SEO Tips | Internet Marketing for Small Business

How to Do SEO Optimization for Blog Posts

Image via Wikipedia

SEO optimization of blog posts is critical in gaining large volumes of traffic to a web site. Imagine being on the first page of Google for a term.. it certainly does bring more visitors your way. In 55% of cases, Google users will click on the first line of search results returned.

Today I want to show you search engine optimization for blog posts. I use WordPress for my blog, so we will use that as the model. WordPress is a very popular and easy to customise blogging tool.

Step 1 : Make a list of relevant seo keywords

To do this we are going to go to the Google keyword tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and enter the seo keyword that you will be basing your blog post around. For this example we will use :

blog post seo optimization

Now make a note of the related keywords that are returned, as we will be using these sprinkled throughout the blog post.

Step 2 : Write your blog post

Write a blog post that your readers will find informative and educational. Sprinkle your seo keywords in a way that will make your post easy to read and interesting for the human being.

Step 3 : Use these SEO techniques:

Use a list of related seo keywords that you can then go back and create blog posts for (I have done this at the bottom of this post as an example). This will encourage your visitors to stay on the site for longer, and will provide them with more information
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add the main seo keyword to your blog post title and use it 3 or 4 times throughout the post if you can without making the post sound too wooden and unnatural. Some people overdo their SEO optimization on blog posts.. and it just reads in a way that is not human friendly at all
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Use h2 headings with related seo keywords as Google looks at this when it decides how to rank pages
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Link out to authority sites such as Wikipedia or sites ending in the .edu, .org and .gov when possible and this will make the site more authoritarian in the eyes of Google. Let’s not forget that we need to do what Google loves so that it gives us kudos for our page and rewards us with a strong seo positioning on the search engine results page.
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And you need to do this too:

Add an educational video from YouTube that is relevant and useful. Use it to demonstrate your point or add something extra to your post that will educate and inform your readers. They are easy to insert, just use the embed code provided next to the video on YouTube to the html of your post.
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Here is a video that I found about Zemanta WordPress Plug-In – you don’t always have to post a video – but it can liven up the post.

In addition to using my own royalty free images, I use some from Zemanta WordPress Plug-in which suggests media images that are related to whichever topic you are writing about. The images usually come from flickr and other sites that allow reuse of them and there is a link back to the original site. Using photos and video make the post more interesting and interactive for your readers.
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Change the image title and the alt tag on the image properties to your main seo keywords
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create your post in small paragraphs so that your readers can easily scan the post – as this how humans prefer to read online
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add bold to your words where it makes sense to break up the text further and for the readers to easily pick out the succinct points
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Add your blog post to the right categories and assign tags
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use All-in-One SEO Pack Plug-in and create a description and add related keywords too
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Step 4 : Publish the post

Then use social bookmarking and social media to distribute links to your post. Write an article and link back to your site..

Remember that by using Google Analytics you can understand more about what types of blog posts and seo techniques are working well on your site. You can also see where visitors have come from and which links they use to leave, how long they spend on your site etc and it will tell you how you are doing with your seo and whether your optimization on your blog post is up to scratch.
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In future seo blog posts I will cover:

how to optimize a website for improved local search engine results
how to seo optimize images
how to select seo keywords
social bookmarking
how to use use social media profiles for your off site seo
how to use RSS to help your seo
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Is this how you seo optimization for your blog posts?

Local Search Engine Optimisation Essentials

Local search engine optimisation is quite a different kettle of fish to global. In this post I’m going to take you through what you need to consider when setting up your website to perform well with the search engines for local searches. You’ll need a slightly different SEO strategy and approach.

What NOT to do

Let’s start off with the things that you shouldn’t be doing:

Having an unhappy customer could well be to your detriment now. If you have any negative online reviews about your company, they could show up in the results when you are Googled. But if you have plenty of positive ones, then one or two unhappy customers could well be hidden under the mass of happy reviews.

If you have been using more than one name for your business, such as ‘Clarke’s Cakes’ in conjunction with ‘Clarke’s Bakery’ this could confuse Google and will spoil your search power.

Using different addresses or telephone nos. will also have the same result – your search power will be diluted. Wherever you are listed, be sure to put the same telephone no. Make it a local one too.. as then you will be tied into the local area. Keep all contact information consistent including addresses. PO Boxes are not great to use due to credibility issues with your online customers. A local street address is preferable.

What to do

You may have noticed that over the last year or two entering a local search in some cases brings up a Google Map - you need to get on this map. To do this, you need to claim your Google business listing. Not only can this get you into the no. 1 spot on the page when the map is shown, but you can get extra power to your site.

Be sure to put a “meta description” on your website’s homepage. This is what will show up under your website’s entry in the search engine results. If you are a bakery in San Mateo - then put that. Also put it on your website home page title field too and add the City or State while you there too. Think about other related keywords here too. You can reuse these in your local business directory listings too.

Think about your keywords here. You need to think hmm… bakery – that means you will need to concentrate on using the following:

cakes
bread
catering
donuts
birthday cakes.

It seems that not only is Google picking up on who is linking to you as a website, it is picking up on citations too. So if you are a bakery in San Mateo, it is searching through local information to see who has mentioned you and then giving your business extra power if you have been mentioned by other websites in San Mateo.

Reviews are important for you as a business. If there is an industry review site such as TripAdvisor for the travel industry, you need to really get your customers using that. The more reviews you have the better, and better still to get those coveted 5 star ones. Google will take into account the quantity and quality of reviews. So.. you could encourage your customers to leave reviews by supplying free internet access in exchange for a review on TripAdvisor from your hotel lobby area.

Customers just love credibility. They won’t just give their money to anybody. Google is taking this into consideration and those sites that have photographs and videos of their products or business premises are performing better than those who don’t.

As with all website, Google is still checking the age of the domain and is factoring that into it’s algorithm. If your domain is going to expire within the next year, then extend it for another 5. The longer the domain name is registered for the better, as Google is judging that to mean that you are not intending to disappear overnight. Many shortlived spam type websites will only invest in a domain for 1 year as they want to see if they can make money before investing anymore.

Another little tip is to add coupons for discounts on products too. There are plenty of sites now that will link back to you because you are offering coupons. Free link power!

Be sure to keep your address and telephone no. consistent. Google appears to be checking this before deciding on what order to bring up the search results. The telephone no. should be a local one preferably to tie your business into the local area.

Oh and by the way.. sorry for the lack of posts lately.. I took on a big consulting project and it’s been zapping my time. I’m doing my best to get back on the blogging program though.

How to Do SEO – 5 Useful Links for Beginners

As you can imagine in this business, my clients always like to know what to read on how to do SEO. Today I want to give you a list of links that will really set you up to be able to manage some of your own SEO on your site and off your site.

When I first learnt how to do SEO, it was from the infamous PotPieGirl and her product One Week Marketing. This is a marvellous product that provides a weekly action plan and all information required to dominate the front page of Google for your chosen keywords. Using PotPieGirl’s simple methods can result in a healthy income from marketing other people’s products or your own. This product taught me how to choose keywords, how to optimise a page and this brought about my first ever internet income and I highly recommend it.

But let’s get back to today’s post. Here are some links that give some SEO assistance, from how to benefit with your Fanpage to a general overview for those who are fairly new to all this.

1. Most businesses know by now that there is great value in creating a Facebook fan page for their business. However, not many know how to really make the most of it in the eyes of the search engine. Read about how to how to improve the SEO on your Facebook fanpage to really reap the rewards of having one.

2. Yoast.com has a great post on how to optimise your WordPress blog for SEO and covers how to optimise images, titles, what plugins to use etc.

3. Now this list of 79 tools and tips for every internet marketer might be a little over your head if you are new to SEO, but if you see something that interests you, take a look. SEO is such a huge topic that you need to read, read and read some more to really get on top of it. SEO gurus will be using these tools too.

4. Where to begin your SEO campaign gives pointers to new businesses who are looking for some signposts about where to start.

5. If you want to cover the Simple SEO Techniques then this Squidoo page gives a good overview.

Let me know how you get on.

Building Backlinks to .edu Blogs

Building backlinks to .edu blogs is one sure way to increase the ‘opinion’ that Google has of you when your site is crawled by the Google spiders. .edu sites have more of an authority value than a regular .com site, so not only will you get the kudos for having a backlink in the first place, it will be magnified by it being a .edu link. You want Google’s opinion of your site to be the best it can, so that you result better in search results.

Some SEO gurus even say that the value of one .edu backlink is worth 20 standard backlinks. Google is now apparently judging links on whether they are in the same niche, and if they are, then more value is given to the link. So today, I’m going to show you how to find .edu sites to link to in a particular niche. Not to mention, we haven’t covered any SEO at all on this blog yet.

So to attain some .edu backlinks you will need to follow this next section. Let’s start with an example: if your website is in the sporting niche, you would type the following into your google search area:

site:.edu blog sport

You can then view all the blogs that Google has with an .edu suffix in the sports niche. I then prefer to refine the results by clicking down the left hand side of the page on the option More search tools.

Then I select Past 24 hours so that I am presented with recently updated blogs. I don’t want the old blogs to post on, for one I don’t know if they are in operation anymore, and for two it could well mean that people are not moderating comments on those blogs anymore.

That’s another thing too, some of these comments areas will give you a ‘follow’ and some won’t. Having a mixture of ‘dofollows’ and ‘nofollows’ will aid your linking strategy.

So now, if you make relevant and interesting posts under any blog posts that you find that allow comments, you can benefit from the work by Google. Keep in mind that the IT departments of some of these education establishments are getting more savvy by the day, and they know that .edu is sought after backlink, so you really will have to write something that they will approve.

Good luck with it and let me know how you get on.