In the title I used the term "No Nonsense" because there is so much rubbish out there when it comes to SEO.If you took it all on board you would spend more time on SEO than your would on creating blog posts ! So this guide will show you how you can make SEO become a natural part of your blogging.Often just keeping SEO in mind while writing your blog posts can have a big impact.
SEO Is Not All Smoke And Mirrors
SEO does not need to be difficult and there is no way SEO can only be done by professionals.The newbie blogger can optimize their blog for Search Engines, they just need to cut through all the jargon and fluff.
In many way's SEO is as simple as letting search engines like Google know just what your blog and blog posts are about.Basically you telling Google what your writing about so they can index your blog in search results for people to find.
SEO is also not a trick, it's not something you are doing to fool Google into showing your blog in the first pages of their search engine.Google want you to use SEO, they want you to help them index your blog.You just have to look at Matt Cutts the head of Google's webspam team, Matt offers SEO tips on His Blog and in videos in the webmaster tools YouTube Channel.
6 Top Tips For SEO Any Blogger Can Manage
1. Use The Tools Available To You
Most blog platforms help you optimize your blog for search.Let's look at the examples for Blogger and Wordpress.
Blogger - Blogger offers users "Search Preferences" in the options.The main option here is the "Meta Description" which you will find at the top of the search preferences page.Make sure to add a meta description for your blog, just a few lines (Maximum 150 characters) to describe what your blog is about.When you add this you can then add a meta description for each post you write.On the post editor you will see the option on the right of the page.We will cover this in-dept in a future post.
WordPress - There are a number of SEO plugins for Wordpress which offer a number of options.The most popular two SEO Plugins are Yoast and All In One SEO.Check out all the available plugins and make sure to read through the documentation so you are getting the most from your chosen plugin.
2. Get Your Post Titles Working For You
I always stress the importance of snappy post titles but the post title is important in SEO also.A snappy title is a title that will grab peoples attention, making the title SEO friendly as well as snappy is a winning formula.
For SEO you want your post title to describe the post.If I was writing a post about making an omelet I want to first think "What would people search Google for if they were looking to cook an omelet ?".
The Obvious answer is they would search for "How To Cook An Omelet ?" Right ? So put that in your post title, you can still be snappy by making the title "How To Cook An Omelet That Blows Your Taste Buds Away !" So for SEO we have "How To Cook An Omelet" and to grab attention we add "That Blows Your Taste Buds Away !" .How many people would title this post just "Omelet Recipe", not good for SEO and not snappy enough to get clicks.Go for the hard sell guys !
OK here to help you with the next two points I have to use a term you will hear a lot from the "SEO Gurus" sorry.The term is "Key Word".A Key Word or Key Words is the name given to the words people search for.In the example we said people would search for "How To Cook An Omelet" that would be known as a Key Word.If your still unsure take a quick look through This Post.
3. Get Your Post URL Working For You
Blogger - On Blogger again to the right of your post editor you will see the Permalink option.Click this then tick Custom Permalink.
WordPress - On WordPress in the post editor you will see the Permalink option between the post title section and the post section with an edit option.
Just like the post title you want to use a URL that will describe the post.A great Rule Of Thumb here would be to use the descriptive part of your post title as your URL.So from our Omelet example I would make the URL "how-to-cook-an-omelet".We don't need the snappy part here just the descriptive KeyWord part.
4. Use Our Keywords Again !
Yes there is a reason I specified Key Words in point number 3 above.For our Omelet post we have used the key words "How To Cook An Omelet" in the post title and URL.Now you want to push the point home by using that keyword in the post. You should have no trouble getting the Key Word into the text of post two or three times.
Now we have "How To Cook An Omelet" in the post title, In the URL and in the text of the post.Can you see now how when Google crawl this blog post they will have no trouble knowing exactly what it's about and indexing it ?
5. Remember To Interlink Your Posts
This is another easy and basic principle of SEO that's also just good practice.Have you ever noticed when you are on a page on Wikipedia how many words on that page are links to other pages on the site ? This is called interlinking and Wikipedia do an unbelievable job at it, so can you.When you write a post read through it and find words or phrases that could relate to other posts on your blog.For our omelet post example if you used the word "Cookery" you can turn that into a link to another cookery related post on your blog and so on.
Google follow links so this will have Google following links throughout your blog.If every post has links to other posts you build an endless maze of links through your blog.Great for SEO and also keeps people on your blog as they click through your archived posts.
6. Take A Sec To Optimize Your Images
Now this is one of the overlooked SEO techniques by so many people.Adding an ALT tag and Title tag to your images is great for Search.Both general search but also it can get your images showing up in Google image search bringing in more traffic.The alt and title tags can be used to describe the contents image.
On Blogger - When you upload an image to your post click on that image an you will see a number of options appear.One of them options will be "Properties" click this and you can enter your Title and Alt tags.
On WordPress - When you upload an image to your Wordpress post hover over the image you will see a pencil Icon.Click this icon to bring up the options, the "Image Description" will be used as the ALT tag.There is not an option here for a title tag you will need to go to HTML mode to add this.
That's it 6 really simple ways any blogger of any level can use SEO to get their blogs ranking higher on search engines.And we dispelled some of the misconceptions related to SEO not a bad days work !
I would love to hear your opinions.Did you use any of these techniques before ? Will you start using them now ? Let us now by leaving a comment below.
Paul Crowe
I'm the owner and main author here on Brighter Blogs.I've been a full time Blogger and Web designer for over eight years.I have worked on thousands of projects and blogs over the years and I bring this information to you here on BB.Making every tutorial easy to follow for bloggers of all levels.
The best SEO post I have ever read.I plan to use all these tips on my blog thanks so much !
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment I was trying to write a SEO post anyone could learn from.
Deletegr8 post sum gud info
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