Basic Tips: Optimize Your Blog For Search Engines
Every day Search Engines like Google send many millions of web users to websites in their index. While there are plenty of Web 2.0 web indexing services around that are increasing in popularity – the fact is that search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN are still the biggest source of traffic to websites on the web.
As a result – learning how to be indexed and ranked well by them seems like a no brainer.
URL Optimize:
- Search engines and visitors can interact with your website more affectively when you use URLs that describe the pages content (for example: http://www.company.com/companyinformation).
- URLs are extremely vital to your SEO campaign. Be sure to use URLs that make it easy for Google™ to index your site.
Title Optimize:
- Keep your titles concise and make sure they contain your best keywords.
- Each page should have its own exclusive title.
- Featured tool: Here’s a snippet-optimizer that allows you to see how your titles look on Google™ and other search results.
Meta Description Optmize:
- Meta descriptions are useful because they often dictate how your pages are shown in search results.
- For optimum effectiveness, meta descriptions should be 70-160 characters long.
- Your meta descriptions should be concise and contain your best keywords.
- Make sure each page of your website has its own meta description.
Meta Keywords Optimize:
- Meta keywords are words or phrases that pertain to your site’s content. In the past, people have tried to take advantage of this tag so now it doesn’t affect your search rankings the way that it used to.
Heading Tags Optimize:
- You can include keywords in your headings.
- The initial heading (<H1>) should include your best keywords.
- Using only one <H1> heading per page will strengthen your SEO.
Images Optimize:
- Adding ALT text to your images so that it’s easier for search engines to index them.
- Search engines don’t physically see images the way people do. ALT text is an option that allows you to specifically describe the image.
- ALT text attaches a description to your pictures so that they show up in Google™ and other search engine’s image results.
- Make sure your website images have their own specific ALT text.
- To find out how to assign ALT text to your images, click here.
- Keep in mind that your pages load time will vary based on the number and size of your images. Try your best to keep it low.
Text/HTML Ratio:
- You can strengthen your SEO by increasing the recurrence of keywords on your page and adding more text that pertains to your website’s content.
Robots.txt File:
- This file restricts the activity of search engine crawlers and stops them from accessing certain pages and directories.
- A robots.txt file also locates the XML sitemap.
- To check your robots.txt file for syntax errors, Click Here.
XML Sitemaps:
- A XML sitemap lists URLs that can be crawled and may offer other information such as how often you update, when your last update occurred and importance.
- With an XML sitemap, search engines can index your website more accurately.
- Although it’s been debated, we suggest that you submit an XML sitemap to Google™ Webmasters Tools.
Language:
- You should declare the contents language in the HTML code of each page.
- You should also declare the language code in the URL (for example: company.com/es/contact.html).
- If you plan on building a multilingual site, refer to the tips found Here.
Doctype:
- Specifying a doctype assists your web browser in correctly rendering your content.
Encoding:
- Declaring a character/language encoding will significantly strengthen your SEO. It also prevents complication when rendering special characters.
Google™ Analytics:
- Google™ Analytics is monitoring your website. This is a great tool and should be taking advantage of.
Microformats:
- Microformat is a markup that is used to structure the data that is being sent to search engines more effectively.
- The presentation of Google’s search results is always improving due to Microformats.
Dublin Core:
- Dublin Core is a set of metadata standards that describe your websites content.
Geo Meta Tags:
- The search engine Bing utilizes Geo-Meta Tags even though Google™ doesn’t.
RSS Feeds:
- Blogs and news websites depend on feeds.
- Your websites visibility improves when subscribers to your feed are alerted of content updates.
- Tip: FeedBurner provides custom RSS feeds and management tools for web-based publishers as well as bloggers and podcasters.
Favicon:
- Ensure that your favicon reflects your brand.
- Featured tip: If you want a better experience for your visitors, have a look at this great favicon.
Gzip Compression:
- You can boost the speed of your website by using Gzip.
Enjoy this post? If you would like to add more tips please share it in your comments.
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Informative post Bashir!
I loved the tips shared here, some of which I do follow, while some of which are indeed new to me. I guess I would have to re-check all those things that I don’t do for optimizing my blog for search!
I wish however that there was a way that you could just write content and didn’t really have to go into such details to get your blog rank up well!
I guess that we have to do what’s generally recommended- isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Harleena!
Welcome to my blog 🙂
Good to know that the article was informative and useful to you. You know Search engines drive TONS of traffic. You can build businesses from SEO traffic. If you think that some tips are new follow them and let me know how it goes ?
Always do recommended things. Thanks for stopping by 🙂 hope to see you back on my blog.
Big Thanks for re-tweet this post.
Yeah, good basic stuff, Truly the best SEO tips for beginners and intermediate level of users.This is extremely valuable to me.these are the most clear and simple and easy advises I ever heard about SEO.
Great SEO tips for every WordPress user, thanks for such nice article.
Glad you liked the post Rosey!
This post is for all also for website owners who wants to rank high on search engines. SEO rules are same apply to both blogs/websites. I’m glad this post is valueable for you. I hope it will help you more in my next post i will write more about SEO.
Thanks for your time and comment.
Hi Bashir Bro.
Thanks for these great tips. I hope you continue to post helpful entries like this as I’m sure there are many of us out there who are clueless about SEO and would greatly appreciate your guidance.
Hi Hyder brother,
I’m happy to see you again on my blog 🙂 Yeah sure i will continue my posts. Very soon i will write more about SEO. Did you checked my old posts ? Take a look in Commentluv link I hope it will also helpful for you.
Thanks for your appreciation. Please share this post on your social sites 🙂
Use full article And it’s really important now a days that you know more about Seo because Seo is the main factor for success for any blog.
You are right Hammad. SEO is playing major role, do it in right way then you will get good results.
Thanks for stopping by.
That are some great tips I’ve ever seen. But I’m always worrying about search engine. I don’t know If I have chosen the right keywords and many things else.
Hi Ferb, Welcome to my blog.
I am glad you found this post great. Don’t worry about search engines you can use “Adwords Keyword Tool” for choosen right keywords. Your blog is awesome now you need to start link building.
Thanks for your comment.
Very Nice post Bashir url rewriting really helpful for SEO point of view specially your main keywords in url support you well.
Hi Rizwan,
Welcome to my blog 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
You are 100% right! Be sure to use SEO friendly URL’s that make it easy for Google to index your site. Its also helpfull for site visitors to easily remeber that link.
keep visiting my blog.
very interesting post thank you for sharing this information with us.
Hi Andrew,
Glad to know that you found it intresting. Thanks for your comment.
Great post. Very informative and I love the definitions. Thank you.
Hi Mohammed,
I am glad you found it informative and loved the definition.
Thanks for stopping by.
Wow, some of these tips had never crossed my mind. They are simple once’s that are right in front of you but you tend to over look them when they are potentially important. Thank you for the break down on Tips to optimize your Search Engine, i definitely need to put some of them to good use.
Hi Sarah!
Welcome to my blog. I am glad you found some tips to apply on your blog.!
Thanks for leaving your comment. Hope to see you back soon!
Very detailed article. I like these kinda of articles they really provide huge value to the readers. These tips are wonderful for not only the absolute noobs but also for the seasonal bloggers.
Keep up your work mate, I’ll keep visiting your blog 🙂
Welcome To my blog Rahul!
Glad you found the post wonderful and adding your valuable comment.
Thanks for stopping by! hope to see you around.
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Hello Bashir Ahmed,
SEO is the core to improve a blog site. you have described all the points in details. A new blogger needs to follow these steps in a disciplined way to become successful in blogging world
Hi Ashan,
You are right! New bloggers must follow these steps to make their blog SEO friendly.
Thanks for dropping by.