5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
Nov
4
Written by:
2009/11/04 11:43 AM
Everyone is talking about SEO lately. SEO professionals are crawling out of the woodwork in every corner of the globe. Traditionally SEO was targeted at big business. Then other smaller businesses and websites saw the benefit of optimizing their sites. Bloggers traditionally have not worried about SEO. Either because of ignorance, time and money, or because they just don't believe they need SEO. But a blog is just another website. If you want your blog to get traffic from search engines, then you have to pay attention to SEO for your blog
Here are five simple SEO tips that will improve your Google index rankings, as well as increase natural traffic to your site.
1. Create a sitemap and submit it to Google.
Google indexes your site by traversing your site structure. Following links to different pages on your blog. Most blogs today have dynamically generated pages. So there are no real links to follow. If Google can't follow links or spends too much time looking for links on your blog, then the Google Robot will leave.
A sitemap is just an XML representation of your pages and posts with the correct urls. Submitting your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools will increase your chances of being indexed and thereby increase your chances of being found via searches.
Sitemaps provide search engines with important information about the pages on your site. This includes the last time each page was updated, its update frequency, and its relative importance based on traffic and comments.
2. Make use of Google Webmaster Tools.
The Google Webmaster site has a great collection of tools to help make your site more Google-friendly. It provides an overview of how your site is crawled. It also displays information about keywords that other sites use to link you, your top search queries and your search result ranking. This information will help you to understand what is driving traffic to your site. If you understand what drives traffic to your site, you can capitalise on that and milk it for every megabit it is worth.
3. Optimise your post titles with relevant keywords.
I sometimes agonize as to what the post title should be. Sometimes we underestimate the importance of page titles. Not only to our readers but also towards Google. You page title is the first port of call for your readers. It describes in a nutshell what the post is all about. Written correctly it has a mesmeric inviting quality. Good blog post titles solicit traffic. Optimized with the correct keyword terms encourages Google to take notice of it's importance and bumps the page up in the Search Index Page results.
4. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily
Search engines find pages on your site and blog via a method called spidering. Basically the Search engines crawl through your site, navigating the links to find relevant pages to index. Make sure your navigation bar is present on all pages of your blog. Your previous posts or at least the popular ones should be linked to all pages so they get spidered easily.
Make sure you have a well formatted Robots.txt file that the Search Engine spiders can access. A robots.txt file is a simple file that directs the Search Engine robots where and when they can or cannot go or craw your site. Read this article on the Robots.txt file
5. Update your blog frequently
What on earth has frequency got to do with SEO? Well you will be surprised. The freshness of each post plays a huge and important role as to where and when Google indexes or displays your page in the Search Engine Results Pages. Think of it logically, would you come back to a site that has old stale articles that you have already read?
Google and other search engines thrive on new material. It shows that your blog is alive and well. The more frequently you add new relevant articles to your blog the more Google will seek to crawl it.
I have had some of my articles go to Google position one for relevant search terms in well under an hour. Many struggle to do that in days. Why?Because I post relevant fresh articles on a regular basis.
But probably most important of all, your readers will keep coming back to see what's new on your site. If nothing else, you should post frequent and fresh articles for your readers.
Conclusion.
Don't let SEO scare you, but also do not avoid it. Done correctly it can drastically improve your traffic and increase your readership. Apply simple logic, think of your readers.
Have you ever considered SEO for your blog? Let us know if you have or haven't in the comments below.
Related Reading:
The four pillars of SEO
Top 10 Tips on SEO
Website Design, Coding, SEO - RAP - SEO Rapper
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for Absolute Beginners
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for the Absolute Beginners II
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10 comment(s) so far...
Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
I'd also add that using headings can help significantly. Of course, backlinks help too, but those aren't as easy to get.
By Nathan Hangen on
2009/11/04 02:16 PM
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5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
Everyone is talking about SEO lately. SEO professionals are crawling out of the woodwork in every corner of the globe. Traditionally SEO was targeted at big business. Then other smaller businesses and websites saw the benefit of optimizing their sites. Bloggers traditionally have not worried about SEO. Either because of ignorance, time and money, or because they just don't believe they need SEO. But a blog is just another website. If you want your blog to get traffic from search engines, then you have to pay attention to SEO for your blog
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By TrackBack on
2009/11/05 10:13 AM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
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By Candy on
2009/11/04 05:31 PM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
Just as I was about to poay some SEO specialist $5000 to get me on the front page og Google ... okay I'm joking, but you are right about the buggers crawling out of the woodwork!
Scored three out of five, must check out robots.txt and revisit my xml site map, not convinced it is working properly.
By Kevin Tea on
2009/11/04 05:35 PM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
SEO is one of my weak points. Other than using the all-in-one SEO plugin and concentrating on keywords, I've not delved into this topic enough. This article is certainly helpful and has ingnited an extra interest in SEO.
Thanks for the tips, Robert.
By Jimi Jones on
2009/11/04 07:09 PM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
I have to admit that SEO for my blog has not been a priority yet. Too many irons in the fire at the moment. I will however bookmark this post for when I can focus on SEO. Thank you for this info.
By Patty Reiser on
2009/11/04 07:13 PM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
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2009/11/05 01:46 PM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
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By seo firm on
2009/11/06 09:03 AM
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Re: 5 Simple SEO tips for Bloggers
Yes, looks like we agree on this one. It seems pretty simple really but it's a non-negotiable :) I have yet to do the XML sitemap myself. (note to self) - Thank you Robert. I thoroughly enjoyed the other posts too! Thank you for the informative and user-friendlyness of your posts. They don't make your head hurt!
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