I have just started a blog. I am doing SEO for it. Which seo activities are important to optimize a blog? Please give your feedback.
This is a long and complicated process, but as you've just started I'll suggest the following as a starting point. These are just my opinions, but I'm sure others will agree with many of the points I make here. 1. Make sure blog navigation is decent for the reader. This is something that people often forget about when planning their blog. It's as important for a blog as it is for a shopping site. Think ahead and plan the categories and their hierarchy. You can always add more, but it's important to think about this now so that you can consider what might be important enough to have in a main menu and what you might want to keep to a sidebar. 2. I'm assuming you're using WordPress. If so, think about how you can make the theme you choose as original as possible, not only for your readers but for Google too. Each free theme is probably used on hundreds of thousands of sites out there, so what can you do to that to make it different? Why not make it your own by changing the wording here and there? Why not make your "Read more..." a unique statement? Why not change the "Older posts..." link to something original to your blog? 3. Compelling content and sharing options are also neglected in the world of blogging. Make your content thorough, original, and provide the opportunity for readers to share it. Would they want to share it? How would they share it? What will new visitors see when they arrive through a shared link? 4. Does your content encourage discussion? One of the most important things that bloggers ignore are the comments. I have long believed that since Google really started focusing on audience engagement the participation of readers is an important signal. How can you encourage readers to leave comments? Ask questions of your readers, prompt them to leave their own views in the comments. This doesn't just help with SEO (in my opinion) but also encourages readers to come back to see responses to their opinions. Return visits are also an important signal for Google and encouraging this through comment responses is perhaps the easiest way to accomplish this. 5. Don't pay any attention to all those out there who say you need to build links or stuff the content with keywords. These notions are outdated. Google focuses primarily on content and audience engagement, natural sharing and linking comes after that. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't share your content on other platforms yourself, you should be doing that, but natural linking and sharing is something Google looks for and spamming your own content is never a good idea. Google has become sophisticated enough to be able to ascertain through decent written content what a post or page is about, as long as you stick the point you are making and offer enough quality content about a subject you will naturally start to see results worthy of that content (unless there is something wrong encouraging Google to dismiss you in some way). 6. Don't be lazy with media. As I work primarily in the adult affiliate blogging business images are a big part of what I do. Proper placement of images and text in a post can really help. Think about positioning the text and media in ways that will not turn off the audience. Creating a "wall of text" for Google is likely to put off any readers, people generally want bite-sized chunks of text to read, not an essay. Position of a small piece of text at the top, supported by images, with a larger chunk of text later is perhaps the best way to go when it comes to presentation of media. This way you are providing Google with plenty of text to enjoy, and not scaring away people just looking for images. Also consider the size of images, whether you would be better creating a collage, and how you would link out - the fewer links out of a post the better, in my opinion. You don't want 10 images each linking out to the same place. That's a little of what I can offer, I hope it helps at least a little.
Check these SEO Guide for Beginners : evolvedigitallabs.com/seo-guide blog.kissmetrics.com/seo-guide www.seofordummies.co.uk moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
For your blog good optimization could be done by doing simple steps. Make sure you have inserted proper tags for each topic or post and meta tags for each page of your blog. You need to have images within your blog posts as said by Conran above and in images make sure you have inserted ALT tag because search engines cannot read images. They get the idea of image by the ALT tag you have used. Put your targeted keyword in headings with suitable meaning. Keep your URLs simple so that it can be easy to grasp by common people. Keep the keyword density less than a percent. Update your blog frequently as possible. Check your Google Webmaster's Tools that will show you if Google is having any issues with your site. That can be helpful. Hope you got some help from me!
What do you mean by viral marketing? Sorry i'm asking this here but i stopped on your answer after reading everything here. Thanks!
Any link you are building, make sure those links are giving you traffic.... use anchor text naturally, centered around your main title.. Do slow and quality link building on regular basis.
For your blog, you must perform blog submission, article marketing, social bookmarking submission, directory submission etc.
@liffy I have suggested some Off page Activities for Your Blog Step1: Create Unique content and target your primary and secondary keywords , make sure that your content will be minimum 500+ words that is good for SEO Step2: Write content for Users not search engines, try to write in your own words Step3: Use appropriate image in between your post with proper title and alt tags Step4: After publish your blog post, submit it into Ping sites Step5: Pick minimum 80 Bookmarking sites and categorized it into 4 categories and submit your url in each category with different Title and Description , make sure that you title and description should contain your keywords Step6: Find some High PR blogs which is related to your keyword and do some blog commenting Step7: Always maintain a time interval to update your blog. Regular update blog will do the trick Step8: Always participate social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest Step9: Create or Join related communities in Google Plus and actively participate in it Step10: if you got any comments in your blog, respond the people in details These will 100% work for your blog which is in any platform(Blogger, WordPress etc)
Hi liffy, i have some quite important tips for you regarding your seo activity. Write Good content that updated regularly. Select right keywords, you can use any tool for this google analytic is one you can use with ease. Optimize your images if you are using, according to keywords. Social media marketing is doing best now a days . generate as many back links as you can with high page rank , and D.A sites.
You can involve in off page SEO activities like Participating in social media, blog comment, social book marking
Below is the list of those Off Page activities which I considered to be the first 5 Important SEO Activities: High PR Directories Blog submission Social Media Sharing Social BookMarking Article Submission There are more simple things one can do like, guest blogging, 3 way link exchange, business listings etc.
Thanks a lot man, that is very useful. It has helped me a lot on my blog man. I don't know how to like your post so thought I would express my gratefulness via a post.
If you have 3 likes by 3 different members (it appears that you do) then go to the *Reply* button, to the left of that you ought to see a *Like* button.
Check out these website optimization guides for SEO newbies: http://www.seoinpractice.com/ http://webmeup.com/seo-guide/ Hope they will help you master the basics of the process.
These are the list I focused on: High Quality Authority Blogs High Quality Content Authorship / Author Ranking Social Media Presence Diverse Link Schema Anchor & Link Diversity Link Types
First make sure you write ONLY unique content, go with good design, build quality backlinks (from related websites if possible on pages with A FEW OBL's)... Also don't forget anchor text diversity in order to make your SEO work for you!