If you have any sort of online presence whether that be a website or blog you need to understand SEO. So what is SEO? Search engine optimisation (SEO) looks at increasing the visibility of a website/blog in a search engines with unpaid results ie. natural or organic. Basically making your content hit the first page in searches without paying. It’s the holy grail where all bloggers/website owners desire to be.
For some bloggers/businesses this will be super easy, my Dad for example restores and sells vintage Dinky Cars which is quite a niche market. He doesn’t have many competitors and through great copy, keywords, and blogging he soon hit the first page for the majority of search terms. Charlie Moo’s on the other hand sells party supplies which is a saturated market. For products like our handmade fabric party bags we rank high first page but for products like our Frozen party invites I’d hate to actually know what page we are on! This is much the same for bloggers those who have a niche and a target market will do better in SEO than those who blog about everything and have a wider target audience but one that might not be interested in every post they write.
Bloggers/website owners don’t want to have to pay companies to do their SEO for them so learning how to be an SEO ninja is a really useful skill. Here are 4 basic tips to get you started aimed at novice bloggers.
Top Tips For Developing SEO for Bloggers:
- Plugins: If you are using wordpress.org then having a plugin is a great resource. The aim is to set a keyword and have a green light for SEO, this is achieved through using said keyword, meta tags, descriptions, outbound links, and much more. Using a plugin, like Yoast, enables you to visually see that each post is green and therefore great for SEO this can be much harder to achieve yourself.
- Backlinks: When a site links back to yours this is known as a backlink. Backlinks are only good if they are natural. As a blogger you can increase your backlinks easily by 1) linking back to content you have already written. I try to link to at least one blog post. 2) Commenting on other blogs, especially those using comment luv. 3) Writing cracking content that people want to share!
- Developing A Social Media Presence: Social media is a great way to redirect traffic to your blog but we also looked before at how these profiles/updates can sometimes rank higher in searches than your actual blog content.
- Submit Your Site: Search engines – Google, Yahoo, Bing all have a facility for you to manually submit your site. Also look at blog directories such as Bloglovin, Teads.TV, AllTopBlogs, and GlobeofBlogs to name a few.
Being aware and planning SEO development should be part of your weekly to-do list. What top tips do you have for developing or what works well for your blog in terms of SEO?
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Hello Joanne,
Very Informative Post! I believe social media and blog commenting is very important part of SEO! A lot of people get caught up in “creating content,” but don’t necessarily realize that these things are part of that creation process.
Another thing we need to do as part of our ongoing SEO is to submit our content to Google plus and and other blogging communities. The more eyeballs who see it, the more likely it is to get linked to. Always a good thing.
Worli recently posted..Top 10 Social Media Sites List
I think it’s important to keep revisiting SEO as it does change over time.
Erica Price recently posted..Brewers Fayre Daytime Value
Great tips – I have no idea about SEO but I really should get my head around it!
Cass@frugalfamily recently posted..Days out: RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Visitor Centre….
Great tips – I really need to get on top of SEO!!
I think that bloggers are naturally really good at SEO. It is often the way that the instinctively write.
Jen aka Muminthemadhouse recently posted..Create your ultimate super hero and win!
The only reason I know about SEO is because of you lol
Kara recently posted..Project 365 2015 – Week 38
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Hehe thank you x
I think I’m always going to lose at SEO! I don’t have any plugins for my site and I write a lot of recipes of which the television food channels always rank highly.
Ness @ JibberJabberUK recently posted..Sunday Snap – The inventor of Rugby
I’ve been dabbling with SEO since I first starting building websites 10 years ago – so many things have changed, and continue to change! It’s important to stay on top of it – great set of tips!
Michelle recently posted..Family Days Out: All Year Round Winners
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So true! Online marketing changes so rapidly! It’s hard to keep up!
Brill post Joanne, i must admit i am a total fan of the SEO plugin Yeost its opened my eyes right up to ensuring i cover all the elements instead of ignoring them
Jaime Oliver recently posted..Comment on Magic Moments 21/9/15 by Coombemill
Great post! I’m a fan of getting SEO right although sometimes it doesn’t quite work the way you want it to. Working for an SEO agency helped me, that and Yeost 🙂
Charly Dove recently posted..What’s The Story? | 21st September 2015
A great post. I think a good social media is just as important as good seo for getting content shared and seen
Clare aka Emmy’s Mummy recently posted..It’s the time for new skills – Learning to ride without stabilisers
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So true I think you need to have a good balance of both. I think blogging is a case of sowing your oats everywhere rather than having all your eggs in one basket!
Very helpful tips, I would love to do a SEO course,among so many other things, in order to improve my blog!xx
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