Search Engine Optimization Tips for Blogs

Originally thought to be something like an online journal for individuals has become yet another tool businesses can use to advertise themselves online. Web logs or blogs are now being used not simply for the sheer purpose of writing, but also as means SEO (search engine optimization) experts use to increase a website’s standing on search engine results pages (SERP).

An interesting thing about keeping and maintaining a blog (also known as blogging) is that anyone can blog. What will make a blog more successful than most is merely a keen sense of its target readership. Of course, it will not harm the blogger (a person managing a blog) to possess some fundamental skills navigating the Internet and constructing links to other websites and blogs.

Bloggers currently are finding that they can not only write and publish their thoughts for free, but also can find themselves getting paid for writing. This is because one of the strategies in Search Engine Optimization is to generate content that is rich in keywords, which is virtually what search engines look for in ranking web pages in its SERPs.

That said, here are some guidelines to make your next blog an significant Search Engine Optimization tool

1. choose a Theme (and Stick to It)Most blogs never gain a real readership because it just is a mishmash of a writer’s thoughts, with very little coherent theme to bind the whole blog together. If the blogger does it for the sheer purpose of a journal, there’s actually nothing wrong with that.

However, as an SEO, a blog has to have a theme that will tie all the posts (individual articles) together. This is because instead of simply looking for keywords, a search engine will also judge whether the page just happens to have a lot of keywords mentioned in the post or whether the entire blog is about the topic it is searching for. The former will rank less than the latter in the SERPs. Given this point, it will do you well to determine a theme that you are interested in and won’t tire of writing about.

2. A Place You Can Call HomeWorking alongside the concept of a theme, When constructing your blog (whether with your own domain name or an a free blog site), give it a URL that has words applicable to the theme. For instance, if you are going to blog about bonsai making, try to apply words that are relevant to that in your blog’s URL (such as www.bonsaienthusiast.com). Name your blog employing words that are pertinant to your theme as well. Search engines look at these things as well to assess how high your blog could possibly rank.

If you are blogging on a hosting site, it is possible to have your blog assigned into a proper category. This will aid make a search engine simpler to find your blog given that the category is strongly relevant to themes and search keywords.

On a comparable note, your individual posts should also be titled with words that are closely applicable to your theme. Again, working on a blog with a bonsai theme, one post could be labelled “Miniature Trees: How to Get Started” while another one could be “Selecting the Right Pot for a Bonsai”. This will give your posts a URL that is rich in keywords, which helps in a page’s standing on SERPS (but you already know that, right?).

3. Link And it Shall Be Linked Unto You

Another thing about blogs that SEO experts are finding to become a great profit is the fact that blogs make it simple to link to other blogs, which in turn makes it simple for other blogs to link to you.

This is yet another criterion a search engine uses to rank a certain page in the results pages. The more incoming links it possess about the keyword in search will improve ranking status because the page shows that a lot of people think what you’ve written is a positive source of information.

So when writing on your blog, make certain to take the time to read other people’s blogs and other online articles related to your theme. Create links to them so that you point your readers to more information. This will improve the chances of other people making links that will direct to your blog.

4. Keep it Coming

Since blog content is so easy to create, search engines scour blog sites very often. That means if you keep on producing new content on a regular basis, search engines will have to keep up with what’s new on your blog.

By commonly making fresh content on your blog, search engines will tend to look to your blog first before others that are not maintained and renewed as often as you do. It helps in the rankings as well, which is the whole point of this article, right?

These tips are just to get started on using a blog for SEO. As you go along, you’ll find more tricks of the trade that will help drive you up the ranks on SERPs. Of course realistically, don’t expect to rank on the top 3 pages on your initial try. But give it a few weeks. And for as long as you keep to the tried and true tactics, it may not be that far until you’ve captured a top position for your blog.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Schwartz, is the founder of Promotions Unlimited,an Internet legal directory (CA, TX & Las Vegas ) publisher and search engine placement technology analyst.  You can contact Bob via e-mail at  seo711@gmail.com or visit his San Diego legal directory at:  http://www.sandiegolawyerforyou.com/special.htm