Search Engine Optimization Tips, SEO for Blogs, Search Tips

Please read the article  on my blog here: http://www.selfgrowthtips.com/2011/07/bloggers-guide-to-accepting-comments-on.html

Many bloggers don’t pay enough attention to blog designs while blogging. In actuality, design of blogs is very important for the blogs success. Here’s a blogger’s guide to SEO friendly blog design.

By design I mean the organization of your blog pages. How should one organize content, images, video, categories etc to make it look pleasing to the eye? And eventually to make it easy and intuitive for blog users to navigate and read what they want.

First take stock of what you want on the blog home: main content, recent posts, recommended blogs, search bar, contact us, sign up for newsletter, subscribe to feed, site map and more. Then think about what users would like to see on your blog and what would readers do when they land on your blog home page.

Depending on what users are most likely to do, you decide on your right, left, top or bottom navigation. Get the most important things right up at the top – recent posts, categories, search bar, about, contact us, downloads, feeds/ subscribe to newsletter etc.

Choosing the template themes
Depending on the topic of your bloging, choose the theme. If it’s serious, get themes that are neat. If you’re blogging about products, travel or gadgets, then you get a flashy, colorful blog theme.

Touching the code
If you don’t know html, I suggest that you don’t tinker with the code. Use what’s there in a theme that suits you best. In case you’re using blogger.com, use drag and drop.

Creating a blog that’s pleasing to the eye
Just ask yourself. Would I stay on a blog for long it’s hard on my eyes? Will I close a page, if it’s not aesthetically good. Most blog readers will bounce off if there’s clutter on a blog. So keep it easy on the eye. But use images to enhance the beauty.

Test and tweak after a while
Google analytics will provide you some clues to how people actually navigate through the blog home page. The map overlay will tell you what content they are seeing the most. You can them rearrange content according to your analysis.

I keep repeating, search engines like Google only want to give it’s users the best sites. And keep sending more traffic to sites that users love, read lot of pages, spend more time on, frequent and recommend to others. Therefore, make user feel comfortable, quickly give them what they want – quality content and you’ll succeed as a blogger.

And that’s why a well designed blog that users love becomes Search Engine friendly.

Building your blog’s reputation on a subject is key to success. Becoming a subject matter expert will fetch tons of traffic.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask love authority blogs and bloggers, because they have proven their subject matter expertise. They send a lot of traffic to such authority sites, since users would benefit from reading such useful and quality content.

Seo4google.org’s Example: So, if you’re a writer, how can you build authority around your site or blog on “how to write for the internet?” Here’s what I might suggest.

1. Write useful content on relevant topics:
a) How to research and choose subjects that users are searching for on the net
b) How to write headlines that’ll attract visitor attention
c) How to treat a theme for an article
d) How to break up a story into smaller parts
e) Tips to write a synopsis of an article
f) Differences between offline media and online media writing
g) How to write in an engaging manner
h) Styles of writing
i) How to submit stories to editors
j) How to write covering letters or emails to editors
k) Top online writer forums
l) Best online resources for writers
m) 5 mistakes most writers make
n) Common grammatical errors
o) How to sell your articles to online sites
2. Participate in writer/ journalist/ student communities
3. Write on high traffic and high ranking news sites
4. Be interviewed
5. Create useful pdfs, slides and share with wannabe writers/ authors
6. Speak at writer conventions
7. Publish guest posts in related sites

If you want to be known as an expert on a subject, you must write well researched, topical and quality content. Look for what readers on your subject want. What are the problems they generally encounter. Can you help them with insights into solutions.

Writing for other authoritative sources is critical to building authority
The fact that Health magazine publishes your story on “5 ways to fight obesity with vegetarian diet”, establishes your authority as a health expert on obesity, right? So you see, it’s very important to publish your articles on authority sites. I’d suggest that you identify sites and blogs that are respected in your domain, and keep trying your luck to get published there.

Post regularly on quality article sites
Another way is to look at good quality and high page ranked article sites where you can submit your articles regularly. www.ezinearticles.com, www.associatedcontent, http://www.scribd.com/ and the like. Build your expertise by posting high quality and fresh articles on such sites. These will also provide your backlinks that are important for growing your link juice or page rank.

Use forums like Yahoo Answers to build your reputation
Answering and providing help to relevant communities is a strategy to build your reputation. Join forums and community sites where there are many eager folks seeking answers. Offer them your guidance. If they love, they’ll comment, link, vote and visit your blog.

Write guest posts on blogs
Network with bloggers and email related bloggers offering to do a useful guest post. If you offer value to users, and are in a non competitive zone, chances are you’ll be invited to write. If you have expertise and they interview you, great.

Post comments on other sites
Few people realize that offering your insight and posting your comments on a hot topic is a good strategy to develop authority. When you read a relevant piece anywhere on the net, post a comment with valued inputs. Keep doing that with the intention of helping the community. Your signature in such posts will turn meaningful in the near future.

Thus building your reputation results in traffic, page rank and dollars on your blog.

Learn Expert Tips to SEO each Blog post for high traffic benefits. Bloggers must write search engine friendly titles to get high ranking and pull visitors in droves.

How to SEO your Blog Post Title URL

I keep repeating one thing, follow the basics to create a search friendly blog post. First do a research of how people are searching for the content you intend to write. Having done that, give users good value for their time by writing what is not easily available. Let’s say you’re writing a blog post about “How to Succeed”. There’s plenty of stuff on self development on the net. So how can you write high value content on this subject? Research and find out what else people are searching for in self development.

Seo4goolge.org’s Tips: The number of keywords you use in the title must be limited to 5 to 6 words. The words must be well known to users. The first two lines of your article must have a variation of the keywords in the title.

Google offers a very good tool for finding out what the world is searching for. Insights for Search. This excellent research tool from Google search engine allows you to search by region, period and category of content.

This Google tool will help you in writing a good Blog Post Title that’ll fetch you rewards of quality traffic. Find out what keywords are searched most. But your choice should not be determined by the number of searches. Rather, you should look at a niche keyword and build the article around that. For example, if you look up “digital camera”, you’ll see a lot of top keywords -canon digital camera, canon, sony digital camera, digital cameras, digital camera reviews, digital camera review, cameras, best digital camera, olympus digital camera and nikon digital camera. Don’t choose a generic keyword (like digital camera or best digital camera) which is bound to face stiff competition from camera business makers, sellers and photographers etc. Instead choose a lesser attempted keyword – use a particular model’s or maker’s name in the title - sanyo digital camera. Or even a model within Sanyo.

The order of the keywords in title also matter in SEO, although Google is intelligent enough to read all the keywords in the url. Write the title as a user would search for the topic. Example: Features of Sanyo Digital Camera, Sanyo Digital Camera Review or Cheap Sanyo Digital Camera, depending on what your blog post is dealing with.

Seo4goolge.org’s Tip: The title of the blog post should reflect the core theme of the post and using keywords that users would search with.

Another of Google great tools is Keyword Tool .

If you run short of keyword ideas for your blog content, check this out. This tool allows you to search for a range of keywords used by users on a particular topic. Bloggers can find out keywords popularly used by users, it gives the last month’s search numbers and also the broad indicative numbers for the previous 12 months.

Growing traffic and improving your blog’s ranking is possible through natural linking strategies. A link is a validation of your blog’s content quality, newsworthiness of your blog and your reputation as a subject matter expert.

It’s like our own reputation in a community where we live. How would someone recommend us as a good doctor, consultant, accountant or businessman? Only when we have developed a reputation in our domain, would friends, colleagues and neighbors recommend us to someone. That’s exactly the way Google sees a link to your site – as a validation of the quality of content.

Your blog’s ranking on search engines like Google is in some ways determined by the links to your blog. The value of the links is determined by the quality, relevance and quantity of the sites or blogs linking to you.

Quality of the site that Links

The quality of the blog or site that links to you is important. The site must be focused on your subject; or atleast related to your blog content. The number of links into that site is also key to determining the quality of the link to your blog. How the site or blog links – whether it’s a small comment or complete review of your site, just a recommended link among many other links or a quote from your blog post.

So when you write to webmasters or bloggers seeking a link on their site, first find out the relevance of the site and its quality.

Beware of those who try to cheat search engines by using black hat techniques – submitting to a large number of sites using a software, adopting cloaking, scraping someone’s content, linking to porn or adult sites, linking to illegal sites or doing sneaky re-directs etc. Don’t touch them with even a barge pole. Don’t link to them.

Quantity of Links matter in Google ranking a blog

Yes, the quantity certainly matters in ranking your blog higher in search engine results pages. The best way to get a good number of natural links is to write good and original content, post frequently and build your authority on the subject. Once people see that you have quality content, they’ll start linking to your blog.

When you have built a fair number of pages of content, only then should you write to other bloggers and sites seeking a link.

Relevance of the link determines the ranking too

This means that if you have a blog that teaches users to play golf, then a link from a site that has news of the latest happenings in the golf circuit, sells golf accessories, a golf forum or a golf club is relevant. If it’s from a blog or site on Barbie dolls, self help, online money making, fashion or some personal ramblings of a blogger, it’s not relevant to users of those sites.

The inbound link should fall within the subject of your blog post or blog. Then it’s a relevant link. The reason being the link becomes useful to users who are looking for such content. For shoppers on a furniture site, a link to your golf blog is not useful or relevant; therefore Google and other search engines are likely to give it less weightage.

Seo4google.org Tips on Linking

The ranking of the site that has the inbound link matters a lot in ranking

The relevance of the subject and context of the blog or site

Where the link is placed – home page or inner page

The anchor text (the words used to hyperlink your blog url)

Whether it’s a review of your blog or just an article link

The number of inbound links to that site

The traffic to the site or blog

The number of users who click from there and land up on your site

The quality and relevance of other links on that page

While blogging, remember all these are important in getting a high rank on Google and improving traffic to your blog.

http://www.selfgrowthtips.com/2011/08/seo-tips-to-make-blogs-accessible-to.html

blog post moved to SEO for Blog