When it comes to Search Engine Optimization for blogs, website owners are sometimes baffled as to what they should do and makes many blogger’s heads spin. So I decided to write this article on Search Engine Optimization for Blogs and bloggers alike.
What is it that you need to do differently when optimizing your blog for Search Engines like Google? There is so much that one can tell you that you will get lost in endless and countless data that can be overwhelming.
Let me break this down for you into simpler and digestible elements so that you can implement them one at a time.
There are three key elements to a good SEO blog.
Try working on each aspect one per day. if you are able to implement the below suggestions, then you can confidently say that your blog is Search Engine Optimized.
On Site SEO Techniques
We are going to take a look on on site SEO techniques. While there are way more than what is mentioned here, we are going to look at a top level optimization techniques that are widely used by SEO experts today.
Link Within Category
Remember hyperlinks? yes they work very well. However, if not used properly it can clearly spoil your SEO efforts. While linking content within your blog try to link posts that lie within the specific category your posting towards. This is with taking into account that your blog is indexed category wise. By linking only within the current category, you tell the spiders when they are crawling your site that these are all the posts within this category.
if you cross link to different categories in your blog this is what will happen.
Imagine the Google crawler entering your site navigating to your category and to the posts within the category. Keeping in mind that crawlers use links to navigate a site, see what happens when they reach the posts.
The spider or crawler will be able to detect duplicate post from category1 category 2 and category3 because they are following links.
So by keeping your links to posts and category within a specific category you avoiding Google crawlers from detecting duplicate content within your site.
Use Keywords In Category And Tags
Another effective way to optimize your blog is to use unique keywords in category and tags. Avoid using the same word in tags and categories as they create duplicate urls which in turn is considered as duplicate content as well. This is taking into consideration that you Strip the category base (usually /category/) from the category URL and use /%postname%/ for permalinks.
Because of this, your URLs would now look like this
Category (SEO) – genuineseo.net/search-engine-optimization
Post (SEO) – genuineseo.net/search-engine-optimization
Now that is something you need to avoid.
Follow Tree View SEO Structure
The tree view structure for a blog is the optimum SEO structure anyone can follow. A tree view is something like the image I uploaded to show an example in the previous section. Its simple and easy and its essential that you start this in the very beginning when you are starting your blog.
Use Keywords In Post Titles
Its very important to use Keywords in post title, while you are required to use keywords in various other places in your blog its very important that you add them to the H1 tag of your blog which would be the post title.
Check Keyword Density
Even though many SEO guru’s would say that the density of your keywords don’t matter, I suggest that you focus well on this. Don’t over use the keyword, but us a at least about 3 or 4 times in a 500 word post. its important that the post is relevant based on the keyword density, if you use any other word more than the focus keyword, then the relevance of the post changes and impacts your search engine rankings.
Don’t Stuff Unused Keywords
This is something that I find many bloggers doing regularly, they do not understand the usage of keywords and end up adding all the top keywords they have into all the posts on their blogs, in turn affecting ranking. Although they might see good ranking and traffic initially then are soon to end up being banned from Google. Use only keywords if you have used them in posts and do not use more than four keywords per post, that is one primary and two or three secondary keywords.
Write At least 500 Word Plus Articles
Many bloggers would say that an article with about 250 words would be enough, but trust me on this Google wants articles that are at least 500 words. This way Google is able to determine if the article can be useful to readers. If your doing to write a short article, its advice that you mark the article as do not index that way Google does not rank the article.
Use Links (Inbound And Outbound)
Usage of links are very important as mentioned in the first section of the post. But there are two types of links inbound links that’s the link that is pointing to your blog and outbound links that’s the links that are pointing to other sites from your site. As per Google requirements its important to have at least one link somewhere in your blog. Even this is not mandatory I strongly recommend that you add a link or two in your blog.
Proper Redirects
Configure your site to have proper 404 and 301 redirects. Its important both in terms of helping readers and search engines finding content on your blog. Provide your readers and search engines with the updated information if a certain page is moved or removed from your blog that way, the reader does not leave your blog nor does a search crawler.
Off Site SEO Techniques
I hope that the on site seo techniques help you out. But that’s not it, you also need to optimize your blog for search engines.
Backlinks (No Follow And Do Follow)
Backlinks, they are still the most vital part of your website ranking on search engines like Google and Bing. Its becoming more and more important that you keep your content and links to it updated. Try to build links both with a No follow and Do follow tag. Its important because that evens out your link building strategy. It does not look spammy to search engines and you are good to have a healthy dose of links from various sources. Another tip is to build backlinks from different sources and forms, try to get links from sites with PR1-PR10, comments, content links, sidebar links, forum links and more.
Submit your RSS Syndicating Directories
This is one of my favorite ways to drive traffic and make my content present to various audience. RSS syndicating sites submit your RSS to various networks and driving a small amount of traffic and links towards your blog. Even though this is not very big, when you add it along with the various other tasks in the seo strategy its adds a lot of value.
Update Regularly
Keeping your blog updated regularly is very important, with search engines like Google looking for sites that have the most updated content and the most frequently updated sites, its important that you update your site regularly and keep the content fresh and new.
Social Share
This is something new and has already started to have a big impact on search rankings. Try your best to get your reader engaged and have them share your content on social networks like, twitter, facebook and Google plus. Google and Bing have already modified their ranking methodologies to taking into account social shares.
Technical Optimization
Now that you know what it takes to optimize your blog with On site and Off Site optimization techniques, its time to look at the technical aspects of your blog to boost your optimization efforts.
Design Framework
Get a robust and strong framework to power your blog. Today WordPress is one of the best in the market. There are CMS like Joomla and Tumblr who are also good and worth looking into. I use WordPress and its powered by StudioPress themes which is one of the best framework in the business. This is important because, its secure and safe when compared to the other themes and frameworks out there.
Clean Code, Color, Text
Another important aspect that you need to look at when getting a rock solid framework is to make sure that the codes are clean. Meaning that the codes are search engine friendly and are meeting as much as Google requirements. use clean color and text as well, Its important that you set a good expectation and not look like spam. With design frameworks like Genesis and Thesis, you should have to worry about clean code. They are top notch solutions to a web business.
This brings us to the end of Search Engine Optimization For Blogs. Thanks for reading and I hope that this detailed guide on Search Engine optimization will help you rank better.
About Eddie Gear
I am using Genesis and it works really well. My blog is ranked with PR 3, and within first 6 months of blogging. Perhaps I made a mistake or two with internal linking, but I will tend those mistakes.
Bojan recently posted..C.O.R.E. System – Fast lane to the top
That s really great bojan, Good job on the PR. It happens that we often tend to overlook the very basics of SEO at times. But good that you have noticed and working on improving seo for your blog.
Eddie Gear recently posted..10 Awesome Chrome Extensions For Bloggers
You have a great list of various SEO techniques here. I was interested especially in linking within a category – I hadn’t heard that one before. But if the only reason not to link to other categories is because of duplicate content, then just don’t post duplicate content! Wouldn’t that make more sense? If you need to say something twice, say it in a different manner each time you post.
Leora Wenger recently posted..Case Study: Suggestions for a Website Strategy
The reason I suggested “not to link to other categories” is not because your writing the same article for both categories Leora, but that the spider will crawl through all the categories and through links so the spider will get to category 1 and navigate to category 2 and find ABC article. Now when the spider crawls through category 2 it will still find category 2 and say I just crawled this URL its duplicate.
Eddie Gear recently posted..10 Awesome Chrome Extensions For Bloggers
Eddie, OK, now I understand what you are saying. Thinking of telling this to a client, however, seems a bit too much – it’s hard enough to get them to write an article with keywords. Also, my reaction is, “stupid spider.”
Leora Wenger recently posted..Case Study: Suggestions for a Website Strategy
Oh yeah. The simplest way to do that is use an SEO plugin that restricts the links within a category.
Eddie Gear recently posted..30 Challenge To Write A Kindle Edition EBook And Raise Money For Charity
Hi Eddie,
Well this is a great list of this to do to improve SEO!
But the linking within category thing is really confusing. Is that mean that I only have to link to posts within the same category ? But sometimes we put a post in different categories….do you think we should avoid that ?
Thank you for the list of techniques!
Lenia recently posted..New Year’s Resolutions: How To get Motivated
Hi lenia,
Yes, all internal links should flow within each category, if you have 100 posts in category A then its good to link all posts within that category and the same goes for as many categories that you have.
Eddie Gear recently posted..How to Turn Traffic and Trust into Sales: Yet another book on Affiliate Marketing?
Hi Eddie,
Thank you for your answer! I had no idea about that. I will pay more attention on that.
Lenia recently posted..New Year’s Resolutions: How To get Motivated
Hello Eddie Gear, I think you have covered all the major factors of SEO for any blog. I have one doubt in “Keyword Density” factor. You said that we should use focused keywords 3 to 4 times in 500 words content. So should we use exact key-phrase every time or we can use only keyword. For example if our focused keyword is “Make Money Online”. So it is quite difficult to use this exact keyword 3 to 4 times in content because sometimes “Make Money” keyword should be better to use instead of “Make Money Online” to make proper sentence. So in this case what should we do?
Hi Gene, Thanks for commenting on my blog. I believe its about variation of words, you don’t necessarily have to use the exact same word. If you take a look at Google web master you will find variation in keyword in your blog. The main reason you use the word in the post is for spiders to understand that the post is related to the specific topic.
Eddie Gear recently posted..10 SEO Insights Package Worth $790.00 For Your Business
Thanks a lot Eddie. I’ll definitely apply your suggestions.
Hey Eddie,
what an awesome, valuable ad refreshing post.
You’ve simplified a concept which so many others over-complicate. Kuddos!
I’m actually guilty of the second ‘sin’: Use Keywords In Category And Tags.
For some reason I thought it would give me extra S.E juice if I use keywords in categories and tags as well.
Guess I was wrong…
Love your blog. Keep up the great work!
Adam
Adam Troudart recently posted..Win the Top 40 Books for Entrepreneurs! ($1,000 value)
Adam, Thanks for that. Im flattered. As long as you are using unique keywords in category and tags its cool. because we dont want duplicating urls
Eddie Gear recently posted..10 SEO Insights Package Worth $790.00 For Your Business
On another site you commented that it didn’t make sense to make a blog static. I am new to this game and am forced because of finances to teach myself plus take care of my family. I just want to know the best way to go about creating my blog so that it is successful.
When it comes to search engines it best to keep one section of your blog crawl-able and dynamic, that way when the Google spider crawls your blog, you gets all updated information. If you make it static you need to make sure that you tell Google that the page is static and crawl it only once a month or year for updates. I think I’ve converted the details of everything that you need to do in terms of SEO in this post. Thanks for your comment here.
Eddie Gear recently posted..5 Things Bloggers Should Not Do In The First Month Of Blogging
Eddie, I didn’t know about the problem with “crosslinking” to posts in different categories. Since I’ve been blogging for 9 months now, I can only hope that I’ve been “organic” in linking to related posts (which hopefully are in the same category). I may go back and check whether I am confusing the search engines!
Astro Gremlin recently posted..Blog Grader for Free WordPress SEO Review