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How To
Boost Traffic To Your Blog - SEO For Bloggers
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by:
Ryen Kim
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Let
search engine index your blog and let people come to your fresh blog.
Though you're in World Wide Web, nobody knows you're there. You need to
pull kindly those who are potentially waiting for you but don't know
where your are. This objective is related to generally known as search
engine optimization (SEO). It's too broad to address all. But the most
important things will I talk about. Though they're not all but more
than enough will be covered. They are about...
- How to use keywords as a SEO technique
- What to consider when you choose blog templates
- How to construct your blog search engine
friendly
- Ping your blog
How to use keywords as a SEO technique?
As long as SEO is concerned, the keyword comes at front line. You have
to find the target keyword/keywords or niche keywords.
What to do with the keyword/keywords? Please read on.....
- Enter keywords in your blog name: If you named
your blog for example, "Ryen's blog", it's not a good idea in the view
of SEO. Instead name your blog something like "keyword blog". You need
to substitute "keyword" with your "target keyword", for example
"mountain bike blog", if your blog is about mountain bike.
- Enter keywords of your post in title tag:
Actually most of bloggers don't need to concern about "title tag"
because most of blog hosting applications such as blogger, typepad,
wordpress, movable type, drupal, etc... care this for you. But you have
to use the keyword in your title and then they will include it in the
title tag for you.
- Enter keywords in meta description tag, if
possible: This may be difficult for most of bloggers because most of
blog hosting system don't support this. If this is your case, don't
bother with this. To make it possible is almost impossible for the
people like me who are not techie at all. But don't worry there is
other solution: care your first sentence of the first paragraph.
- Enter keywords in the first sentence: Nowadays
many SEO experts say that most of search engines don't look meta
description tag. Instead they look for the few words in the first
sentence. So care your first sentence to include the keywords, make it
fit to describe your whole post and attractive.
- Repeat your keywords in your post: With this an
English grammar teacher may not be happy. But as long as SEO is
concerned, it's necessary: frankly to say, you have to. General rule
says the keyword density should be about 2-3% of whole words in your
post.
You may complain "heck, how do I know keyword density." Well, you don't
need to count it manually. There is a free tool to check the keyword
density. And actually I don't even check it all the time. I just keep
in mind 2-3% and check only for some posts that I think worth checking.
Having this in mind, the free tool is here.
Type the URL of your post, keyword and click "analyze" button. It'll
return you the keyword density of your post. If the keyword density is
too low, consider repeat the keyword more but don't repeat too much
(more than 3%)
- Use your keyword in your blog domain: This
improves the ranking of your blog and hence more traffic come to you.
If your blog is about "anniversary gift", for example, include it in
your domain name so that your blog domain looks like
"anniversary-gift.yourhost.com"
- Use your keyword in the link title: Many
blogger don't know about this!
Which one do you think better, "anniversary gift" or
"anniversary-gift.your host.com" as your link title? The former is
better. The reason? Because search engines value more. So keep in mind
that whenever you get link try to enter your keywords in the link title.
- Enter keywords in your file name: When you save
your blog, use your keyword.
Which one is better, "mypost98.html" or
"anniversary-gift-how-to-choose.html"? This time the latter is better
because it includes keywords and hence get better chance to be listed
in high rank in search engine.
- Enter keyword in alt tag: If you use images in
your post, don't forget to put your keyword in alt tag. A 2 cent-tip
related to this is that if your Google Adsense doesn't seem to show
matching ads with your content, check your alt tag. Maybe it's because
you put unrelated words in alt tag.
What to consider when you choose blog templates?
Certainly there is a search engine friendly blog templates. To know
whether your blog template is search engine friendly designed, go to Crawler
simulation (It's free.) Enter your blog URL and then it'll
show you how it looks like when a search engine spider visits your blog
site. If you see a lot of html code or java scripts before you see main
content, it means your blog is not well designed in the point of search
engine optimization. There is a way to hide unnecessary code from
spiders, using CSS or div class "hide". Try to make your title tag
immediately after head tag and to show up your body content as near to
head tag as possible.
How to construct your blog search engine friendly?
Make your blog site structure as simple as possible. This may not be a
big issue for bloggers because unless a blogger can design her/his blog
system, they have to use a default system. What I mean by this is that
most of blog system make permalink be for example,
"www.blogcom.com/user/archive/year/month/date/apost.html". See how far
the final "apost.html" is from root. It's 5 step further. This is not
so good in terms of search engine optimization. You can reduce those
steps but you only can do so one or two step because database
recognition is concerned behind this story. So the bottom line is that
try to make your blog simple but if it's not possible, focus on writing
good content. I observed many top bloggers have a bit complicated
permalink system yet have lots of traffic.
But if you can make your blog structure simpler without problem, please
do so because it is much better for the reader and search engine as
well.
Ping your blog
Do you ping? Many pongs will come,then. :-) This may not be an issue if
you're using Movable Type, WordPress, Typepad, or Drupal 4.6.0. But
consider pinging to Ping-o-Matic!, if your system is not configured to
do so. Because it pings to most of important blog search engines and
directories in one spot. If your blog application doesn't support to
ping automatically to "Ping-o-Matic!", you can do so manually by
visiting Ping-o-Matic! Once you type your blog name, blog URL, check
where to ping and click "submit ping" button, and don't forget to
bookmark. It gives you a convenience because you don't need to type
blog name, URL and check where to ping again.
By pinging you make search engine spider crawl you more frequently and
make your reader notified faster.
So far you have the most important SEO techniques for your blog. Say,
how to use your keywords and where to enter, search engine friendly
blog template design, structure and finally ping to "Ping-o-Matic!"
But one thing is missing!
Get inbound links!
Probably it is as important as your blog itself! You can read about
this at Traffic
to Blog: Part 4
About the Author
Ryen Kim is an MBA, specialized in marketing
research and analysis. His current focus is blogging and home based
affiliate business as a work-at-home scheme. He is a founder of Blog Sites and
running Hom
Based Affiliate Business web site.
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