For many bloggers, SEO is a dirty word. Or a slightly smudged acronym at least. “I just want to blog and I’m good at it too,” comes the cry; which is all well and good - but you want people to actually read your meticulously crafted, absorbingly informative and oh-so-witty posts.
Cultivating networks and the online equivalent of word-of-mouth can count for a lot. If you’re really good, they’ll help you build a dedicated following.
But unless you go viral or that cult following becomes a fully-fledged religion, you’ll want to benefit from the extra traffic that search engines can throw your way. This is where SEO comes in.
“So what is this SEO stuff anyway?” you cry once more.
Well, even if you have little or no knowledge of the techniques involved, you’re probably aware that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Put simply, it’s the process of increasing your blog’s visibility in a search engine’s search results. There are a number of ways to do this and many only require a little extra effort and forward planning.
Keywords are king
Okay, so in blogging content is actually king, but keywords are massively important when it comes to SEO. And, as a seasoned blogger, your command of the written word should be such that you can incorporate keywords without that content suffering too much.
Keywords are the words (or just as often phrases) that users actually type into the search engine box when looking for a site. If your blog has a particular theme or caters to a particular industry or field there may be certain keywords that are relevant for the majority of your blogs.
Unless you’re simply repeating yourself, however, you’ll also need to research specific keywords every time you update or post a new blog. And the, ahem, key word in that last sentence is ‘research’.
By all means brainstorm your keywords but don’t rely on gut instinct for what will work and what won’t. Run potential keywords through Google’s AdWords keywords tool to get an idea of how well each works and how much competition they have.
While you’re there you can pick up some alternative suggestions as well.
Optimize your content
Once you have your keywords, sprinkle them liberally throughout your content but don’t overdo it. Overusing keywords or ‘stuffing’ can actually be detrimental to your rankings and you should probably aim for a keyword density of 2-3 per cent (and certainly Google doesn’t love it recently).
Opinion varies on the optimum density and Google keep the inner workings of their algorithms a closely guarded secret.
But you certainly shouldn’t go as high as 5 per cent. After all, it really would be difficult to make your contact flow if one word in every twenty had to be a keyword.
To make sure you do it right and at the same time you don’t overdo it, I recommend using the Easy WP SEO plugin (read Jane’s review of the plugin) which gives you full control over optimization.
Think about headings
Titles and headings don’t just catch the eye of your reader and make it clear what you’re blogging about. They can also capture the attention of search engine crawlers.
Extra importance is placed on words within designated headings, so make sure they contain your most effective and relevant keywords.
Use categories
Categories can be a good way to organize your content. Grouping your archive posts by topic rather than simply by date can help make your site more navigable for visitors and can also help SEO.
Search engines tend to favour well structured sites. They will often assume that the most important pages of any site will be within three clicks of the homepage and using categories will help you to organise your content so this is the case.
Cultivate links
Getting inbound links from relevant, trusted and popular sites is hugely important, but internal links can also help boost your search engine rankings.
A web crawler needs to be able to access all your pages easily and creating links within your content can help them do this. Ensure that all links are actually relevant however.
Update your content regularly
Google and other search engines take into account the ‘freshness’ of any page they find so you should post new content as regularly as possible.
The added bonus, of course, is that new content and constant activity keeps your blog interesting and up-to-date for existing and new followers alike.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Article by Christian Arno, the Managing Director of Lingo24, Inc.. Follow Lingo24, Inc. on Twitter.
Don’t be afraid of SEO. It can help you tremendously and keep learning more about.
Choose very good keywords and build links for that specific word. Simple
You can practIce good SEO and good English at the same time by putting your keyword phrase into your topic or thesis sentence. It will make sense there and read well, while not being overbearing.
david says
Hi Christian, excellent points on SEO.
Focusing on good content with a few bolded keywords and keywords linked to other content on your blog can be helpful.
As you mentioned in your article, content is the real king and always will be. We all need to create content that provides value to others - as you aptly pointed out.
Thanks for all the reminders on what constitutes ‘proper’ seo
Hi Christian,
love your introduction: That SEO is a dirty word for many bloggers, how true is that, also for myself, lol.
SEO is probably just an art as it is a learnable skill, and you are right on: Seasoned writers should be able to place their keywords in the text in a way it doesn’t shine through.
We mustn’t forget that we are writing for humans and not for search engines. The search engines are the avenues to the humans though.
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Take care
Oliver
Christian Arno says
Thanks for some interesting comments! Yes, great content should always be the first priority. But learning a few SEO tips is often the key to making sure your readers can find it. The aim should be using keywords in a natural, unobtrusive way so it doesn’t detract from your writing.
Amrik says
Content is king and to write great content, you need to have great content writing skills.A good content is the guarantee to take your website at its peak to rank high. A genuine and relevant content draws the visitors attention. your post is great and very informative .Thanks a lot.
Thanks for sharing this simple SEO tips with us Christian.
Content is always king and we should do good SEO too.
Hey Christian I do not like SEO, I guess I am one of those people who like to rely on writing good content to get traffic. I am learning more about it though. I do a little keyword research and that helps me a little.
Christian Arno says
Michael, I think many bloggers would agree with you! The problem is, without SEO, only a limited number will find your content in the first place. It’s worth finding out the basics, but obviously not letting it affect your writing.
In current business world most excellent Google places SEO has becoming more popular with many business people, because it is an innovative business solution that designed to achieve your target of increasing month sales effectively. This is a time to get vest service of SEO for Google places for making your business presence on online.
Nandita B says
Great post for newbie bloggers who are not aware SEO.
Thanks.
Hi Christian, Seo is certainly very important for every blog’s success and content alone is not enough to get traffic. Of course SEO is not rocket science but without a proper plan it’s difficult to get results, thanks for sharing all these tips…
Jim Antoine says
I don’t like SEO either but it has to be done. The seo tips you included in this post are a must read for beginners!
I feel like seo is unnatural. If google is as good as it wants us to think, it should find quality automatically not quantity of links etc…
The keyword workout is the most important in SEO in my opinion. First fundamental is to do the right keyword research and then tracking positions by keywords - there are some tools that can be helpfull in this case - I use Colibri Tool because of it’s functionality and really nice and readable dashboard which do not require any complicated operations- everything is clear and easy - more intuitive than any Google Webmaster or other ones.
the only thing i click because of the thumbnail image which i think dont go with the title .. but when i read the description of image .. it goes very well …. . well what u actually mean by cultivate links ….?
Michael Davis says
Hi Christian. Thanks for showing up some useful SEO tips. Without any doubt they’re needed for a clean & successful SEO work.
Morgan says
Hi Christian,
Really great tips! I especially liked how you mentioned not to over-optimize. Google is punishing websites that are over optimized these days with too many keywords.
I also love that you mentioned categories. I’ve been noticing that my categories are showing up a lot in my Google Alerts which is good news! A lot of people stick with specific categories, which is fine, but I find that the more specific I get with the categories, and the more unique ones I add, it can have a great effect on my SEO.
Thanks for the tips!!
sreekanth says
Hi christian,
great post and cool pic btw
thanks for the helpful tips and amazing plugin
Do not worry about seo my dear friends, only the keywords and great contents will flourush for ever, if believed , Google is planning to avaoid all types of seo efforts. ~rakesh kumar
SEO includes so many factors and it is good to understand some important techniques. Content is very important part of any blog and SEO must require quality content which must be unique. Your given information is really good, thanks for it.
Yes SEO is one of the main tool to enlist the site in organic searches. Try to get do follow links by article posting, blog commenting and forum posting.
Keyword is king for SEO, I total agree, and next thing is its all base on how many backlinks you have.
sreekanth says
Updating blog is important but the frequency of updates depend on the blog type
you should not update your blog frequently unless its a tech blog
win says
I agree we should be diligent in updating our blog. I have experience in 5 consecutive days did not update my blog and ended up losing all my traffic. I am deeply saddened by this fact.
For SEO the whole focus of a SEO specialist is on the contents. Quality contents have primary importance in SEO field. Contents are also considered as king if proper work is done on them.
Tom says
Content is still the king, unique and fresh contents! I know it’s kinda complicated to do SEO but the benefits are long term when done in proper way.
Nice work Christian. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. As of the moment I still find it difficult to understand how to build links properly but this article can help me in the long run.
My question now is how to properly build links. Does the keyword should be linked to the root domain or it should be linked to the post or it should be done on both.
Updating your blog regularly is, maybe, the thing that you have to bear in mind when you start blogging. A blog which is not updated so often is nothing but a dead one. Of course, if you want to be famous, you have to live first.
Okto says
Hi Chris,
SEO is always hot topic. Your explanation is great and I strongly agree on how we should optimize our content .. don’t overdo it.
Since Google launch their new algorithms I think we should concern quality in all of our contents. If we miss this out, and overdo on SEO matters … Just wait until the cute panda or penguin punish you. Just be careful on that.
I believe if we are having enough experience and practice we will master SEO just like the easy guidance provided in the article above.
Thanks
One more thought about keywords, don’t just use the same one a few time in the blog. Use related keywords as well. An example of this would be if your keyword was ‘blue dog’ include ‘mauve pupppy’ as well in your post.
Yes seo is the main part of blogging, link building and keyword selection is main. But overlinking is dangerous for seo.
Lino German says
Doing some SEO strategies is really fun, it really helps to grow a website. Thank you for posting this great tips.
Seo is a nice way to increase blog visibility in a search engine.do a keyword research for your blog and make a quality backlinks in a high pr sites.
SEO is really a cool tactic to get much more benefits from Search engines. They really love attractive and quality content. I actually focus on quality content and rich link backs. They made my site good
Raheel Mushtaq says
Keyword targeting has become less important after panda if content is relevant to the topic you don’t need to focus on Keywords. and avoiding keyword stuffing is healthy activity now..!
Sanjib Saha says
Hello Christian Arno!
I completely agree with you that these are some valuable SEO tips you have mentioned. Good for the newbies specially who is not aware of SEO and its importance. Generally i keep my keyword density to 2 percent. Title attracts the readers to open the article so it need to be great and eye catching. And definitely to make proper SEO, keyword research is must. Well thanks for this awesome post!
Sanjib
Rajesh says
Content is king, and I agree with keyword density point, 2-3 % is fine. We’ve to write content for our readers not for search engines.
i had been using blogger and little by little i had learned little bit of seo
Regular updates help business blogs as well.
Regarding the typical blogger’s aversion to SEO - yes, it’s business and frequently yucky, but seriously…why create awesome content which nobody reads?
There is a ton of traffic out there for the taking if you can find the right keywords and target content appropriately. It’s much more fun (and profitable!) to have your words read! Or application appreciated!
In our case, we blog to build the Google profile of our word game solver site which has provided us with a broader base of engaged users… SEO-focused blogging has helped us build this site up into a meaningful project…
abhishek says
I am not much of a SEO expert,but these tips of yours have really helped me to understand this topic and i will surely make the most out of this
You are very welcome Abhishek.
Amit says
Nice Article Christian.
According to my experience Fresh and unique content with 2% keyword density and 1-2 h2/3 tags in article always rocks
Hey I love more of these ideas the more I think about it. Something I noticed right off is that your blogs don’t have dates. Reading through this blog it makes sense, archive by topic rather than date. Usually I only look through the most recent posts (usually a week) to read. But your blogs, by date, I dont think if it’s old and outdated information. Some part of me thinks it’d be nice to find a date somewhere, but the other side says that’s the exact point, who knows how old or if its brand new!
akhilendra says
SEO is good but often it is overrated so much that people tend to ignore the real purpose of their blog or site. SEO is meant for organic growth but that cannot happen unless untill there is value on your blog. It’s like i am here because i can find some value which is going to help me. But if there is a website full of keywords or links which doesn’t add value to me, i may land there through some search engine. But my exit will be as fast as my entry.
I like your one tips which is update your website blog or personal blog regularly because once to stop your blog update then your blog not survive. I am also blogger and I know that how SEO is crucial for any website or blog. In my opinion, if you not do SEO therefore, you survive with the help of content and bloggers relationship.
Ganesh says
I’m agree with all your points. Specially updating content regularly is more important. Bcoz google gives more importance to those sites which are regularly updating