Search engines can provide a huge source of traffic to any website, which means your search rankings can potentially make or break the success of your blog. Fortunately, blogs are the ideal platform for effective SEO due to their inherent focus on quality content, combined with the many SEO features that are built-in to popular blogging software like WordPress.
But despite the SEO potential of blogs, many bloggers struggle to get the rankings they deserve in search engines and their hard work goes unrewarded. The following tips will show you the 6 crucial SEO tips you must know to get the most out of your blog when it comes to SEO.
Here we go.
#1: Format Your Blog Correctly
The first step to optimizing your blog for search engines is to make sure your blog is set up in the best possible way. Begin by removing any unnecessary links in your sidebar, and aim to keep the navigation useful, but minimal. If possible, try to avoid any wasted links.
Next, customize your permalinks so the title of the post is displayed within the page URL. This can add a little SEO power to the page, and also makes it more descriptive for users, instead of having the default ‘time and date’ that most blogging platforms come with. In addition, make sure your images have appropriate file names and descriptive tags.
With the recent surge of mobile devices being used to browse the internet, it’s never been more important to ensure you’re using a responsive theme that’s pleasant to view on a mobile device. It’s worth double checking how your blog actually looks when viewed on these devices.
Finally, work on reducing the load time of your blog. A fast blog will be favored by search engines and users alike. A quick way to reduce load times is to cut down on high-resolution images, avoid overly graphical themes, and keep javascript usage to a minimum.
#2: Optimize Your Content
One of the most important steps to successful blogging is to make sure your content provides value to the reader. In addition to useful information, it’s important to provide unique insight, along with your own voice and personality – especially if you want to stand out from the ever-growing crowd of hopeful new bloggers.
Once you’ve produced your content, it’s crucial to optimize certain aspects with the search engines in mind. Aim to use relevant keywords throughout the body of your content, being mindful not to go too far and trigger keyword spam penalties. You’ll need to include relevant keywords in the title too.
#3: Internal Links
Another important aspect of SEO for blogs is internal linking. By linking to other relevant posts within your own blog, you will not only encourage your readers to browse through more posts, but you’ll also show search engines that your other posts are important as well.
Again, you must be mindful not to overdo it, as this would be another potential trigger for an over-optimization penalty – but it certainly doesn’t hurt to link to your most important pages often.
#4: Use An SEO Plugin
If you’re using WordPress, consider using one of the many SEO plugins that are available. These will help you to set up your blog correctly, and they’ll also give you prompts on how to tweak your titles, tags, and meta descriptions with the search engines in mind. What’s more, they can also create your .XML sitemap, configure your robots.txt, and edit your permalinks.
#5: Collaborate With Others
Most attempts to artificially build links to your blog are frowned upon by search engines these days, and in the long run, manipulative practices aren’t worth the risk. However, links still play a key role in how your blog ranks in the search engines.
The best way to get these links is by collaborating with others. This could mean writing the occasional guest post, interacting with other people in your market via social media, and leaving insightful comments on other people’s blogs. If you produce good content and take an active role in the communities relating to your niche, you’ll naturally acquire quality links over time.
#6: Share Your Content
Making it easy for people to ‘like’, tweet, and share your content is an essential step to building your readership and gaining popularity on social platforms. Make sure to add social sharing buttons to every blog post, and don’t be shy about asking people to share your work. This will help to grow your popularity quickly, and social signals are yet another way for search engines to determine your authority and credibility within your industry.
Conclusion:
In general, covering the basics of SEO doesn’t have to be difficult for bloggers. Yet it’s certainly worth taking the time to get this right, because when the search engines are on your side, establishing a highly successful blog becomes a whole lot easier.
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