, humor, etc.

[Agrajag]

So if I understand fully what you're suggesting above, you feel an AdWords campaign is one major way to go? That's how I'm reading the keywords/competition piece. Am I mistaken? Understand that I come from the experience of a very large site that beats ebay in both traditional SEO and AdWords campaigns. The difference is, there are only a handful of major auction sites out there and the listings (posts) are very specific so they're easier to distinguish. I'm pulling my hair out trying to relate that experience to a blog/review site.