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SEO for Bloggers

First, make sure you have a solid knowledge of your keywords: both what words you're targeting, and what words describe your blog. In my experience, it's worth taking some time to pick focused, well-targeted keywords -- a solid set of twenty or so keywords can keep your blog in the top results for your chosen topics. Try to avoid picking general keywords though, since competition for the so-called "generic" keywords is fierce -- instead, make sure your keywords accurately describe whatever niche your blog covers.

Provide quality content, and regularly add fresh content. I simply cannot stress this one enough: it is vital that any blog keep active with original, high-quality content. Duplicate content (i.e. reprinting from elsewhere) will result in a drop in rankings; the only solution is to write (or purchase) solid original content.

Regardless of whether or not you're writing the content for your blog, you'll want to make sure that the content is written with your target keywords in mind (to improve overall blog rankings), as well as with any keywords that you with the article to be ranked for. Try to use a wide range of relevant terminology to ensure that your article gets the maximum exposure.

Blog regularly, ping likewise. Most blogging software includes pinging software, but if not, you can use Pingoat to notify various search engines and indices of updates. By blogging regularly, and notifying the spiders each time, you ensure that they will crawl your site regularly, and that they are greeted with new content each time. This will increase your search engine rankings, as the engines tend to favor frequently-updated sites.

Link with other similar blogs. Using Google, Yahoo, and MSN, conduct searches for blogs with the keywords you'd like to increase your ranking for. Get in contact with the authors/webmasters of those blogs, and establish a link exchange -- each of you can use their desired anchor text to boost their rankings, as well as obtain extra traffic from one another's visitors. Not all exchanges have to be manual -- pingbacks will also provide inbound links, although since many sites use "nofollow", the power of the pingback is somewhat limited.

Submit your blog to blog directories, both to general indices and specific niche directories. Personally, I submit my sites to any and all directories I can get my hands on, since every inbound link is a potential source of visitors. Given the sheer number of directories out there, it's probably not a good idea to pay for inclusion into any one directory -- but fortunately there are literally thousands of free directories out there. If you do end up submitting to multiple directories, you should consider having several different sets of anchor text and several different descriptions.

Get your feed syndicated. There are a variety of RSS directories, aggregation services, and syndication opportunities available -- so use them! Aggregation and feed management services (such as Technorati) have given me a large amount of traffic in the past; not just traffic -- targeted traffic, often traffic that's already read some of the content on my blog, courtesy of RSS. Not only will getting your feed syndicated ensure that your visitors are interested in exactly what your blog has to offer, it will also make sure that search engines know what it is that you're offering.

Use little tricks. In addition to the core SEO techniques mentioned above, there are couple smaller things you can do to give your blog's search engine rankings a bit of a boost. First, make sure that the titles and subheadings of your post contain the appropriate keywords for your post -- obviously the most important terms should go there. Along the same lines, Google gives a slightly increased weight to text within "bold" or "strong" tags, so it's a good idea to periodically include an emboldened sentence or phrase featuring the keywords you're optimizing your blog for. If you ever post images to your blog, make sure that you fill out the "alt" tag for each image with a description relevant to both the photo and the rest of the blog. Not only will you help Google categorize your images for its image search; you'll also help boost your site's rank for the relevant keywords.

Search engine optimization will help make sure your site is accessible to the search engine spiders, but it won't make up for a lack of content worth reading. Make sure you've got a good solid blog with good content, and the above tips will make your blog a favorite hangout for search engine bots and readers alike. Good luck, and happy blogging.
By: Mr. U
Published: 05/16/08


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