This is a guest post written by Kothapally Arun, who blogs at choosyinfo.com
Prior to being a Search Engine Optimizer at an iPhone App Development Company I was a blogger with limited knowledge of SEO. As a newbie blogger SEO used to baffle me and I was wondering whether I will need to consume all the big fat SEO books in order to do effective SEO for my blog. Fortunately, I have realized that a blogger need not learn so much of SEO. However knowing the SEO basics and being aware of the latest search industry news is very important.
Following tasks are a good way bloggers can get started with SEO –
<1. Keyword Research
Bloggers should have thorough understanding of keyword research as most of the blogs are content driven. A small keyword research before writing every blog post is essential if one is serious about getting traffic from search engines, you can try these tools to check keyword trends to make your research deeper.
Following are my favorite tools which bloggers can utilize
- Google suggest – Google Suggest gives one a good idea on what people are searching for.
- Google Related Searches – After you search for a particular keyword Google displays a list of related searches below the search results. Even this can be a good place to get keyword ideas for bloggers.
- Google Keyword Tool – Although primarily designed for adwords users, bloggers can use it to get keyword ideas along with rough figure of how many people are searching for a particular keyword.
2. Basic on Page SEO
Once basic keyword research is done it time to write content and make few changes to site with a right balance to satiate both search bots and users.
Do read – 10 Basic WordPress Settings for Effective SEO of your Blog
Following are few basic on page SEO factors bloggers should keep in mind.
- Make sure keywords are present in URL, META tags, META Description, Keywords in the starting few lines of a blog post and keyword rich category names. WordPress users may use All in One SEO pack for this purpose
- Smart internal linking – You may use SEO Smart Links plugin for this purpose.
- Flat Hierarchy – Place a link to your most popular blog post on the home page. This makes more PageRank flow in your important pages and increase rankings eventually.
- Create a XML Sitemap for your blog as this will help the bot crawl deep level pages.
3. Link and Community Building
Bloggers need not launch a traditional link building campaign, instead it is good to build links and community at the same time. Few simple link and community building tips for bloggers are
- Blog and Forum commenting.
- Guest Posting.
- Social Media Syndication.
- Building relationships with other bloggers.
4. Important SEO Tools
Following are the basic tools which are must for every blogger.
- Google Webmaster Tool – Get insights on your site back links, anchor texts, crawl problems, Geo targeting and more.
- Google Analytics – The best free analytics tool to check your site traffic sources and other useful stats.
All the above points can help bloggers get started with SEO. Please share other basic SEO tips which you know in the comments below.
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Authors bio is coming up shortly.
Very good even though this is simple basics it’s what get the JOBs done corectly.. some times people think there is some thing special for SEO but truly it’s all about the BASICS.. Thanks for the share! @STRAIGHTALK
Norman Flecha
STRAIGHT TALK
Thanks Norman flecha
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Adding alternate text to images is one of the most important and useful SEO tips I’ve ever been through. It works incredibly great for me. On some terms/keywords, my blog gets on the first page of Google Image Search Result Page.
Good post, though.
Sajib´s last blog ..10 Tips for Setting Up the Perfect Home Office for Bloggers
But Traffic from image search is always waste for a tech blogs
good post for new bloggers….
ajeet@ Make Money Online´s last blog ..Neobux Review Its Scam or Legit and Pays
A basic guide to SEO for bloggers…
Prior to being a Search Engine Optimizer at an iPhone App Development Company I was a blogger with limited knowledge of SEO. As a newbie blogger SEO used to baffle me and I was wondering whether I wil……
This is good, i lay a lot of emphasis on creating quality content and then get its SEO done well.
Rakesh @ Wizard Journal´s last blog ..Top 5 Web Browsers for Windows 7-XP-Vista OS
Though quality of article is first, we need to do some SEO tweaks for bots to get good rankings
Nice post about seo! Some great points here.
!
Keyword research is very important
Thanks for sharing! Great work!
Devesh@Blokube´s last blog ..11 Best WordPress Tutorial Blogs
Very good points about basic SEO, i think good quality content and backlinks are 2 important factors
hidehow´s last blog ..How To Change Feedburner Email Subscription Senders
thanks for sharing this beginner guide. i like to add why everyone fears of the word SEO, it is nothing just do your work and everything will come to your way??
Vivek Parmar´s last blog ..Make Money By Author Advertising WordPress Plugin
Nice write up Arun, and I also suggest another analytics tool called performancing metrics, I earlier used sitemeter with google analytics, but later removed sitemeter and install performancing metrics, it has quite good features for tracking your visitors.
Ramkumar´s last blog ..Samsung Wave
Commenting in my blog after a long time, Welcome bro
Thanks for the guide! I will try the “SEO Smart Links” plugin
Nice Guide Arun…quite Basic SEO tips…will give them a try…
Rohit Batra´s last blog ..HowStuffWorks App for iPod Touch 4G
Very well written Arun
Salman @ Tech Crates´s last blog ..Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 mini – Review
nice post lovd it
vishnu´s last blog ..dbpoweramp converter R14
Keyword Research is a prerequisite to your content being found. Social Networking sites do drive traffic to your content however; Search is still the predominant method for Internet users to find the services and information they require online. Keyword Research is fundamental to the development of relevant content. Keywords are an indication of the topic and are used by Search Engines to determine the relevance of the web page to Searchers queries.
Prince Zermic´s last blog ..