Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is an aspect of blogging that many avoid, due to the fact that it can take some time. Once you learn the basics, most of the work is cut out for you, as learning how to properly optimize your site is the hardest part. The first key to understanding how search engines work is by evaluating what and how people search for your content – the basics remain fairly the same for both. For example, having cluttered code and a slow-loading site isn’t good for SEO or for your readers. Writing content that isn’t logical probably won’t garner new readers and it will be more difficult for the search engines to rank it among other sites that use a wording and format that is more logical.
In this post, we’ll be exploring various ways to increase the ranking of your content through search engines and how to make it appeal to your readers at the same time. Like the saying goes, you should be creating content for your readers and not Google (the search engines).
Getting Started
If you’ve never thought about SEO before, now is your time to get started. The first step is to rethink abut each post you publish. More blogs are already ready for some of the topics that will be discussed as the themes that you use are using proper titles. Secondly, CSS coding is used rather than HTML to form the theme layout, so this is better for SEO.
Should you have hundreds of posts already published, it probably isn’t a good idea to go through each and perform the tasks, but from this point forward, it would be a good idea to do so.
Post Titles
A large portion of getting your site optimized for search engines is having titles that are able to draw in visitors and give you a higher ranking for the keywords found in the title or the post. Ideally, the title should tell something about the content within the post. For example, while a title might be attractive and make readers want to click on it, it probably won’t do as well within search engines because you aren’t targeting the right keywords.
If you are given access to configuring the slug URL (making it more “pretty,” not using numbers or other sequences), the ability to edit the permalink, or the meta tags/keywords for the post, you should add keywords related to the post or that may increase the flow of visitors to your site.
Meta Tags
Within the coding of your site, there will be an area to place meta tags, which are essentially the top keywords that should point to your site. For example, a blog that writes about blog tips could contain words such as blogging tips, blogging basics, writing, or any other words that relate to the content. It appears that this method is being used less and less, due to the fact that most blog platforms support the emphasis of categories and tags, however it never hurts to add these words into your header.
Heading Tags
Posts that are greater than approximately four hundred words should be divided into various sections for readability. Despite the fact that this adds time compared to using shortcuts for the bold, emphasis, and other tags, it can be extremely worthwhile in the long-term.
You should use heading tags wisely. Don’t place too much emphasis on what shouldn’t be ranked highly in search engines. For example, a common mistake is placing unnecessary content such as the post date or any other content under the H1 tag. There are some criticisms of what title the H1 and H2 tags should use. Theoretically, much like a pyramid, your site’s title should be in a H1 tag on the main page (making it easier for searchers to find your main page) and other titles on the index page should be placed within H2 tags.
On single post pages, the post title should be placed in a H1 tag (unless you prefer to keep your post title in this tag) and any additional content, such as a listing of post titles, should be contained within H2 tags. Sub-titles should use H3 (or H2 tags depending on your preference) and any further sub-content should proceed with H4 and beyond.
Furthermore, consistency is key. Having one post rank highly and others rank on much lower because you haven’t committed to a single set of rules won’t do you any good if you are trying to “outrank” other blogs with the same content.
Bold Text
When you bold a word, it is meant to stand out against other content. To search engines, this signifies text that should be given more importance than text that isn’t. It should be reserved to words within your content, rather than headings and separated words.
Italic Text
Some believe that using italic text for keywords helps, although it might start becoming obvious to your readers should you overdo this – it becomes apparent to your readers quite quickly that you are trying to write for search engines.
Page Validation
Having your site’s coding conform to W3C Standards can help increase your chance of having higher-ranking pages, as your blog will be more accessible and without errors, which search engines view negatively. This is an advanced step and doesn’t need to be done by all blogs, although it certainly should be kept in mind.
Conclusion
SEO can be time consuming, but certainly worth it in the end. You will not only gain new blog visitors, but you’ll be able to rank for the keywords that others have been struggling to. Relying on search engines isn’t the answer for all your traffic, but it can certainly help when you are trying to expand and grow your blog. Finding the correct balance between writing for readers and search engines is something many struggle with.
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As i am using blogspot,i think for me the important is post title,others not much can do.Now almost 50% of my blog visitor are come from search engine.
Hi wongsk, see all above tips really work for bloggers or say blogger user too. Post titles are important as you say but others too have a significant role.
Well, themelib have not covered some more things that bloggers should indeed follow which made me leave one more comment adding some more. (View Below)
But ya all above are important for blogger user too. Follow them if you can or if you are confused how to implement them, you can raise some queries.
Excellent write-up on SEO. I think if one works perfectly on these basics, it can be of great help in SEO. And as you said, evaluating what and how people search for your content is indeed very significant.
yes i too agree evaluating what and how people search for your content is indeed very significant but working on the same theme on blog posts, titles and content to get ranked higher in search engine results pages is more important and challenging.
Thanks for sharing a good head start with search engine marketing. More than 80% of people looking for goods and services online find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The reason why you need to optimize your pages for high search engine rankings is because you want to attract targeted customers to your website. These are people who are more likely to buy from you. The higher your page appear in search engine results, the more the traffic that is channeled to your website. That is the objective of search engine optimization.
Good write-up. SEO is such a key component of getting your name out there and getting your content noticed. It’s hard to consistantly get your blog or site ranking high in google and yahoo searches because these sites have constantly evolving algorithims and the slightest change can bump your site up or down in a particular search.
What an excellent article it is..The ones explained above are very useful and infact these are on page Optimization techniques. But there are off page optimization techniques also. We would be waiting Michael..
Also I would like to add Michael that while writing posts, we should flood over SEO keywords in between posts. Like for an example my keyword is Bio Genetics, then while writing an article, I will use this keyword through out the post..This is also very important from SEO point.
Nice Article Really effective Tips I am sure i will use some tips in my sites like italic text in keywords
Nice article and some really useful tips for getting started with SEO.
Cheers
Krish
Thats a very interesting article..I have a question. How about outsourcing our SEO works to dedicated companies? Should we do SEO on our own or shall we outsource it?
Hi
Thanks for the information. You correctly identify the fact that meta keywords are vitually ignored by the SEs these days. If anything I would put even more emphasis on this and tell people to ignore them completely.
hello Neil,
I am not sure about Google but Yahoo does give a lot of preference to meta tags. I am telling this from my personal experience. Though very few people use yahoo these days lol
I heard meta is no longer useful
Nice collection of SEO’s niche! Well, gotta try this as soon as possible this might help my page. Thanks and keep it up!
Other things,i think that can be added along with the above mentioned things are:
1.Building Links:
Building links is also an important thing for SEO beginners. The main goal in search engine optimization is to attract incoming links, particularly incoming links from popular, authoritative blogs and Web sites. If you have quality content, it is likely that you get links from other bloggers and this helps to significantly boost your search engine optimization process.
2.Keyword analysis:
This is not only to be done for the post titles and Meta tag as you mentioned above. This should also be applied to the content you write. Specifically the first hundred words of any posts are very crucial for search engines. And writing those one should be careful over the key words. Other methods such as Bold text, Italic Text … should be applied carefully within this first 100 words with proper keyword analysis.
3. “organized categories for related links” Posts that have organized categories and related posts with them that supports the title, topic and the theme rank properly in search engine results pages. In addition this helps to interlink the pages from your same site and so is really important.
…………. others too but as this is just a comment, i hope this much will work in addition to the useful tips provided by themelib Above.
Well, this is just a “getting started” article.
We will discuss more in the next article
ok. I hope you will include lot many details in your upcoming posts on SEO. Thanks
thank you for this tips, I already tried to optimize my blog title “tukang nggame”, but until now I can not go to the first page of google index. if you can help me?
I hope to get an answer from you
If you can’t DIY, hire a SEO expert
I agree with Michael. Its a very time consuming job. So if you are not willing to spend time, hire an SEO expert for it.
thank you for the suggestions, I will try it out, and plainly still a beginner so I still need a lot of learning to get the maximum results
Hello Basmin,
Try to build maximum links for your blog/website. Keep on commenting in the blogs of your interest but never spam. Get a link in signature in do follow forums and with time, you will achieve desire results for sure.
I never heard that bold text added any importance to words and I think I actually did read that it makes no difference at all. But then again, nobody really knows the entire truth when it comes to SEO. Especially for Google.
I agree with Alex. Nobody can understand the real algorithm that Google uses to rank websites. We can only have a general idea rather than the exact implementation. Regarding bold text, I think it does make small difference.
Bold texts really make difference. As far as it is known, Bold texts are taken more importantly by the search engines and having important keywords in Bold will certainly add some points to boost the ranking in results pages for specific Keyword.
Oh is it so? I never had an idea that bold text makes such a big difference in the SEO works..But lets try and experiment ..then only we can learn more..
Thanks for the tips, I agree that getting it right is very time consuming and it’s not as easy as some people think. Over time it will become easier, but things change and you always have to be up to date with the changes.
I know I have to work more on my titles and meta tags, this is one area that needs more attention. Thanks for the tips.
@ jack thomas
thanks for your suggestions but How do I know if a blog/forum install dofollow plugin
Hi Basmin
One way is to do a search in google for the text that people often put on their blogs when they have made this change – “u comment I follow”. If you combine this search (in quotes) with keywords related to your niche you should find some.
There are also lists of dofollow blogs, try searching for “dofillow directory” or “dofollow list”. The blogs on these types of lists will have very strong anti-spam protection and might set quite high standards for comments because they will have received a lot of spam!
Hello Basmin,
I think themelib has mentioned in some post that we can see in the HTML source code of a blog/website that the blog is do-follow or no follow. I think this is the only way. But I will appreciate if someone else share some better views.
Excellent article and follow up comments. I will put the information to work. Thanks to Neil for the comments on “u comment I follow” because that was something I was not aware of.
The best advise I can dispense is to use the SEO plugins that are available for WordPress (if you’re a WP blogger, that is!) and to then focus on links, links, links.
Its also much easier to start from scratch with your on-page optimization, rather than try to optimise an old site. This can be likened to buying a performance automobile, rather than hot-rodding your jalopy.
Hello Jacques,
Would you mind sharing some SEO plugins which you are talking about? Also building more and more links is the key to good Search Engine Rankings.
Sure thing Yogindernath! I’m slowly putting a WordPress project together on the side, using VibrantCMS from Woothemes. My current list of plugins that I am looking at using is all-in-one-seo-pack, clean-old-tags and optimal-title.
Link building is the backbone of a good SEO strategy.
SEO requires time,a great amount of time is spect in benchmarking and diversifying way to improve ongoing efforts.i really do appreciate the tips shared dude.
SEO is easier than everybody thinks.. but you’re right, it does take time to do. There are othe blogs which give similar step by step instructions for doing SEO.. I find it really helpful.. it consolidates everything
Hello Sarah,
SEO is easier but very much time consuming. I can give my example. It took me around 3 months to reach the front page of Yahoo. Link building is the most important key for SEO. All the best to you as well
Very nice advices about choosing the title, the meta tags, the font of the text(heading 1, 2, etc) but I would also add and the name of your website, or just a part of your URL. For example two equal optimized blogs, one containing the searched term in the URL, and the other not containing the searched term in the URL, will not get the same search engine’s search result position. The blog that has the searched word in the URL will rank higher than the other.
Yes, basic seo is not hard to learn but it is time consuming to implement it especially if you did not know it while starting the website. Link building is the #1 most important part which is really hard.
great information, i will use it in my blog .. thank you
Very helpful tips, the heading tips were especially beneficial, I’m going to be applying it to my travel blog now. Thanks!
Really a great tips or outlines for starters and new players on the field of seo. Two thumbs up for this one Sir.
Great article. I paid somebody to build a website for me and now I have to seo it. I think that your article is a great so I keep referance to it
SEO is really agonizing me recently.
It’s honorable post for me.
Thanks!
Rcoket
W3C isn’t that important, as long as the page is spiderable (you can test it with different spider simulators online) and the content is visible by the bots (again use available tools online) you should be fine. Many high ranking websites have hundreds of W3c mistakes and still do great.
Bold and Italics can be used but won’t make a lot of difference. I would focus a lot more on site, links and folder structure to provide the best hierarchy.
Though I have read about SEO from Google and blog posts, I find this post easy to understand and put to practical use.