SEO Basics
I have not written a Blogging 101 post lately and figured it was time. After watching my hits soar to about 10 times my normal traffic on January 1st (thanks to 1 post) a few friends asked me to share my SEO tips. So, here is a quick how-to on SEO Basics to set up your post to be SEO friendly.
Title:
Search for the Google longtail and try to incorporate that into your title. For instance, when I begin to type “photo a day” into Google, I am immediately given these results:
- photo a day challenge
- photo a day instagram
- photo a day ideas
Therefore, I now have 3 Google longtails to choose from. I chose “photo a day challenge” for my title.
Keywords:
Now that I have my keyword/phrase, I want to make sure it stands out to Google when it crawls my post. I call it out by using H2 tags, bold, italics, and alt tags on images. Plus, I want to use my keyword within the first 100 words of my post. I normally use it in the title, use it in an initial H2 tag, and then within the first 1-3 sentences of the post. I will also bold it to make it stand out.
Then, if the picture warrants the same keyword, I will use it in the alt tag for an image or two. If it does not really go with the picture, I will choose another SEO friendly, keyword rich phrase in its place.
Yoast SEO:
Finally, I use Yoast SEO as my SEO plugin. I have used another but found this one to be the best. Therefore, in my focus keyword box I will once again enter my keyword. I skip the SEO title and then copy and paste the title in the Meta Description. I typically add more keyword phrases into a relevant sentence after the title. The image above was not a content heavy post so I did not feel the need to do so.
That’s it. Other than my tags… which I try to limit to certain categories and use less than 4 of… this is how I SEO every post. I was thrilled to see my January 2013 Photo a Day Challenge post do so well. (Which reminds me… using backlinks within your own posts is also a good way to utilize SEO). I hope that you were able to at least get a little help from this quick tutorial. My post on Tuesday generated a almost a half a month’s worth of traffic and the best part? Over half was organic traffic from search engines!
About Staci
I am on blogger so it’s more challenging. Plus, it’s all greek to me. lol What’s an H2 tag? alt tag on image?
shelly recently posted..What a Difference a Year Makes! {Wordless Wednesday}
The H2 tag would be your heading tags. There are actually several… H1 through to H6 (each different sizes). Breaking your post up and including subtitles (as I id above) is more appeasing to the eyes. Plus, with each subtitle you can use another keyword phrase and incorporate it into your following text.
The alt tag should be found on your images. I have not used Blogger in a while so am unsure how the current images are set to work… but you can check the html. You should see something like this < in brackets >: img src=”http://yourURL/images/yourimg.jpg” alt=”keyword here”
There may also be a title tag and you can add the keyword there as well. Please let me know if you have more questions or if I can assist more. I am willing to try.
I have headway on my blog and it comes with an SEO thing but i have NO idea how to use it
I am unfamiliar with Headway. If you have the ability to add plugins I would highly suggest Yoast SEO. I even read through a great tutorial on setting it up this past week that you can find here for additional help: http://www.kernmedia.com/guide-to-wordpress-seo-plugin-yoast/
I am sorry I am unable to assist with Headway. :/
Thank-you so much for sharing! I know I need to work on a few things still and always appreciate others sharing what works for them!
The Frugal Greenish Mama recently posted..January Photo A Day Challenge “Home” (Day 3) #7SDDphotoaday
I am still working on improving it everyday… but thought I could at least share what I have found to work.
Thanks for these great tips. I just started using Yoast SEO last week. I love your idea of finding the Google longtail (I’d never known what to call that before, LOL). I’m going to try that with my next blog post!
Nicole B recently posted..Coconut Oil Beauty Uses + Make at Home Whipped Coconut Oil Butter
I have learned a few things along the way and was not sure what that meant at all when I was taught. But, once you start going you will find they come very naturally. My husband often laughs as I stare at a blank post because he knows I am trying to come up with a keyword-rich title.
Simply think of what you want your readers to search to find the post you are writing. Type a few words into Google and see what pops up!
Twitter: ChicnSavvy
says:
You are a peach a real peach!! I added the SEO Yoast plugin and stuff but I have been struggling to figure out how to exactly utilize it!! Definetly taking your how-to and using it!!
Great way to start the New Year off!!
Kelsey Apley recently posted..Canon SX150 14.1MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Zoom Only $99 (Save $100!!)
Yay! Thank you and I hope it helps! I added the link in a comment above to a great tutorial on setting up Yoast SEO for best optimization. I hope you start seeing some return on it soon!
Twitter: JanetGoingCrazy
says:
You finally did the post, yay! I have been using your advice since you posted it on facebook, but is always nice to have a bookmark to refer back!
The other NG’s insisted when my photo a day post went crazy on the day it posted.
thanks for the info… i’m thinking about starting a blog… I know there’s lots of hard work involved, and today is not like the BBS I ran over 20 years ago, back when it was all modems and phone lines, and no internet
Very informative article, thanks for posting!
Great tips! Thank you for posting this
Staci, this is so helpful, thank you! By H2 you mean the headline right?
Yes… and I use H2 where as I know others may use their other heading tags. Thus, I say H2 by default.
Thank you for the tips. I have heard about SEO, but no idea what to do. I went and put on Yoast immeidately.
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Twitter: kellystilwell
says:
This is so helpful to me! Thank you for taking the time to write it!