When Creativity Meets SEO: My Journey Rebuilding Bush Telegraph XPress

For over ten years, my author website, Bush Telegraph XPress, has been home to my books, short stories, and travel photojournals. Recently, I faced an unexpected challenge: the website wasn’t working the way I thought it was. Despite looking fine on the surface, there were serious issues with how search engines and visitors were discovering and interacting with my content.

The problem became clear when I previewed one of my most personal stories, Sitting Beside Bushfire Survivors. To my shock, the preview showed an unrelated photo of my father raising a celebratory beer in front of a bonfire – completely inappropriate for such a sensitive story. This mismatch wasn’t just a one-off; previews for all my stories were wrong. My travel photojournals were incorrectly directing visitors to book tours, and search engines were confusing my story The Elephant in the Room with articles about actual elephants.

Why was this happening? As a writer, I use evocative, original language and carefully crafted storytelling. But search engines rely on literal keywords, repeated phrases, and clear summaries. My creative content and the technical requirements of SEO simply weren’t aligned.

Facing this disconnect was frustrating. I’m not tech-savvy – I wrote my first book longhand, back when computers were rare outside offices. After years of managing the front-end of my website, I didn’t want to start over. But to make Bush Telegraph XPress work for both readers and search engines, I had to learn a whole new skill set.

I jumped into the back-end of the site, learning how to write clear meta descriptions and how to update alt text for over 300 images. I added summaries to every short story and photojournals, and rewrote the pages about my novels to better explain their themes and content. It was a steep learning curve – like learning a new language – but crucial in providing a bridge between creativity and technology.

The process was long and sometimes exhausting. Every time I thought the work was done, another issue surfaced. But now, I’m proud to say the website is finally finished – and more importantly, I think that it accurately represents my work, as well as speaking clearly to both visitors and search engines.

If you’re a writer or creative professional struggling to make your website reflect your vision while also working well online, you’re not alone. I believe that there are many of us floundering around in the effort to balance creative expression with SEO.

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