SEO Tips for Bloggers

SEO Tips for Bloggers

The last thing we mentioned in regards to traffic generation is applying SEO techniques. This has
proven to be very effective over many years when people started to realize how important it was to get
on that first page of a search engine. The right SEO techniques will not only make you more visible to
search engines, but also to people who utilize those search engines. Below are some SEO tips for
bloggers who want to increase their ranks, generate consistent traffic and establish a solid and
authoritative presence online.

1) Create content that targets highly searched keywords or keyword phrases. You’ll need to do a
little research on what some high searched keywords and phrases are. Don’t use those that have high
competition well into the tens and hundreds of thousands. This means they’ll be harder to rank for in
search engines since many people are already using them. Keywords whose competition is around
5,000 or less is more reasonable and easier to rank for. Here are some free keyword tools you can use
to get your started.

<> Google Keyword Tool
<> SEOBook Keyword Tool
<> My Brain
<> FreePPCSpy.com
<> Open Site Explorer
<> SEMRush
<> SENukeFree.com
<> Wordtracker

2) Install an analytics program or plug-in on your blog. Analytic programs can provide you with
valuable and very informative insight on the keywords you’re using, where your traffic is coming from,
what keywords are bringing in traffic, how many visitors you get in a day, week, or month, and so
many more. Taking time to look at your blog’s analytics will help you tweak your SEO techniques so
your blog can perform optimally. Here are some blog analytics tools that you might want to implement
into your blog.

<> Google Analytics
<> Blog Tracker
<> Site Meter
<> Min
<> Feedburner Stats
<> Web Stat
<> TraceWatch
<> StatCounter
<> Crazy Egg
<> 103bees
<> Enquisite
<> AWStats
<> GoingUp!

3) Include images in your posts with alt tags. They say a picture can be worth a thousand words, but
in regards to online blogs they can be worth a thousand views if not more. If you use WordPress as
your blogging platform, you can easily place an alt tag on your images with their post settings. Other
blog platforms would require you to imbed the alt tag into the HTML code. Either way is effective and
will have search engine bots crawling all over your images. These images will also get ranked, kind of
like the same way content does, and can also appear in people’s search results. Be sure to tag your
images with keywords that are relevant to your post and to the image’s substance.

4) Utilize internal links often and throughout your post. This is one of the easiest ways to boost
your SEO. Creating internal links that leads to other pages within your blog or site is not only an
effective SEO technique, but it can also increase the time your visitors spend on your blog as well as
your bounce rate. Internal links will make your blog appear more cohesive to search engines and more
relevant to visitors.

5) Avoid unnatural backlinks. Backlinks are links on other website that lead to your blog. Sometimes
people pay for backlinks or trade links with various site owners that aren’t even relevant to their blog’s
subject matter. The best way to establish natural backlinks is to provide people with quality information
that’s either entertaining or beneficial. People will then be more inclined to share your content and link
back to your blog.

6) Do not overstuff keywords into your post. Before, this may have been an effective SEO method,
but these days overstuffing your blog posts with repetitive keywords and keyword phrases can appear
spammy and read too commercial and unnatural for visitors. Plus search engines are cracking down on
this outdated SEO method and sometimes are even penalizing sites who misuse and abuse keywords.
When it comes to keyword density, 1% to 2% is sufficient and that also depends on your overall word
count. Keep your content natural sounding and even conversational too. Sometimes a good quality post
that’s easy to read and understandable is more valuable than one that’s repetitive and stuffed with
keywords. Remember, you’re writing for an audience of people, not robots.

7) Keep the structure of your post’s URL short and straight to the point. Blog posts with long and
confusing URL’s make it more difficult for search engine crawlers to isolate them in a crowd of a
hundred thousand other blogs with the same topic. How do you go about doing this? If you’re using
WordPress, this can be done in 3 fast and easy steps.

1. Go to WP-admin >> Settings >> Permalinks
2. Choose the “Custom Structure” setting
3. Type in: /%postname%/
And you’re done. Now your URLs will look better and get crawled easier by search engine bots.

8) Include outbound links to authority blogs or sites that’s relevant to your niche. Giving links to
other blogs from your blog post may seem like you’re giving away free advertisement, but in actuality
you’re also helping your blog’s performance in search engines. Doing this will get you a trackback and
your search engine’s visibility and ranking can increase because of that particular post in which you
linked to an authority site. There’s also a good chance that you may get links in return from these sites
once you’ve developed a healthy relationship.

9) Speed up the loading time of your blog. Search engines like Google take into consideration a site’s
loading time in regards to ranking for specific keywords. Basically if two blogs were equal on all
levels, content, keyword, design, etc. then the blog with the faster load time will be ranked higher. You
can speed the upload of your pages by doing any and all of the following:

<> Clear cache in your blog. If you’re using WordPress, you can use plug-ins like W3 Cache.
<> Use a better hosting site. Sometimes to get quality hosting, it’s well worth it to pay a nominal
monthly fee then to opt for free providers who have limited tools and features that’ll help your
site perform optimally.

<> Remove all the clutter and background noise from your blog’s interface. This means get rid of
any unused plug-ins, unnecessary widgets, and unproductive ads. Don’t turn your blog into one
confusing commercial advertisement

<> Optimize your images before inserting them into your blog post. You can do this by using
image compressors. This will increase your load time noticeably.

10) Always create unique content. You should never duplicate or copy existing content that’s already
published somewhere in the web. Not only is this frowned upon by search engines, but you can
potentially get into a lot of trouble when it comes to copyright of some content. Always create your
own unique, one of a kind content. You can use other sources as references and to get ideas, but just
don’t copy and paste onto you blog.