I often get search engine optimization questions from bloggers. SEO isn’t an information problem. There are hundreds of books on SEO, and there are even more blogs, subscription and training sites, some charging hundreds of dollars. For an average blogger it is just too much information.
Bloggers often spend large amounts of time and effort with different search engine optimization techniques, and I just do not think it is worth it. For me personally, focusing too much on search engines doesn’t make a successful blog.
Blog SEO made simple
SEO for blogs can be a quite simple process. There are some simple concepts that you can learn that will make you an above average blogger in terms of search engines optimization.
The hardest part of success with blogging and search engines is finding the motivation to stick to what you know and do it consistently over a period of time. It is only after several months of consistent work that you will start seeing the results.
I will now take a look at what I consider the most important things you have to focus on to be successful, rank in search engines and start getting traffic from search.
The initial SEO setup for your blog
- Include keywords in your domain name.
- Make sure your blog is set with pretty permalinks to include your article headline keywords.
- Make sure to have a blog sitemap and to add it to Google Webmaster Tools.
Write useful blog articles for your readers
- Write new blog articles regularly.
- Write articles for your readers. Write to grab their attention, write to impress them. Forget the search engines.
- Grab the attention of readers by including keywords when writing blog article headlines.
Promote your blog to potential readers and other bloggers
- Actively promote your blog. Don’t be passive, no one will know about your blog if you don’t tell them about it.
- Don’t wait for other sites to link to you. Go to them, offer them an interesting article in exchange for a link back to your blog. This will not only help you get direct traffic but also help you get more authority with Google.
Beware of the Google PageRank of the site that you are offering articles to. The higher the PR, the better. I focus on PR5+ sites as those are above my current pagerank. Use this tool to check PR rankings of the different sites.
Blog search engine optimization conclusion
Forget the META tags, forget the keyword density, forget article tags, forget submitting your blog to directories… it is simply not worth it. You are much better off writing regular quality articles, promoting your blog via social media and via guest posts on other sites / blogs, and interacting with your current and potential readers.
This way your traffic, your subscribers and links to your blog will grow and increase organically. Google will definitely notice that and will start ranking you for relevant keywords and start sending you traffic.
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{ 16 comments }
Excellent article. It is very simple and easy to follow. I will pass it along…
Thanks for this. Good to hear rational thoughts through all the noise. Good information.
SO on the money!
It’s easy to forget that if you aren’t connecting with your audience, all the SEO in the world won’t make a difference in the long run…
While I agree generally speaking that meta keywords are not as important as they used to be since Google does not care about them some smaller search engines still do so I would not say to forget them completely but no need to obsess about them either.
Thanks for all comments!
@Gerald Weber – I actually do not write meta keywords or description at all, even though Thesis has the option built in. I tend not to think about other search engines other than Google. Google sends me some 99.9% of all search traffic after all.
I also believe that producing good content is the key to growing a blog. Everything else will fall in to place if you produce consistent quality content.
When it comes to SEO, I use the All-in-One SEO Pack and be done with it!
Don’t rely to heavily on the search engines for traffic, focus on your visitors. if your visitors like your website, there is a very good likelihood that the search engines will like it too.
I gotta agree… Especially in the advent of Google implementing semantic based search and even prioritizing twitter personal and business profiles, I think this would generally be good advice for someone starting a blog, focus on your core readers. SEO can be daunting and exhausting to learn as a newbie. It shouldn’t be completely ignored, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of any campaign either.
Good post, thx
Cheers!
I whole heartedly agree and was worried I was off my rocker thinking and teaching the same thing! Keep your readers in mind and over deliver to the nth degree and your blog will soar to great heights. Wonderful article! Thanks Bunches,LA:)
This I can follow, I am an IT nerd. I have only been blogging since Jan and there is like you said, so much info it can be overwhelming. Also thank you for including the rank number, very helpful as well.
I think that good and quality articles are much better than SEO.
Marko,
Strictly focusing on SEO is a mistake, for sure. I do pay attention to keywords and such, but I pay a lot more attention to making sure my content says what I’m trying to convey. If it fits for SEO, then that’s great. I’m not going to manipulate my post to make it fit.
Cheers!
George
I learned a lot from you Marko. I am PR 2 after 1 month with no blog experience. I wrote a great comment in problogger.net just like you did, and it got the attention of Darren Rowse so he quoted my comment in one of his post as well as a quality backlink to my site. I think the most important thing is networking such as concentrating on your blog readers and writing great comments on other peoples’ blogs. I no longer care if a blog is DoFollow or NoFollow because I care more about networking with the authors. I’m always learning something new just by reading peoples’ blogs.
@Kai Lo – Nice story, thanks for sharing! I am glad your blog is doing well!
@Marko
The meta description is important because this is what Google uses to give the description of what your site or post is about in the search results. If you don’t take the time to put a meta description then Google will just randomly choose something for you and this might not as accurately describe our site or post.
Meta keywords are not important for Google but smaller search engines (Yahoo and MSN) do pay attention to meta keywords. Now I am also not concerned about Yahoo and MSN as I really only care about Google also but part of Google’s algorithm factors in search results of smaller search engines. So meta meta keywords do indirectly influence Google SERPS.
So while you can be successful ignoring meta descriptions and keywords you can enjoy even more success if you take care of this basic and simple area of SEO.
I have to agree with Gerald. “So meta meta keywords do indirectly influence Google SERPS.” Let me mention it’s all good if you have readers, and even better if you have a great social network in place. But we write blogs for clients and many of them are not active in social media… that is not to say your post is misleading it’s not however, correct. Clearly great content will always keep your readers loyal, but getting them there with all tools including good “basic” SEO gives you an upper hand on organic results.