SEO Opportunities

Some simple things bloggers can do to increase SEO with each published post.

Transcript

1. SEO Opportunities Best Practices when Blogging
2. Things to do Every Post
3. Broad Keyword Use in Page Title Add some form of your targeted keywords early in your <title> tag, preferably as one of the first words. Exact keywords are preferable. Optimal Format: <title>Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword - Brand</title> When search engines rank your page for a keyword, the <title> tag is the most important place for the keyword to appear. Use the exact keyword or phrase in your title to help search engines associate the page with a topic and/or set of terms. "Page titles are the most important place to put your keywords. A compelling title element that employs your targeted keyword wisely both helps your rank and earns you more clicks from searchers." Example: <title>WordPress Solutions, Tools and Resources for Better Marketing - web design POP, Ltd. Co.</title>
4. Keywords in Image Alt Attribute ALWAYS Add the targeted keywords to the alt attribute of a relevant image or graphic. If your page does not contain any images, consider adding one. Also make sure you have a descriptive title. Optimal Format <img src="image file" alt="keyword"> Example <img src="musgrove.png" alt="Michael Musgrove"> Why? Using keywords in the alt attribute of an image on a page is surprisingly positively correlated with good rankings. It also helps your page rank better in image search, a popular and oft-employed universal search system. It’s primarily an accessibility issue. Correctly describing your images using keywords also adds value for sight- impaired users who may be using a text reader app to browse the web.
5. Use Keywords in your URL Use your targeted keywords in the URL string of the page. Use hyphens to separate individual words for a multi-word phrase. The length preferably should be shorter than 75 characters and three subfolders. Optimal Format www.mysite.com/my-keyword-phrase Example vibrantnation.com/beginners-guide-to-fun Why? Use your targeted keywords in the URL string to add relevancy to your page for search engine rankings, help potential visitors identify the topic of your page from the URL, and provide SEO value when used as the anchor text of referring links. For multi-word phrases, hyphens allow the search engines to read the URL as separate words. • “Stop” words like a, the an, the should be removed from the slug. If Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin is installed, and it should be, it will do this automatically.
6. Optimal Use of Keywords in H1 Tags Use your targeted keywords at the beginning of your H1 headers once or twice (but not more) on the page. Optimal Format <h1>keywords in my headers</h1> Example <h1>The Vibrant Nation Blog</h1> Why? Although using targeted keywords in H1 tags on your page does not directly correlate to high rankings, it does appear to provide some slight value. It's also considered a best practice for accessibility and helps potential visitors determine your page's content, so we recommend it. Over-using keywords, however, can be perceived as keyword stuffing (a form of search engine spam) and can negatively impact rankings, so use keywords in H1 tags two or fewer times. To adhere to best practices in Google News and Bing News, headlines should contain the relevant keyword target and be treated with the same importance as title tags.
7. Easy on the Use of Tags Note that a tag in and of itself does not improve your SEO. The only way it improves your SEO is by relating one piece of content to another, and more specifically a group of posts to each other.