When I became a lifestyle blogger in 2013, I didn't know what SEO was. I'd never even heard the word.

I came across it a few years later, around 2016 or 2017, and it sounded so complicated that I ignored it for a while. I thought it was something very technical and way beyond my capabilities.

Thirteen years on, SEO is a huge part of what I do every day. I've had lots of posts reach position 1 on Google, I've lost plenty of those rankings too, and I've learned a lot along the way.

Here are the SEO tips that have actually made a difference to my lifestyle blog, plus the myths I wasted far too much time on.

What actually gets a blog post to position 1

I've had a lot of position 1 posts over the years, and they change all the time. Some of my best ever performers don't rank at all now.

Looking back, most of my position 1 posts had one of these things in common:

• They were based on my own personal experience, written in my own voice, or shared methods I'd tried and tested myself
• I'd chosen a good keyword, with real searches but not too much competition
• I was one of the first to write about something, or review a new product or service
• Sometimes it was just luck!

The first one is the most important. Personal experience is something nobody else can copy, and it's what makes a post genuinely useful.

Write from real experience

I used to write in my own voice, but if I'm honest, a lot of it was regurgitated information that already existed elsewhere. Now I try to write about things I've actually done as much as possible.

That might be what I've earned from a side hustle, what a renovation really cost, or what went wrong when we moved house. Those details are what make a post truly unique.

If you're writing about something you haven't experienced, ask yourself what you can add that isn't already out there. If the answer is nothing, it might not be worth writing.

How to choose keywords for a lifestyle blog

Lifestyle blogs cover lots of topics, which makes it tempting to go after big, broad keywords. But you're up against huge websites for those.

Instead, look for longer, more specific searches. "Bathroom decor ideas on a budget" is much easier to rank for than "bathroom ideas", and the people searching for it know exactly what they want.

I use Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to check how many people search for something and how hard it is to rank. If you're just starting out, free tools and Google's own autocomplete and "People also ask" boxes are a great place to find ideas.

It also helps to stick to a few core topics, so Google understands what your blog is about. On lyliarose.com, that's mainly money and side hustles.

I post a whole lot of lifestyle content too, but I try to give it all a money angle. That could be saving money, making money, free money, budgeting, or sometimes things that are worth splurging on!

Some people advise niching right down to something very specific. I've kept a broader money and lifestyle focus instead, which gives me a much wider range of topics to write about.

My SEO checklist for every blog post

Whenever I write or rewrite a post, I go through the same checks:

• Check Google Search Console for the queries an existing post already appears for over the last 16 months, so I don't lose them
• Check Ahrefs for keyword ideas and how competitive they are
• Add real experience wherever possible, and my own photos when I have them
• Keep paragraphs short so the post is easy to read on a phone
• Write a meta title and meta description for every post
• Add image alt text describing what's in each photo
• Add internal links to other relevant posts on my blog

None of these on their own is a magic fix. But together, they make every post as strong as it can be.

Audit your old posts

For years, I focused on posting as much new content as possible, just getting any old blog post out, and never looked back at my old posts. In the past year or two, that's completely changed.

Now I spend far more time updating and auditing old content than pushing out new posts.

I used to pride myself on writing a blog post in 45 minutes! Now I spend hours on each one.

Even rewriting a post can take me at least three hours, or half a day, when much of the content is already there. It's a process, but I'm hoping it will make a real difference.

It feels right, and like what I should have been doing all along.

When a blog is as old as mine, posts build up and old ones get forgotten. Some are no longer relevant, some need updating, and some are dead weight that could be bringing your good content down or wasting Google's crawl budget.

I've done content audits a few times, but this one is by far the biggest. I've been working on it for over a year and have probably got a couple of years still to go.

I've gone from around 2,500 posts down to about 1,300, deleting posts with no traffic, no searches and no backlinks. Then I'll start the whole process again, because it never really ends!

For each post, I check Google Search Console for impressions and queries, Google Analytics for traffic and Ahrefs for backlinks. Then I decide whether to keep it, rewrite it, merge it with another post or delete it.

Merge posts that compete with each other

One thing my audit has shown me is how many of my posts were competing against each other for the same searches. When you've written about a topic lots of times over the years, Google can struggle to tell which post to rank, so often none of them do as well as they could.

For example, I had 19 posts about matched betting. I've merged and rewritten them down to six, each with a clear job of its own, and redirected the old ones.

If you've written several posts on the same topic, it's worth checking whether they'd be stronger as one.

Don't forget the technical basics

Alongside rewriting posts, I fix the technical bits too:

• Finding posts with no meta description and writing one
• Adding images that show up properly when a post is shared on social media
• Working through Google Search Console's list of pages that aren't indexed
• Adding internal links to orphan pages, which are posts that no other post links to
• Checking and fixing broken links and 404 errors every day

Honestly, as I'm doing so much all the time, I can't tell whether any one thing is working. I think it all works together to keep my traffic steady and, hopefully, grow it over time.

The SEO tools I use

You don't need expensive tools to get started. These are the ones I use:

• Google Search Console: free and so good. It's the first place I look, as it shows exactly what each post appears for in Google and where it ranks.
• Google Analytics (GA4): I find it frustrating and hard to use, so I mainly use it to check traffic.
• Ahrefs: I pay for the cheapest plan, which is great for website SEO audits and keyword research. Before that, I used lots of Ahrefs' free tools.
• Moz: I use the free domain authority checker and backlink checker.

Backlinks from other good websites still matter, as they build your domain authority. Just focus on quality over quantity.

The SEO myths I fell for

I've believed some ridiculous things over the years! Like changing the font size to increase traffic, or the amount of space between lines.

I've also read that you must post every day, or always have a number in your meta title, or put an image at the top of a post rather than under the first paragraph.

Every time I read something like that, I thought it might be the secret key to more traffic. I'd go through thousands of posts making changes to every single one!

Looking back, none of those things made a real difference. What matters is useful, honest content that answers what people are searching for.

SEO is always changing

Rankings never stand still. Some of my posts drop out of the top positions while others move into them, and it happens all the time.

The biggest challenge right now is Google's AI Overviews. More people get their answer straight from the search results without clicking through to a website at all.

That's why I think personal experience matters more than ever. An AI summary can't share what it was like to actually do something, and that's exactly what readers come to blogs for.

Even after 13 years, blogging is always changing, and so is SEO. The key is to keep learning and keep improving your content.

My top SEO tips for lifestyle bloggers

If you're just getting started, here's what I'd focus on:

• Write about what you know and share your real experiences, figures and opinions
• Use Google Search Console from day one, as it's free and tells you exactly what's working
• Choose specific, less competitive keywords rather than broad ones
• Update your old posts rather than only chasing new ones, and don't be afraid to merge or delete ones that aren't helping
• Don't chase every SEO trick you read about

If you're thinking of starting, here's how to successfully launch and manage a new blog. And once you've got readers, here's how to attract more traffic to your blog and make more money from your blog.

Final thoughts

When I started blogging, I didn't even know what SEO was. Now it's part of everything I do, and the biggest lesson I've learned is simple: write genuinely helpful content, based on your own experience, for real people.

The technical side helps, but it's the honest, useful posts that rank, and keep readers coming back.