Here are ten practical and easy-to-follow steps to make your blog more search engine friendly.
1. Make your content worthwhile. Quality content is still an essential foundation to stay on top of the competition. If you work hard to present useful, original, informative, compelling, entertaining, worthwhile content on your website, it will surely attract a great number of readers and build a solid following of audience. People would bookmark your site, subscribe to your feeds, or sign up for email subscriptions. People are driven to your website simply because they find something that’s genuinely worth their time in there – and this is called “organic traffic”.
1. Make your content worthwhile. Quality content is still an essential foundation to stay on top of the competition. If you work hard to present useful, original, informative, compelling, entertaining, worthwhile content on your website, it will surely attract a great number of readers and build a solid following of audience. People would bookmark your site, subscribe to your feeds, or sign up for email subscriptions. People are driven to your website simply because they find something that’s genuinely worth their time in there – and this is called “organic traffic”.
2. Post new content daily.
Search engine spiders are easily attracted by updates. In other words,
putting out fresh, unique content every day would make your site a
search engine magnet. If you can't publish a post on a daily basis, do
it at least three times a week or as frequently as possible. This is
the reason why blogs have become strong traffic competitors ~ most
bloggers post entries everyday.
3. Do not copy content. :Publishing
duplicate content has always been a violation and will definitely
damage your website's reputation. A lot of webmasters today use Copyscape - a software that can detect duplicate content and plagiarism.
What about posting excerpts or a portion of an article taken from another website? This should be done very sparingly and with good intent. Scraping content or making slight modifications on the text to make it seem "unique" just for the sake adding content to your website will not contribute real value to your website's ranking and credibility. Instead, work hard on creating well-researched, professionally written, original posts.
4. Use categories smartly. Using categories helps readers find posts on specific topics more easily. But that's not at all. It also helps search engines to classify pages of your website according to groups or keywords, making it easier to find relevant search results from your website.
To make the most of this tool, limit the number of categories on your website and choose the best category for each post. This way, you can be sure that all posts related to a particular topic falls only under one category. Furthermore, you can avoid having duplicate content or pages with the same content belonging to different categories.
What about posting excerpts or a portion of an article taken from another website? This should be done very sparingly and with good intent. Scraping content or making slight modifications on the text to make it seem "unique" just for the sake adding content to your website will not contribute real value to your website's ranking and credibility. Instead, work hard on creating well-researched, professionally written, original posts.
4. Use categories smartly. Using categories helps readers find posts on specific topics more easily. But that's not at all. It also helps search engines to classify pages of your website according to groups or keywords, making it easier to find relevant search results from your website.
To make the most of this tool, limit the number of categories on your website and choose the best category for each post. This way, you can be sure that all posts related to a particular topic falls only under one category. Furthermore, you can avoid having duplicate content or pages with the same content belonging to different categories.
5. Use sharing buttons.
One way to promote wider readership is to provide sharing buttons on
each page, making it easier for your readers to share a post from your
blog or website on Social Networks. A lot of people today are on these
social sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest Google+, Instagram)
and if a guest enjoyed your post, this person surely wouldn't mind
clicking on one of the sharing buttons for friends, relatives and other
people to see it. Thus, including a simple statement asking a reader to
"share the post if they liked it" may go a long way.
Does
Google measure social media popularity in ranking a website? The world
is still waiting for a clear confirmation from Google on this matter
but considering the fact that Google Analytics has included social media
stats on its report only strengthens the assumption that social media
popularity signals (especially, Google+), has bearing on search engine
ranking. One thing is certain though - applying this advice is a proven
way to increase exposure and drive traffic to your site.
6. Use the "ALT" tag.
The ALT tag? It is an html code used for images where you can insert a
text description of the photo on the post. Usually, blogging platforms
like Blogger and Wordpress has an easy-to-use tool that allows you to do
this to edit the properties of the photo.
Why is it important to include an ALT description? The answer is because search engine crawlers cannot read images. Therefore, Including a text description in the ALT tag helps search engines to recognize images on your posts, so they can also be visible in search results.
7. Use relevant keywords or phrases. Which words or phrases would people type in the search box if they want to find information relevant to your content? These are called keywords or key phrases and it is very important to include them in your posts. Use keywords in titles and headings as well. Be careful not to overdo it though. Keyword stuffing or filling a page with too many keywords is considered as a violation and would make your website look bad in the eyes of search engine spiders. If you keep Step #1 in mind, which is to write quality posts, this should not be a problem at all.
8. Include relevant inside links in your content. This is a good strategy to point your readers to other pages of your website. For instance, you may recommend one or two posts on the same topic which you think would be helpful or provide additional information. Test if the link is working and that the URL directs to the right page. Instead of using vague words like "here" or "this", try to use more descriptive words so that it is clear what the page is about. (To see examples, pay attention to the links in Step #9).
9. Submit a Sitemap A sitemap is basically a list of all pages in your website and it helps search engines find its way more easily, so to speak, through your website. Having a sitemap would ensure that Google and other search engines can crawl and index all the pages of your website. This is especially recommended if your website has dynamic pages or if it contains a lot of videos, moving images, and photos.
Otherwise, your Sitemap can be a list of all the URLs or pages of your website, with only one URL per line. You can submit your Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. For a more in-depth discussion on Sitemaps, here's an article from Google on How to Create A Sitemap.
Why is it important to include an ALT description? The answer is because search engine crawlers cannot read images. Therefore, Including a text description in the ALT tag helps search engines to recognize images on your posts, so they can also be visible in search results.
7. Use relevant keywords or phrases. Which words or phrases would people type in the search box if they want to find information relevant to your content? These are called keywords or key phrases and it is very important to include them in your posts. Use keywords in titles and headings as well. Be careful not to overdo it though. Keyword stuffing or filling a page with too many keywords is considered as a violation and would make your website look bad in the eyes of search engine spiders. If you keep Step #1 in mind, which is to write quality posts, this should not be a problem at all.
8. Include relevant inside links in your content. This is a good strategy to point your readers to other pages of your website. For instance, you may recommend one or two posts on the same topic which you think would be helpful or provide additional information. Test if the link is working and that the URL directs to the right page. Instead of using vague words like "here" or "this", try to use more descriptive words so that it is clear what the page is about. (To see examples, pay attention to the links in Step #9).
9. Submit a Sitemap A sitemap is basically a list of all pages in your website and it helps search engines find its way more easily, so to speak, through your website. Having a sitemap would ensure that Google and other search engines can crawl and index all the pages of your website. This is especially recommended if your website has dynamic pages or if it contains a lot of videos, moving images, and photos.
Otherwise, your Sitemap can be a list of all the URLs or pages of your website, with only one URL per line. You can submit your Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. For a more in-depth discussion on Sitemaps, here's an article from Google on How to Create A Sitemap.
10. Exchange links with high quality blogs. Blogging involves active participation in blogging communities. It's not just a one-way road. Reading and following other blogs is an essential gesture to gain exposure and promote your own blog as well. In the process, you are bound to meet other bloggers on the same niche. Look for blogs with great content like yours and see if you can exchange links with the blog authors.
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