Search Engine Optimization for Blogs

Much has been going on about SEO for websites, but with the evolution of blogs, it is important to recognize that some tweaks are needed to for most blog templates, to optimize for search engines.

We all know that building a website is only part of the strategy. If there is no means of marketing a website, a website is will be just another shop in the Sahara desert. With more people getting online everyday, and search engines being the major starting point for most Internet searching, it is important for every blogger to make sure that their blogs are optimized so that they can be found on the major search engines.

Unfortunately, most blogging platforms come out of the box, without much consideration of optimization for search engines. As such, bloggers need to be able to tweak their blog templates the right way to ensure maximum optimization.

What are the ways then? What are the things to tweak? Here are five to start off with!

1. Page Title

There is absolutely no way to argue that the page title is the most important thing to note for a page where SEO is concerned. Many blog engines like WordPress ship out wit the titles for individual posts in the format of [Blog Title] >> [Post Title]. This is not good for SEO, instead, one should eliminate the [Blog Title] in individual posts, or put it in the format [Post Title] – [Blog Title]

2. Meta Tags

It is critical to understand that with a permalink created for every post you make, there is a need to specify and different meta description and meta keyword tag for each post. Most blogging engines do not come default with this.

3. Your Blogroll

Most blogs feature a blogroll, and in the SEO point of view, it is important that these blogs you link to need to be of relevance to your blog. This not only helps spiders better identify what topic your blog is about, but also encourages the bloggers in your blogroll to link back.

4. Blog Archives

Blogs normally feature a reverse chronological order of posts, and as new posts are added to the main page, the old posts are rolled off the page. It is important to keep the these old post linked via your main page, in some way or another.

Often this is done using a blog archive. The advantage of using a good blogging platform is that most of the time the archiving is done automatically for you. Bloggers can choose to archive by week or by month. However, some may unknowingly adopt a one-column template and layout that does not feature the archives.

5. Frequent Posting

This is by far the most effective way of optimization for search engines. Search engines have a job to do – to bring the best and the freshest news to the Internet user behind the search box. By updating your blog frequently, as much as even a couple of times a day, you are telling the search engines that “Hey, my blog has fresh content, so come often!”. Blogs that are updated frequently will see that the search engine spiders come frequently to actively seek new content, and it is only when your post is indexed that it appears in the search engine results pages.

For more great articles on blog marketing, check out Kian Ann’s blog – Blog Marketing Singapore

The Keys to Search Engine Promotion

Websites need to be marketed or promoted in order to receive traffic, and getting to the top of search engines require a strategy. Discover the keys of search engine promotion here.

All websites need to be promoted and advertised and listed on search engines in order to be found on the Internet – and while getting your website indexed on search engines maybe as easy as getting a link from an already indexed site, getting to the top 10 listings of a particular keyword does require a strategy of some sort.

This strategy is based on five main factors, and all these factors need to be taken into consideration before you take a single step. So here are the five!

1. The Objective of The Website

To get started you will need to know what is the main objective of the site. Is it to create awareness for a particular product? What kind of product? Is it to provide information? Is it, to persuade someone into buying a product?

When you have decided on your website’s objective, keep them in mind. You need to create you entire site based on that objective! This is very important, because you need to get the search engine to know your site’s objective quickly!

2. Who Are Your Customers and Who Are You Competing With?

This again is critical. Your website content and design must be catered for the target audience! What do the people in you target audience need? What do they value? Are they computer savvy? What kind of terms have special meaning for this group of people?
The best place to learn and model after is your direct competition! Search the web for a site that does something similar to you, and see how others do it! This is one of the best way to start on something that will work, if you don’t want to spend the money hiring a marketing specialist to analyze your target demographic behavior!

Knowing how much competition you have is also important. Do some keyword research on the number of pages that appear on the keyword, versus the number of times the keyword is searched every month. Find out who the top 10 listing are. Of course, finding out the numbers is not enough. You need to find out what these numbers mean, and that requires a certain degree of experience.

3. How You Write Your HTML

Websites do not just get top listings by itself. Very often, these websites are results of months of hard work and tweaking. Remember, the search engine sees only the HTML, behind that pretty face that Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox shows to you. You need to write your HTML for search engines, and at the same time, appeal to human visitors.

This again, requires practice. Just remember the rule that the simpler and the clearer your site, the greater the likelihood it will be accessed and ranked in the correct category. Imagine an SE spider coming in and realising there is a huge load of text without proper headings and information hierarchy. How is it going to find out what is important and what is not?

SEO specialists normally keep tweaking their code to achieve maximum effect. This takes up a lot of time, and requires constant monitoring. SEO is a process, not a destination!

4. Appeal to Humans!

While it is important to appease the search engines, it is also important to appeal to your human visitors! After all, you want humans to visit your site, isn’t it? What would be the use of a site visited by millions of spiders and irks the hell out of human visitors?

Web design and usability comes in to play here. As a simple rule, buttons, links and navigation should be clear cut and simple. The site should be clutter free, and it should be obvious where you want the human visitor to focus on. Remember to add some images to spice up the aesthetics of the site too.

5. Search Engine Promotion and Optimization

When you finally upload the site on to your web server, you are only half done. The second half of the game is to promote your site to people! You can have a wonderfully designed site, but nobody is going to visit you if you don’t tell anyone about it. Zero visitors! I’m serious! (Well, because I’ve been there!)

Again the rule is simple – the more people you tell about your site, then more people will be going to your site! And remember, always get feedback. Find out if your site design is serving the visitors well, and continue to tweak it until you find the right configuration.

For more great articles on blog marketing, check out Kian Ann’s blog – Blog Marketing Singapore