Whether you’re new to blogging or have been writing for many months or years, you likely know the importance of search engine optimization. A lot has been said about SEO and when it comes to blogging you’ll want to employ the top strategies for your own blog. We’ll take a look at six strategies here and how you can implement each one.
1. Write enriching content — Yes, content is king when it comes to the Internet, not just blogs. The more, the merrier…right? Well, yes and no. Quantity should never supplant quality when writing your blog posts. Every article you write should be factual, interesting and engaging — always avoid filler material and give people what they want and then some.
That means researching your stories, interviewing people, fact checking and referencing the appropriate sources. If this sounds a lot like journalism, you nailed it!
2. Serve up knock-out headlines — Figure that your readers have an attention span of nearly zero. That means you must catch their attention and hold it as they fly by.
One surefire way to win the attention-getting battle is serve up headlines that are magnetic. You know, the ones that scream — “7 Proven Ways to Lose 30 Lbs. In 1 Month” or “How to Make Money From Dead People” — strategies that Copyblogger can help you successfully employ.
3. Serve up the keywords with care — Keyword stuffing is stupid and shallow, but you still must make good use of those keywords that are important to your site. Come to think of it “SEO Strategies” in this article’s headline is one example used here. Use keywords in your headlines, in your text and in your headings.
The safe formula for keyword usage is open to debate, but you should be okay if your keywords are used no more than once for every 100 words. But, go beyond the obvious keywords and use similar phrases. Make use of Google’s AdWord Keyword Tool to find the variations that you seek. For instance, when I plug in “SEO Strategies” Google returns several words and phrases including “optimization SEO” and “SEO software” and “marketing SEO” to name just a few.
4. Link to your relevant articles — Have you ever written an article and realize that it is related to another article you wrote weeks or months ago? Besides referencing outside sources, you’ll want to link to your best articles to direct your readers.
Linking to other articles can be accomplished within the body of the article, at the end of the article in your resources or references section or in your blog’s sidebar as a way to highlight a certain story. Consider using an automatic internal linking tool such as “Keyword Strategy Internal Links” to connect your related articles. This WordPress plugin can help make your site shine.
5. Link bait to receive back links — Building a linking strategy is essential to good SEO. You can’t buy links (or at least you shouldn’t) and link trades just don’t work out. If there was only some way to get people to link to your articles.
Well, if you have our first point nailed down, then you’re already writing the content that people admire. You should also be employing link bait, a strategy whereby you link to a related site and you “call out” that person to get his attention. Most webmasters know when someone is talking about them because they have set up Google Alerts to identify their name amongst the noise. Your shout out should be related to your article — don’t expect Darren Rowse, Andy Beal, Danny Sullivan or Rand Fishkin to pay you much attention just for mentioning their names in your article. On the other hand, if you write spectacular content, you may find your article mentioned on one of these high-profile sites.
6. Word of mouth — If you succeed with the first five points of SEO strategizing, the sixth point will come naturally. And that is “word of mouth” sharing of who you are among bloggers. These successful types nail the SEO strategies and make a name for themselves in their niche.
Such bloggers add in quality photos to their articles with the appropriate captions. They’re well-versed in making infographics and make use of podcasts and YouTube. These individuals may attend the top conferences in their niche and be called on to speak. They have a strong Twitter presence, a sizable Facebook following and may be a top LinkedIn user. In other words, they not only understand the strategies, but people flock to them for guidance.
SEO Considerations
Look at this article as just a primer in implementing your own SEO blogging strategies. You need to keep pace with the search engine changes especially with Google, controller of 70 percent of all search. Rules are regularly refined although these essentials are proven tips that Google and SEO experts alike agree on.