In my constant search on the internet for new information, I have stumbled upon a lot of sites and blogs, some of them had a good SEO optimization, other quite the opposite. I am not an expert in SEO but I think that I can be of some help for you and help in optimizing your blog for a better SEO. In my continuous struggle to be better I have discovered some interesting tricks. Below I will try to make a sort of plan with some key steps to follow if you want your blog to be better optimized for SEO.
Steps to follow in better optimizing your blog for SEO
I have already written a couple of articles about some steps, so I will try to integrate them along for more detailed information.
1. Choose the proper theme
A good optimization for your blog SEO starts with choosing the right theme. Many designers say that they have the best optimized theme for SEO and bla, bla.. But, in fact, you have to think just for a few key aspects when choosing the theme:
- No HTML errors - a good theme for SEO has to have no HTML errors.
- It Uses Header Tags Correctly – the use of header tags is very important, for example,a good search engine optimized theme has to have H1 tags on post title, H2 tags for the home page posts, H3 tags for popular posts and so on.
- It is Optimized for Speed – a good optimization for speed load can also help.
- Uses Breadcrumb Navigation – this will help SEO because it will better
- Is Good Looking – well this maybe is not a key factor for SEO but, for sure it matters for your visitors, so keep in mind this aspect too.
2. Permalinks structure
Optimizing permalinks for the SEO is a very important step, to rank high in Google: inserting the keywords in permalink is essential. Also, another aspect that you should think of, is the length and the dept of the permalink. Often I see blogs on the net that don’t take into consideration what I have mentioned above and have a crappy permalink structure. Instead of using a cleaner one with the keywords, they use something like www.domainname.com/p=10. If you want your blog to have a chance try to use a cleaner permalink structure with as many keywords as you can. More info about permalink structure can be found here: WordPress SEO Guide: Permalinks.
3. Search engine optimized content
Writing search engine optimized content is something that many are not doing, I am not saying to write content only for SEO and stuff it with a lot of keywords, but a balance can be found between SEO and well written content. For example, I have seen a lot of blogs that consist of just writing plain text content without inserting a picture or splitting the content into paragraphs with H1,H2,H3 headers making it more SEO friendly and easier to read. If you want to have a chance and receive more visitors from Google try to write more SEO friendly content. An article on how to do this can be found here: The Best Tips To Write a Search Engine Optimized Content
4. Interlinking your content.
Not many are the ones that interlink their content, and others make and excessive use of it. My site is hosted on WordPress and a very interesting plugin already exists and can help you with this: SEO Smart Links. For example, this plugin has an option to choose how many words to interlink on a post, and a good number will be between 3 and 5. Also you have to make sure that this links are dofollow otherwise there would be no point. Also, related posts and Breadcrumb Navigation use it and it will help a lot in a better interlinking.
5. Avoid duplicate content
Some are thinking that duplicate content is not important any more and it does not matter in blog SEO, but they are wrong: duplicate content is still affecting SEO and SERP. This is what Matt is saying in a video this week. A lot of sites do not take as a fact the effect of duplicate content over SEO, but it will be better to do so. Below I will put 2 articles that will explain the ways to avoid having duplicate content on your blog:
6. Title and Description
Every article has to have a title and a description, the best way is to add them yourself and not let other tools to do this for you. The tools will not help you a lot because they can offer the wrong information: that is why I advise you to inser them yourself. A more detailed article can be found here: Importance of title in SEO.
Conclusions
Optimizing your blog for a great SEO is not that hard, and it can be done by you if you follow the above steps. Without strong backlinks and great content you will not get far even if your blog is optimized for the best SEO, so that’s why I advice you to start building links after you have done the above steps.
Is interlinking just linking to other posts that I’ve written?
Thanks for the concise explanations!
Kristl Story last post ..Are Warehouse Clubs Really Cheaper
yes, indeed it is.
I agree Dragos, optimizing your blog for proper SEO isn’t difficult at all as long as you know the steps you need to take. I think the tips you gave here are great, especially your number 2 “Permalinks structure”, because I think this is one of the most overlooked steps when optimizing a blog for SEO.
I have ran into plenty of blogs that had a crappy permalink structure and I really don’t know why because it’s an easy fix., especially with WordPress. Great advice in your article as always, and thanks for sharing.
John last post ..How To Use An Email Address Lookup
Thanks a lot John, it really makes me happy to see that my blog has readers like you.
Very well explained about SEO. This is a must read article especially for beginners like me. This site is so cool with a lot of content rich articles.
Thanks for the author.
Rose last post ..Making Money Online With Facebook
Thanks a lot Rose, I will try to keep up the good work and write useful articles in the future too.
Steps 5 and 6 are probably the most important imo. And a lot of people(even some SEO’s) still make mistakes here…
Didnt know about SEO smart links – worth a closer look, thanks
If you want to optimize your blog then the fifth and six step is very important for you. For that, you have to take title and description related to your blog and also you have to put unique content in your blog. It is very helpful thing for you.
I totally agree with all the points that you’ve brought forward in this article. Writing original content is just the first step, then lies the hard task of finding the right target audience.
How do I interlink to my own previous posts? Do I link them up within my existing post when instances occur, or do I add a separate widget like ‘Related Posts’ and link them up there?
The both methods are good related posts and the interlink with your old post. Also some plugins exists that can do this automatically, if you need help I can help you, I have just lunched a service part on Bit Doze, you can check it out here: http://www.bitdoze.com/services .
Great tips but i guess you missed the most important rule in page optimization. Posting valuable and quality content. It’s the main key towards achieving good results in page optimization.