Tutorials Blog: SEO

At a glance step by step search engine optimization tutorials

Use Read More Link to Summarize Blog Posts at Homepage

Always summarize your blog post for Homepage by using a read more link. It has two benefits:

Improve Blog Load Time.
Increase Page views and Reduce Bounce Rate.

Make Your Blog as a Sub domain Of Your Website

As blogs are getting popular due to the way they present information and their interactive nature, many websites (companies) opt in for making a blog for them self too. The whole point of the story is that in case we own a website already and we wish to proceed with having a blog too, then its a wise idea to get register your blog as a sub domain of your website. Why to start all over all with your blog?
Having a blog as a sub domain in (blog.yourwebsite.com) would help out your website in gaining more visitors in future (as blogs attract a lot of traffic due to their interactive nature and the way they are updated regularly, unlike a website).
The page rank of your website (the Google ranking authority), that you have already gained over the years would flow toward your newly build blog and make flourish faster as it would if it had a separate domain name. (www.yourblog.com)
Say if you are just starting out with a blog and you don't have a website history, then you obviously would start out with an independent blog domain.

Reduce Advertisement on Blog

Advertisement banners are coded with JavaScript. As I already told you in tip no 1 that too much use of JavaScript make blog loading speed slower. So please use limited advertisements on your blog.

Your Footer and Footer Menu
It's very important to properly structure your footer so it maximizes the SEO benefit while also being user friendly. The footer should contain some very key things that will help with your on-site SEO.

Link to Important Pages: You may not necessarily want to include your entire menu structure in the footer. Instead, I would suggest selecting 4-6 of your top pages you'd like to promote and link to them.
Include Business Citation: In the footer include what we call a NAP: Business Name, Address and Phone Number. Additionally, have the address follow linked to your Google+ Local Page URL.

Format comment section

Comment section should be no-followed and moderated to avoid spam comments. Try to include the post keywords when you are replaying to reader comments. This would also add up to the total keyword density of the post . Since Google have integrated Google plus comment form with BlogSpot, I highly recommend you to enable it. This will ensure that you get higher social media interaction and share for your post.

Blogspot is Google’s baby blogging platform and if you do it right probably you will be doing great in terms of traffic. Always get your basic right.

Comment on Blogs with Same Niche

After doing all of the above things, Now lets build your presence online. Go to Google and search for blogs which are similar to your niche (Topic). Read their articles and learn from them and Don't forget to leave a comment. Many bloggers are unaware with this trick that we can use our blog comments too to add some keywords in our blog posts. Yes, you heard it right. There are lot of benefits of blog comments and if we use them effectively then no doubt we can get higher ranking in search results.

Never comment useless things, Never Spam other blogs. Always leave a good comment expressing your views about the article, Try Asking questions or Replying on behalf of author (if author has not replied to any comment). This will help you make relationships with other bloggers and people. Whenever you reply your reader’s comment on your blog, try to add some keyword phrases in your reply in a natural way that looks obvious while reading.

Note: Instead of adding your focused words try to use some long tail keywords in your comment section. In that way you can improve your keywords ranking too.

Limited Number of Posts at Home Page

Try to show only 4-5 posts at your Homepage because if you use too many posts to show at Homepage then it will take more time to load. Fast loading Homepage keeps your visitors happy and they will stay at your blog for long time.

Highlight what is important

Which one attracted your eyes the most? I am sure you chose the second one and that’s where the secret lies.. Just how it attracted you, a highlighted and well presented post attracts Robots and makes their job more easy and enjoying. Thus they rank you higher and fall in love with what you write!

Highlight informative content or keywords on your website. Use h1-h6 to highlight headings or subtitles of an article or important sentences. Use the strong tag, too. But please don’t overdo it!

Formatting – A page needs to be properly formatted. Think of it like a report which needs to have a heading (h1) and sub headings (h2). Important parts of the report are highlighted with bold, underline or italics.

Do not just throw text on the page but make sure that it is readable as well. Besides the formatting practices explained above you also need to use a good size font (at least 12px) and split the text into small paragraphs (max 4-5 lines).

Avoid JavaScript

JavaScript makes page loading speed slow. Try to remove unnecessary JavaScript codes from your blog. Don’t link to external sites for storing your JavaScript codes whilst you can save them inside your blogger blog. You can save your all JavaScript codes in your template above </head> by using the code below
<script type=’text/javascript’>
//<![CDATA[
Paste Your JavaScript Code Here//]]>
</script>
Just replace the bolded text with the JavaScript code you want to store in your template.

Write a highly optimized starting paragraph

What catches a reader’s eye is how you win his interest from the starting intro Para and what catches a search engine robot’s attention is how you choose good keywords. So how exactly we do this. The tips are simple,

Start your Paragraph with an old story. i.e Link previous posts that may be related to the new one or link important tools and related websites. If the post is a unique one and has no relation with your previous posts then simply give some background story of it with a latest rumor related to it. Try drawing reader’s attention and let him believe that this post is not just an ordinary one. Use Google Keyword tool and choose the best words for your intro.

Advantages:

Correct Keywords will attract robots more and more.
With back links to Older Posts, their importance (PR) in the yes of robots will significantly increase.
With an old story and link to previous posts, readers will get interested in the post.

Always Use Quality Blogger Templates

Most of newbie bloggers do this mistake. They upload any template that attracts them. There are lot of templates available on the internet but most of them are improper scripted. Using of those templates make job tough for search engine spiders to crawl your blog. Choose theme wisely for your blog which should be designed by professionals.

Update Frequently

If you just started your blog, then make it your habit to update your blog very frequently in its early stages. Always try to publish at least 2-3 articles daily because regular updated blogs are much loved by Google. Your posts will appear higher in search results and your page rank will increase.

Use social media marketing wisely:
If your business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Quora and/or Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. Any business should also be looking to make use of Twitter and Facebook, as social information and signals from these are being used as part of search engine rankings for Google and Bing. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.
Take advantage of local search opportunities:
Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

Avoid Flas:

Flash might look pretty, but it does nothing for your SEO. According to the Search Engine Journal, "Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page... Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results."

"If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold," the post continues.
2) Localisation counts – It’s now widely know that the likes of Google are putting greater focus on highly contextual and localised results. So, as always if you want to target the UK – Host in the UK, have a UK IP and to target local results be mindful about geographic areas with your keyword research.
3) Domain Name Domination – If you really really want to rank for a very generic phrase or indeed have any chance of reaching a good rank then the domain name is often key. Make certain where at all possible that the domain name contains the keyword(s) that you would like to rank for.
6) Your website code counts – If the coding on your website isn’t up to scratch then how do you honestly expect a search engine to interpret it and then magically come up with the results you wanted to see in search.
9) I Have just mentioned mobile devices. Which of course are now ever more prevalent in today’s society. Think about optimising your website for mobile viewing. How does it look on an IPhone? Or a Blackberry?
10) Remember most importantly to enjoy the experience of optimising a website. The growth in visitors will surely spur you on to keep going. But there WILL be dull days, where you think all that work you put into the website has been in vain. Don’t give up– press on!

Monitor where you stand:

You won't know if your SEO efforts are working unless you monitor your search standings. MarketingVox suggests that you keep an eye on your page rank with tools like Alexa and the Google toolbar.

It's also important to check your referrer log regularly to track where your visitors are coming from and the search terms they're using to find your site, according to PC World.

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