Finding the Perfect Keywords to Optimize Your Blog

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The most important part of optimizing your blog for the search engines is deciding on the right keywords. Good search engine optimization requires a set plan, and picking specific keywords for your blog as a whole and for individual blog posts will give you direction as you try to promote yourself.

So what is a “keyword”? It’s a word, phrase, or sentence that you predict people will search for using Google, social media, or some other search engine. But it’s not as simple as choosing keywords you think will attract an audience – as a blogger, you need to know the exact wording that Internet surfers are using. You need to know which keywords are stronger than others. And you need to know what your competition is.

Finding Keywords

There are lots of tools online that will help you determine the optimal keywords you need to use. Some of them are free, and some of them will cost you. If you are a beginning blogger, hold off on paying for any kind of service.

Start out with Google Trends and remember this tool forever! Google Trends will tell you the top Google searches done each day, which can be great inspiration if you want to write about current events in the future. It will also help you compare interest over time for any keywords you type into the search bar. I avoid using phrases or words that have been on the downward slope for over six months or are currently below 50 (the graph uses a scale of 1-100, with one being the lowest, to gauge interest).

Wordtracker is another tool that helps to measure the interest in a particular keyword, but it will also give you related phrases. This can help you to determine the exact phrasing you should use.

Search through hashtags and trending posts on social media to see what is popular there. Keep in mind that the results will be different on every social media outlet, but that shouldn’t deter you from using what is popular.

If you already have a blog, use your analytics to help with future posts. Analytics tell you the phrases that have directed visitors to your blog. It can also tell you what your visitors are interested in reading about.

Finally, do a simple Google search. Research the query results – these websites are your competition. Don’t underestimate what you can learn from your rivals’ success.

Choosing Perfect Keywords

The best keywords to use for posts are longer phrases. Try doing a Google search for one word, such as “rabbits.” Your search results will include news, movies, humorous websites, and thousands of other results you don’t care about. Searching for “how to buy a rabbit” gets you much more valuable information, such as “10 Things You Should Know Before Buying a Rabbit.”

The generic one-word keyword is terrible on its own, but does well when part of a question or answering phrase.

There’s a delicate balance between choosing keywords that are too popular and not popular enough. You want to ride on the coattails of a popular trend, but you also don’t want to get lost in the crowd. Whichever way you choose to go is up to you.

Where to Use Keywords

Keywords are necessary for your site as a whole, as well as individual blog posts. But be careful – too many and you will be flagged by Google as a spam site. A good rule of thumb is to only use your keywords three times in one blog entry, with one of those times being in the title.

That rule can be transferred to the rest of your blog, especially towards individual pages, but there is a little more leeway depending on how much content you have.

Good luck, and happy keyword hunting!

Sources:

Gabbert, Elisa. “How to Target Keywords with Blog Posts.”http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2010/07/21/blog-keyword-targeting#.. (1 Oct. 2013).

Wang, Andrew. “How to Perform Keyword Research for Your Blog.”http://blogsuccessjournal.com/seo-search-engine-optimization/tags-keyword-analysis/how-to-perform-keyword-research-for-your-blog-2/. (1 Oct. 2013).

10 WordPress Plugins to Make Your SEO a Slam Dunk

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One of the biggest benefits of using WordPress as your CMS is the plethora of plugins available to optimize your blogging experience. Plugins can help add cool new features to your blog, simplify SEO, and make blogging easier for you. Unfortunately, the large amount of plugins available also means that many of them will turn out to be duds. Plugins work kind of like smart phone apps in the Apple Store or Google Play – anyone can create one. Many experienced bloggers have written their own reviews of their favorite plugins to help guide you, but you can also use the rating system attached to each plugin.

If you’re looking for plugins to help with your blog’s SEO, look no further! We’ve tried out the best and worst and come up with a list of WordPress plugins for SEO that every blogger needs:

  1. Google XML Sitemaps – Having this plugin will better help search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com index your blog.
  2. WordPress SEO by Yoast – This plugin is a freemium that helps you with the technical side of SEO, such as Meta content, XML sitemaps, page analysis, RSS optimization, and more. It also includes some social media functionality. This plugin has an incredibly high score among WordPress users: rated 4.7 out of 5 stars.
  3. Free Guest Post – The Free Guest Post plugin accompanies the related website that connects writers and publishers for guest posting opportunities. Normally, finding a guest posting tradeoff can be very difficult and time-consuming. This plugin eliminates all of the usual stress involved in this process, as well as some of the Google penalties.
  4. Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin – If you’ve deleted a page or post without creating a redirect for it, Google will find these broken links and punish your page for them. This plugin helps you easily find and redirect those URLs, steering you clear of Google’s SEO penalties.
  5. All In One SEO Pack – The All In One Pack is similar to SEO by Yoast, but better for beginners and ecommerce WordPress sites. It automatically generates Meta data, titles, and keywords for you, but also has the option for you to fill them in manually.
  6. Automatic SEO Links – This plugin makes it so you no longer have to manually insert links. All you have to do is select a word and a URL.
  7. SEO Rank Reporter  – Every three days, this plugin will track your Google rankings and report the information back to you.
  8. NoFollow Links – Not every one of your links should be followed by Google’s spiders. This plugin adds the “nofollow” to the rel attribute of your link.
  9. Broken Link Checker – This plugin is similar to the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin, except it focuses more on finding the broken links. It also has the option of preventing search engines from following a broken link, keeping you safe from Google penalties.
  10. Google Plus Authorship – Using Google+ Authorship connects your Google+ account to your blog posts, giving you credit as the author. When your blog post shows up in a Google search result, your picture and author profile will show up alongside it, making it more appealing and earning more clicks. Google also favors those with an authorship account, which will only improve your SEO.

What are some of your favorite WordPress plugins? We’d love to hear!

Why Bloggers Need Google+

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It’s no secret that Google+ lags behind Facebook in popularity. As a blogger, you know that you will have more success gaining followers on Facebook than Google+. However, many don’t know that Google+ can drastically help your SEO. It makes sense – Google runs Google+, so it gives more SEO weight to that social network than any other. So if you haven’t yet, you need to start a Google+ account.

How Can Google+ Help My SEO?

+1 – Blog posts that are +1ed on Google+ are given more SEO weight. Those posts will come up higher in the search results than those that are not. This is true without personalization of search results, but is even truer with the personalization.

Personalization – When Google users are logged into their account, the search results for their queries are personalized. Instead of getting content that Google believes is most relevant for everyone, the user receives content that Google believes is most relevant specifically for them. +1s can impact this. For example, if a fan +1s one of your blog posts, the rest of your content is deemed more relevant to them by Google. Your blog is more likely to come up higher on their personalized search results. But it doesn’t stop there – it’s also more likely to come up higher on the search results of any of that fan’s friends.

Custom URLs – Google+ is offering customized URLs to some businesses. One of the times you log into your account, Google will give you the option. Change your URL to your blog name and you should see an increase in organic traffic. Google has not officially stated that custom URLs will give your account more SEO weight, but it’s likely that will be the case in the future. Regardless, having your name in your URL should still give you a push.

Authorship – Google Authorship has been in place for a few years. Connecting your Google+ account to any articles, guest posts, and blog posts you write will improve search results: your picture, a link to your Google+ account, the number of Google+ circles you are a part of, and a link to more search results written by you will show up along with your article. This makes your post more appealing to Google users, but also makes you a more credible expert to Google. The more your articles are +1ed, the more SEO weight you will have as an author.

Social Media Optimization – There’s a strong correlation between having lots of social media followers and better SEO. This is mainly because your fans will do a lot of great legwork for you: they will share your posts on their social media accounts or other places. These backlinks definitely help your SEO. Google+ is another social media outlet that you can add to your repertoire.

What are you waiting for? Start improving your SEO with a Google+ account ASAP!

After you start your Google+ account, link to it in your FreeGuestPost profile and author biography. Connecting your FreeGuestPost account and your Google Authorship account will help to make you a more credible source for Google, improving the SEO of any website that publishes your articles. Including it will make it easier for publishers to find out more about you as an author. More publishers will request your work if they know that you are a real person, a qualified writer, and you have SEO weight with Google Authorship.

Sources:

Enge, Eric. “Google+ & SEO: How Google+ Impacts Search Results.”http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2307518/Google-SEO-How-Google-Impacts-Search-Results. (18 Nov. 2013).

Bogar, Colin. “Google Plus rolls out custom URLs: a win for boosting organic search results?”http://www.inman.com/next/google-plus-rolls-out-custom-urls-an-opportunity-to-increase-organic-search-results/. (18 Nov. 2013).

Stadd, Allison. “The Relationship Between SEO And Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC].”http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/seo-social-media-infographic_b46544. (18 Nov. 2013).

Five Tips for More Effective Blogger Outreach

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Blogger Outreach

Whether your blog is for commercial or personal purposes, business or pleasure, outreach to other bloggers is essential for building your readership and making lasting connections within the industry. Guest blogging can be a challenging and rewarding way to reach new readers and maintain relationships with like-minded individuals. These five tips will help lead you to more effective blogger outreach campaign.

1. Know your Targets

You may have some bloggers in mind already that have amazing blogs which you read daily, but finding bloggers that have a similar audience is the most important step in blogger outreach. Sketch out what your ideal blogger would look like if you had your choice. Decide what niche topics and broader topics you would like to write about and find bloggers in those areas. Websites like Technorati, BlogCatalog, and Alexa can be helpful in finding bloggers with a large audience that may cater to similar readers.

2. Be Genuine and Explain Your Purpose

Many larger blogs have experience with guest posting and solicitations of guest posting. Most blogs will have guidelines already established for guest posts. Make sure to read these guidelines carefully and follow them when sending correspondence or writing guest posts. Make sure that those you are reaching out to understand that your work will be totally original, and is not meant to be self-promotional. If their readers log on to read their work and find yours, the least you can do avoid making a commercial for your blog.

3. Build a Good Rapport

Remember that other bloggers are probably a lot like you. They will be able to see through attempts to stroke their ego just to get a spot on their blog. This is especially true if they have a particularly large audience and receive many requests for guest posts. They also know that your guest post will be more beneficial for you than it will be for them, so try and allow your writing to speak for itself.

4. Bring Your Best Material

If you write a sub-par article on your blog, you are going to be given a little more slack by your regular readers who are used to being thoroughly entertained by your words. First impressions are important and any writing done as a guest blogger needs to be top notch. Make sure you are bringing the best you’ve got. You want to give people a reason to come look over your permanent blogging home.

5. Maintain Relationships

Even after you have submitted and posted as a guest blogger, make sure to maintain those relationships. You never know when connections might start to pay off. While a guest post may help drive traffic to your site, it could also create opportunities for you in other ways in the future.

Hopefully these tips can assist in helping to build a strong network for you and other bloggers. Bringing readers of similar interests together is the goal behind most blogs. Hopefully collaboration using these tips can help to strengthen the community you are helping to build.

SEO Isn’t Dead and Here’s Why

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What follows the headline “SEO is dead!”? Usually a click, and that’s why people use that claim in their article headlines. They know they’ll get clicks by scaring people. When you see such a loaded claim, the obvious, knee-jerk response is to say, “There’s no way! Without SEO, what will I do now to make my website visible?” And then you read on to find out how to protect and ensure the success of your website.

One blogger argues that not only is this claim inaccurate, but the articles that follow it are surface level sensationalism at its most dangerous. Bad advice that eliminates good SEO strategies can lead people to make poor decisions for their websites that can hurt their ranking, and consequently, their chances for success.

The Timeless Definition of SEO

As long as there is information online, there will be a way to search for it. And as long as there is a way to search for it, there will be a reason to optimize said content for more efficient and effective searchability.

And that’s what search engine optimization is: the process of refining content for optimal visibility online. This “refining” process is where SEOs (search engine optimizers) come in. They are responsible for navigating and deploying the correct practices that will help a website appeal to a search engine’s defined yet evolving algorithms.

Kristine Schachinger of SearchEngineWatch.com gives two rule-of-thumb questions to consider every time you’re confronted with a claim that SEO is dead.

  1. “Is there still a search engine that seeks out and returns content to a user based on words they enter through text or voice input?”
  2. “Are these results based on programming, algorithms, and math?”

If the answer to these two questions is yes, there will always be a reason to continue employing SEO and you’ll be wise to keep yourself in tune with the current state your favorite search engine’s algorithms.

A False Accusation

Those that say SEO is dead also make sweeping claims against SEOs, lumping legitimate SEOs in with the spammers with unfair generalizations. It’s been called an “industry full of promises,” but Kristine clarifies that true SEOs “give Google what they want—sites that are good for users, guided by Google’s guidelines.”

A true search engine optimizer isn’t a proponent of “blackhat tricks,” because they know that the results won from those tricks won’t last. True SEOs understand that Google’s algorithms are constantly shifting in order to provide the end user a better and more accurate search experience.

If a website owner understands Google’s motive and the implications of each algorithm change, then they will be on top of making content and design strategies that will best appeal to those algorithms, and will see a boost in ranking and traffic as a result. A knowledgeable SEO acts as the consultant, or spokesperson, for Google in relaying those practices and strategies that will yield the desired results.

What content and design decisions have you made that were influenced by Google’s changing algorithms?

Sources

Schachinger, Kristine. “Is SEO dead? Nooooooo!” http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2358557/Is-SEO-Dead-NOOOOOOO?utm_term=&utm_content=Is%20SEO%20Dead%3F%20NOOOOOOO!&utm_campaign=08%2F04%2F14%20-%20SEW%20Daily&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Daily (August 18, 2014.)

Google Cracks Down on Guest Posting Scams

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Google has become even stricter when it comes to guest posting for blogs. With so many spammers infiltrating genuine guest posts, Google was forced to take a stand. Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google, recently explained why penalizing shallow guest posting was necessary in a YouTube video: too many are trying to take advantage of guest posting by offering the same post to multiple publishers; offering similar posts with only a very slightly different spin to multiple publishers; and only writing the 300 minimum amount of words.

New guidelines were added in order to warn against “link schemes.” Backlinks that attempt to manipulate PageRank or SEO standing is a violation against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This will hurt both the writer and the publisher of anything that qualifies as a link scheme. The guidelines can be found here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en.

What Does This Mean for FreeGuestPost.com?

FreeGuestPost is unique in that it guarantees more safety for writers and publishers against Google’s punishments than organic guest posting. Many of the violations to Google’s guidelines are impossible for FreeGuestPost users to carry out. Writers and publishers can only communicate through the website, limiting any opportunity to pay for articles or form partnerships for the sake of backlinks. FreeGuestPost also is not compatible with programs that automate link creations, another one of Google’s possible infringements.

FreeGuestPost.com encourages writers not to commit these infractions. Create genuine blog posts with thorough research and depth. Write more than the required 300 words. Don’t try to offer the same or similar blog posts more than once. Try to avoid including too many backlinks into one post. If you are worried about your backlinks being punished, make them no follow – this will allow readers to follow the link back to your source, but Google’s spiders will not follow them for SEO purposes.

Publishers should also be careful about what they chose to accept and post on their own blog. Only accept posts that are well thought out. Although it is not always easy to see who is an expert in what field, you can screen each individual post. A shallow post should be rejected. Make sure all writing that you publish is valuable – quality over quantity.

Should I Still Use Guest Posting to Improve My SEO Rankings?

Although Cutts was firm in his video, he was also very confident that guest posting is a valuable resource for bloggers, writers, and businesses. There may be more complications to guest posting with these new, stricter rules, but guest posting can still improve your SEO rankings, bring your writing to a broader audience, and introduce a new voice or expertise into your blog.

Soures:

“What is Google’s view on guest blogging for links?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMxC3wQZOyc. (16 Sept. 2013).

Grigg, Ally. “Guest Posting – How to Avoid Google’s Wrath.” http://www.5gbfree.com/blog/2013/09/16/guest-posting-how-to-avoid-googles-wrath/. (19 Sept. 2013).

Why Switch to a WordPress Website

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If you’re like the majority of website owners, your greatest hang-ups emerge when it’s time to make any type of update to your site. A section of content on your home page becomes outdated, and suddenly you find yourself at the mercy of your web designer or developer for something as simple as changing a few dates in some text, or swapping out a photo for another.

Not being able to manage the content on your own site is a huge stressor, time-drain, and expense for far too many site owners. Why? Well your options are pretty sparse:

  1. Learn HTML, FTP, and any number of other complicated protocols.
    You’ve entered your line of work for a specific reason: it’s what you wanted to do! Putting up a website is a necessary evil in achieving your actual dream. You don’t have the time or interest in becoming a web designer just so you can do business online.
  2. Hire someone who has gone to school for this stuff. Pay the big bucks for quality!
    It’s all too tempting to be lured into a contract with a web design/development company who promises you the world for just a few hundred dollars, but the fact is when it comes to web design, you will get what you pay for. A high functioning and performing website will cost you upwards of $1000.
  3. Switch to a dynamic, user-friendly platform.
    The learning curve is minimal. The platform is free. Making website updates becomes a matter of a few clicks.

The Fantastic Perks of Switching to WordPress

WordPress is a free content management system that is used worldwide by millions of site owners (it supports more than 60 million websites!), more than any other CMS or similar product. Why are people making the switch to WordPress from their static HTML sites?

  1. Easy peasy updates! WordPress isn’t just for bloggers. It allows you to make updates to content on your standard website pages as well. It’s an uncomplicated way to keep your site info updated and ready for consumption by all your potential customers.
  2. Increased flexibility! With access to hundreds of free and paid plugins and themes, you can customize the look and functionality of your site with ridiculous ease.
  3. Better SEO functions. As opposed to other CMSs, WordPress is predesigned to help you with your search engine optimization strategy. It’s already well positioned to draw in Google traffic.
  4. Easy one-to-one conversions. If you have an existing static site that you need switched over the WordPress, it’s only a matter of a few days and a couple hundred dollars to do it. Often this is a one-to-one conversion, where the WordPress version copies the original in look and functionality as closely as possible.
  5. Ease of programming. If you are making a fresh site from scratch, hiring a designer who is familiar with WordPress will be simple and (depending on the scope of your site) cost-effective, because of WordPress’s popularity.
  6. Awesome integration abilities! WordPress isn’t just the most popular choice for millions of website owners; it’s the number one option for third party software as well, such as email clients that have special features that integrate with WordPress.
  7. Affordability! Your expenses with WordPress are optional. Depending on the themes and plugins you choose, you’ll only be paying for hosting services and domain registration.
  8. Support and resources. There are countless resources out there that offer WordPress support and help, including tutorials and forums, whenever the need arises. It has an excellent community that proves to be an invaluable asset as a WordPress site owner.

The Only Reason Not to Make the Switch

You are utterly and completely happy with your website’s look, functionality, and the ease with which you can make even the simplest of updates. Oh yeah? Lucky you! If that’s the case, I wouldn’t recommend switching to WordPress. However, if you’re only kidding yourself, maybe now’s the time to admit it and jump on board.

What’s your biggest pet peeve about your site?

Sources

Padovani, Stephanie. “7 Reasons You Should Switch to WordPress.”http://www.bookmorebrides.com/7-reasons-you-should-switch-to-wordpress/. (September 5, 2014.)

5 Common SEO Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Were Making

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Successful website auditor Alan Schill recently wrote on areas of SEO that he’s noticed the majority of website owners neglecting to their own detriment. These are low-hanging fruits that you may even be ignoring as you strategize ways to optimize your site for the search engines. Take a look.

1. How heavily do you pepper your content with keywords?

Keyword stuffing is an archaic SEO trick that people still fall back on out of habit. It’s only a matter of time before Google penalizes these sites for being spammy. Google’s goal will forever be to favor high-quality websites over the ones that try to take the back door to the top of the rankings. If your website is about lawn care and you strive to populate your blog with lawn care related how-tos as well as stay on topic in all your other web copy, your keywords will appear naturally throughout your text. The result will be a website that looks natural to Google while relevant and informative to your guests.

2. Are your blog images at the top of your posts?

Because people like visual aids, blogs do better when there are images attached to them. And they do even better when those images are at the top of the post, not sprinkled around in the middle. Don’t neglect this simple technique to draw the eyes of your visitors to your posts.

3. Who’s Your Audience—Google or Your Web Visitor?

This one ties in perfectly with question #1. Think about it: why would an SEO professional write content for the search engine instead of the visitor? To game the search engines and get to the top of the rankings, of course. Why would they want to do that? Well, to make a pay check, because unless that SEO has stock in the company they’re SEOing for, they may not care what happens after the target audience clicks on the link. This should bother you. This should bother you a lot.

Remember, Google doesn’t like to be played and every algorithm change is designed to make it more and more difficult to play them. Your objective should be to educate your target audience and offer them valuable content and products. Do this, write for them, and you will begin to see conversions in the areas that matter—sales.

4. Are you linking to websites that Google likes?

If you’re making an effort to create a high quality site, don’t waste your outbound links on sites that Google would view as spammy or low quality. Your site is better than that and you don’t want to be tainted by association. It’s considered good practice to link out to at least one respected website per piece of content on your site. Links to sources count.

5. Are you interlinking between blog posts?

If you’re writing content relevant to your industry and target audience, your blog topics are going to relate and you will have plenty of opportunities to interlink between them. This gives an SEO boost to newly created pages, lowers bounce rates by keeping your readers exploring between pages, and increases the chances that those visitors will convert.If you haven’t done this, it’s not too late to go back to your old posts and find which ones flow naturally into each other.

What now?

How many of these errors sound familiar? Hopefully we’ve given you a good start on critically analyzing your current SEO methods and beginning the process of improvement. Good luck!

Source
Schill, Alan. “SEO 101: 18 Search Rankings & Engagement Factors You Can’t Ignore.”http://www.searchenginejournal.com/18-search-rankings-engagement-factors-you-cant-ignore/119638/. November 21, 2014.

3 SEO Truths All SEO Managers Should Remember

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SEO managers know that you can never get too comfortable. They’re a jumpy sort, hanging on Google’s every word and continuously adapting to ever-updating algorithm changes. It’s a lot of pressure, but in the midst of all the uncertainty, there are three universal truths that every SEO should remember as they continue plowing toward that number one spot in the rankings.

First, Mismanaged Expectations Will Ruin You
The first priority of any decent SEO professional should be to educate their client. There are so many definitions of SEO out there that depending on which one your client subscribes to, they’re either going to be thrilled with your services or deeply dissatisfied—and with the same results!

For example, a client may see increased organic traffic and subsequent leads, but they’re still upset because they expected more based on the amount of money they put into you. In this scenario, you may have succeeded by your estimation, but in the client’s eyes, you failed based on the expectations you failed to clarify. And if the client thinks you failed, you failed.

So how is this frustrating and potentially costly scenario avoided?

  1. Make sure you evaluate the data closely and set realistic numerical goals. If your client doesn’t have past data to scrutinize, draw on your experience with customers that have a similar profile. This will provide a baseline for your customer to latch onto, which they certainly will do. Remember that they will latch onto whatever estimated number you give them.
  2. Prepare education material for your customer at every level of the SEO process.
  3. Determine what’s most important to the client and report on that, and when you provide them with data, it’s absolutely critical that they understand what they’re looking at. That will depend on how well you’ve educated them.

Second, Resource Constraints are the Bane of an SEO’s Existence
Resource constraints can ruin an SEO endeavor, especially as you consider how many different departments factor into completing SEO initiatives: web dev, content, lead gen, social media, and more. If your budgets are limited in any of these, SEO-targeted projects can be road-blocked at multiple stages.

Techniques to avoid resource-related roadblocks:

  1. Inform yourself of the possible resource constraints ahead of time. Become familiar with the liberties and restrictions your client will have on those necessary departments, and how much access you will have to them too.
  2. You’re also going to have to make a list of priorities to follow to the letter. You and your client are a part of the creation of this list, discussing budget in relation to their needs and goals will help you determine which item should take priority over the rest and which should be put on hold until resources allow.
  3. Depending on your own resources, you may have some of the manpower to take much of the delegation aspect of SEO off of your client’s shoulders. In fact, that may be why they chose you as their SEO solution.

Third, Not Being Prepared for the Unexpected Will Hurt—A Lot

This just has to do with personnel changes, which happens frequently in our industry. When you lose clients for any number of reasons, here’s what you can do to salvage benefits from those relationships:

  1. End on the best note possible. Provide the info they need to transition to their new arrangement and request referrals if possible.
  2. Stay in touch too. In this highly connected world, there’s no reason not to stay connected over social networks.
  3. It will be hard not to take it personally when a client departs, but don’t. Learn what you can from the relationship and use what you’ve learned to perfect the next to come.

What have been the biggest roadblocks or lessons that you faced and learned as an SEO manager?

Source

Gillette, Casie. “3 Common Challenges Facing All SEO Managers.” http://searchengineland.com/3-common-challenges-facing-seo-managers-209308?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_content=scap&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonv6TOZKXonjHpfsX97uwrXaS%2FlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ATcdkM6%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7fHK816y9AQWxXm. (November 26, 2014.)

How to Optimize your Blog Posts for SEO

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SEO for Blogging

When you have a website or blog that represents your brand and business, optimizing it for SEO, also known as search engine optimization is highly recommended to find success online. Search engine optimization helps to improve your website’s overall visibility within search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and even Google to increase the number of visitors and page views your sit receives on a regular basis. Optimizing your blog for SEO purposes allows you to appear more professional while expanding your current viewing audience and potential followers or customers.

Using a CMS (Content Management System)

Launching a blog may seem overwhelming, especially when you are not familiar with programming or even coding in basic HTML and CSS. Using a free CMS (content management system) such as WordPress, Joomla or even Drupal is a way for you to create a professional website that can easily be optimized for SEO purposes. Systems such as WordPress are ideal for both individual bloggers as well as those who are looking to launch a website to represent a corporate business or entity. WordPress is highly-developed to incorporate SEO already, allowing you to launch any type of blog that can rise in the search engine rankings much quicker than a hand-coded website.

Selecting the Right Keywords

Conducting market research to find the most important and trending keywords in your industry is highly recommended before you begin to format your blog, add new posts or edit any titles and meta tags you choose to include. Understanding the most popular keywords in your niche and industry will help you with the format of your blog and the type of content you produce to attract a specific market of potential virtual followers and online consumers.

Proper Sub-Headings

Using sub-headings and bold headlines when you publish content including relevant keywords and phrases for your industry will help search engines to discover your website while adding your pages into the search engines themselves automatically. The more relevant your content is to the entire purpose of your website and its name, the easier it will become for others to locate your site when searching for the information you have published and posted.

Avoid Spamming Keywords

When you are attempting to optimize your blog for SEO purposes, avoid using the same keywords repeatedly within the content you publish. Adding keywords too frequently within a post can ultimately lead to getting “blacklisted”, or removed entirely from well-known search engines, ridding all potential traffic that could have been generated from the search engines’ results. Be sure to add keywords into your articles sparingly and only when they fit.

Meta Descriptions, Tags and Titles

It is also important to properly title your blog along with each piece of content you plan to publish online. Adding in meta descriptions, tags and titles can be done within the header file of your blog to ensure that your website is properly named and can be searched for using keywords you deem the most fitting. Implementing tags, keywords and titles can be done within minutes and will change how search engines pick up on your site.