SEO is definitely essential for marketers, although it could be very difficult to master with the various changes in Google’s algorithm. If you are planning on starting a blog, then you could be faced with the challenge of incorporating SEO into it. There are a lot of important points which you should consider when optimizing your blog for the search engines. This post will provide you with a few essential optimization tricks which you can consider.
1. Make use of long-tail keywords
In a blog post, it is important to consider not putting in lots of keywords in it. Rather, you should focus on using around 1-2 keywords for each post. There are two reasons why you should limit your keywords in one post. First, search engines tend to penalize posts which seem to use keywords too many times. And second, it allows you to focus on a particular goal for your post.
The use of long-tail keywords is more efficient since visitors tend to search for long-tail terms. In other words, you can be able to generate traffic to your site and convert your visitors into sales through long-tail keywords.
2. Use a responsive website design
Blogs which have a responsive design will conform to any screen size regardless of the device used. This means that your site format will remain the same whether you are reading your blog via a smartphone, desktop or any other mobile device. One of the reasons why it is important to have a responsive website design is that it allows you to create on the URL. This would help your SEO since any inbound links which return to your site won’t get scattered around various domains. Any SEO power which you could get from these links will be centralized, thus helping both Google and your SEO ranking.
3. Make use of internal linking
Inbound links to your blog posts are essential since they help show the search engines, how valid or relevant your content is. This goes the same with linking internally to the other pages of your blog. For example, if you have written about a topic which has been mentioned in another blog post or page, then you should link to that page. It does not only help in retaining your visitors, it also allows you to demonstrate your blog’s relevant pages to the search engines.
4. Use canonical tags
Most SEO experts would tell you to avoid duplicating your website’s content. However, there are some cases in which you need to display information in several ways in order to help your visitors navigate your site. In such a case when you have duplicate content on your blog, but need to keep both of them alive, then using canonical tags will help you.
Canonical tags tend to tell the search engines which page to index and which not to. By providing them with such information, you can ensure that your content will not get penalized for appearing more than once somewhere on your blog. It even makes it possible for search engines to link to the appropriate resource.
5. Take advantage of image optimization
Your blog posts should not only contain text, it should also have images which define the content you are writing. However, search engines don’t normally look for images – they look for images with alt text instead. It is possible to find out an image’s alt text by simply hovering over it. A small box would appear which will describe your image, thus essentially helping search engines to interpret its meaning. You might think of an alt text as an interpreter for search engines, and since search engines aren’t able to interpret an image alone, it just makes sense to insert it with an alt text to explain it.
6. Refrain from using too many tags
While it’s true that topic tags can help in organizing your blog’s content, overusing them can actually do more harm than good. If you have plenty of similar tags, you might actually get penalized for having duplicate content.
If you use too many similar tags for a single content, then search engines would think that you are showing the content several times all over your website. For example, topic tags such as “blog” and “blogging” are too similar to be used in the same post.
If you think you have used too many similar tags on a single blog post, then you should start cleaning them up. It would be ideal to choose around 15-25 which is important to your company and are unique from each other. Afterwards, consider tagging your posts with the use of those keywords. That way, you no longer have to worry about having duplicate content.
Making your blog SEO-friendly might prove to be challenging if you don’t have any idea how to. By considering these tips, you can surely achieve an optimized blog without having to worry about getting penalized.
About Author: Vishal is the founder of WebyGeeks, a digital marketing and premier search engine company offering SEO, web design, web development and PPC services. Vishal has wide knowledge and 7 years of experience in the field of search engine optimization, ppc campaigns, internet marketing, conversion optimization and web development.
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