You need the search engines to pick up your blog to get free organic website traffic. The first few months of blogging can be tough, you have no authority, no following and no traffic. You’ll get many opinions and just as many ways to do things. I like to try to keep it simple, especially when it comes to blogging.
So, I want to get the most bang for my buck since naturally I’m a developer not a writer. Good thing we have software like Wordpress and the huge community that develop plugins. These tips will work on webpage, but since most small business marketing will be built around blogging,I’m going to focus on both wordpress internal functions and a couple plugins. You only really need to get the SEO all in one pack plugin.
One important thing to note about doing research on SEO… Make sure your information is up-to-date. You will notice that Google’s search algorithm has some inherent problems. Google’s algorithm is built on popularity, meaning the more incoming links to your site the more authority it has. You can understand that older sites have more incoming links. When doing searches for SEO, or anything else, you will probably run across websites that are over 5 years old. This might be fine for most searches, but with SEO it’s not because the rules change all the time.
- Think of the keywords you want to target before you write your post. I have about 5 keywords phrases that I want to target. Not only does this help you brainstorm content for your website, but also keeps you focused and targeted. Google loves niche websites.
- Title Tags – Refers to the HTML tags used to display the page title in the browser.
[Experts Say] Keep it to around 65 – 70 characters. Make it catchy since it is also used as titles in blog readers and in search results on the search engines. There are some arguments as to whether put the website title before or after the webpage title to improve branding.[plugins] All in one SEO will rewrite your title tags automatically using your blog posts title and rearrange the title so the blog post title will appear before the website title. This plugin also lets you rewrite all page titles in your blog.
- Header tags. Very similar to title tags, but header tags are in the content of the page.
[Experts Say] Keep it within the keyword targets for the webpage. Should be very similar to the title tags. make sure the tags are <h> tags (<h2>blog Title</h2>). Do not use <div style=’font-size:22px’>
[plugins] All in one SEO will use the blog post header tags in the title tags.
- Meta tags (keywords and description). these tags are not displayed in the browser. They are used only by search engine spiders to get a context of the webpage.
[Experts Say] many opinions… most will say they are not used anymore. Don’t go out of your way to edit these. If you do, make sure they are around 65-70 characters and include the targeted keywords for that webpage.
[plugins] All in one SEO will give you a choice to fill these tags automatically with categories, tags, or you can edit manually.
- Keyword density. How often your targeted keywords are using in relation to all other words on the page.
[Experts Say] Keyword density is one of those SEO topics with a lot of arguments whether it works or not. It can take a lot of time to go through your blog post and make sure your targeted keywords are 5-6% keyword density. In order to keep it simple, if you have defined your targeted keywords, your blog post will have at least 2 or 3 targeted phrases in the content, which should be good enough.
[Websites] There are a few keyword density checking websites. seochat.com. Also try tools that allow you to enter the keywords that you are targeting. I personally like this approach better becuase it is much easier to understand. keyworddensity.com
With these 5 tips, think about how you will write your next blog post. Remember most of this SEO will happen automatically. Start by thinking about what to write about and the keyword targets. Make sure your blog post title has your target keywords, and the main content has the target keywords too. The rest is automated…
In my next post I'll show you how to double up on the SEO and really get the most bang for you buck by guest blogging. Don't miss it!
I started this Wordpress theme because there is a lot of hype about the death of blogging, and how lifestreaming is the new form of expression. I think it’s funny when I see blog posts about the death of blogging, because that type of post is a typical link bait tactic used to get more blog readers. The death topic is very polarizing because you will get opponents to both sides.
