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blog tips

SEO Tips For Your Blog

Corinne 68 comments
SEO Tips For Your Blog

SEO Tips for Blogs


SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. It basically means making your website, blog or post easy to read by search engines so it shows up higher on the page when certain keywords are searched.

If you want your blog to get more traffic, it’s important you understand SEO and how to change a few things about how you write posts, use images and URLS to drive more search engine traffic to your site. There are tonnes of bloggers out there and with everyone fighting to get to the top, a good understanding of Search Engine Optimisation is a must for getting your blog to the top.

There are many ‘black hat‘ ways to increase your page rank, such as buying links, using fake key words, invisible text, cloaking, etc. Black hat techniques can result in your blog’s rank being reduced, or even eliminated from the search database all together. Let’s stay away from that and talk about some of the honest ways of getting your blog to the top of Google’s search pages!

These tips are written with blogger and blogspot accounts in mind, as that is what I use, but may be tailored to other blog services, such as wordpress.
 

The Basics of SEO for Blogs.

 
I’ve always known the basics of SEO, when researching about it these are the things I found time and time again:
  • Great Content. Great content keeps people engaged and coming back, also means your readers are more likely to link back to your blog which help your page rank.
  • Social Networking. Sharing your own content to social networking sites such as Twitter, Google+ and Facebook can result in more traffic, comments and followers.
  • Popular Post Widget. Getting a new visitor on your blog is great, but will they read more posts? Or just the one and leave your site? Having a popular or ‘related posts’ widget on your side bar or at the bottom of your post can mean the reader will read more posts by you, reducing the bounce rate of your blog and increasing the chance of them sharing your content.
  • Guest Blogging. Guest blogging on relevant sites is a great way to build links, and also generate new traffic from the followers of the blog. The higher the page rank of the blog you are guest posting on, the more beneficial it will be for your blog. It is much more valuable to have your link on a few high ranking sites, than lots of lower ranking sites.
  • Have a Guest Blogger. You can turn guest bloggers around and have guest bloggers on your site – not only does this mean more content, but most bloggers will link the post (your site) on their blog or tweet about their guest post. Just insure the guest post is relevant to your niche and of good quality to keep your readers interested.
  • Keywords. Having your keywords in subheadings, bold, italics or underlined is much more powerful to engines than plain keywords.
  • Keyword Repetition. Repeating keywords a few times in the post is a way to get it higher on the search engine, but be careful not to over use them as if it looks unnatural, it can ruin your content and put off your audience.

 

 

My Favourite Tips.

 
I have come across a few other tips lately that have REALLY helped me with my blog SEO. These tips are not as commonly shared – but are very effective. To save you time searching for the best way to make your blog search engine friendly, I’ve compiled the most useful ones for you.
 

1) Alt text in images.

 
I went almost a year without putting any alt text in the images on my blog. It is very easy to do and means that search engines can tell what your image is about so it will come up in google image searches. 
Click on your image and then click ‘properties’.
 
Simply enter the description into the box.
 
My photos come up first and third for ‘perfect tartan dress’ in google image search. Before that they were not on there at all.
 

2) Optimising your URL. 

 
Optimise your URL so that it contains your key words. If you want to write a post about ‘blogging tips’, for example, you should think about what you would search for if you were looking for blogging tips. ‘Check out these cool tips’ might be a cool title, but it won’t rank as high as ‘blogging tips for beginners’ or ‘blogging tips for fashion blogs’. You can ensure your URL contains these words on blogger by making sure they are in your title – as your URL reflects the title of your post. If you want to retain a different, more vague or quirky title, you can always publish your post as the SEO friend title, then a couple of minutes later edit the posts title. This way your URL will stay the same, but your post title will change.
 
If you look here, my URL is different from my title. 
 

3) Link your old posts in new posts.

 
When linking old posts in your new blog posts, the key is to make sure they are relevant to your post, and also use key words as the link. This helps your SEO and also helps reduce your bounce rate as readers are more likely to click on the related old posts. If you can’t think of any old posts to link to, don’t force it. If it doesn’t look natural, leave it without.
 
Do you have any tips that I haven’t mentioned here? Please share them in the comments!
 
 
Edited version of my post on Blogger Forums.
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About Corinne

About Corinne

Hi! I'm a 30-something lifestyle blogger from York, talking blog tips, lifestyle and navigating being a new mum!

68 comments

  2. This was very useful, thanks! I forget to put text with my images. I’m going to start adding it. x

    Louisa @ My Family & Abruzzo

    Reply

  7. This is totally new for me. I must learn a lot about how to improve my blog. Thanks for the tips, Corinne. Please, if you know how to add the name of your blog in a commentary with a link I would be very pleased. Thank you. Kisses:)

    Reply

    1. Use this code :

      < a href=”http://petitcolibri.blogspot.co.uk/”>Petit Colibrí< /a>

      But with out the spaces after the <. I had to put them in so it showed the code, rather than the link =)

      Reply

  10. I just realized I dont put any text on the images lol! See, I think I still have too much to learn!:) Your post is very useful Corinne, I never will be good with this stuff!!^^’ Kisses dear! xo

    Reply

  11. Wow!! Corinne thank you so much for this tutorial. Great post. Helpful post. I didn’t knew half of it. It comes very handy, thank you so much again sweetie.
    Happy weekend to you
    xox
    Lenya
    FashionDreams&Lifestyle

    Reply

  12. I really seek SEO in everything I am gonna post on blog . These tips are easier and helpful . High five , Corinne!
    Noor @ Noor’s Place

    Reply

  13. Thanks for the tips! As a beginner blogger, I’m still trying to get the hang of these things and your advice is super helpful!

    Reply

  21. Hi Corinne,

    This is such a helpful post as I never knew half of these tips, especially about adding alt text in images so will definitely be doing that from now on.

    Thanks for the advice!

    Lauren x anauburnaccessory.com

    Reply

  29. These are great tips Corinne and a brilliant post. I did not know about the bold italic thing. Thank you for sharing

    Reply

  31. Corinne I really have to thank you, I didn’t know ANY of these tips!, I’ll start from tomorrow!!!
    Don’t Call Me Fashion Blogger
    Facebook
    Bloglovin’

    Reply

  39. Very, very helpful! Bookmarking this for future use. Thank you for these, and for your lovely comment on my blog 😉

    Alicia

    Reply

  40. damn, i needed this! thank you, corinne!! 😀 i’ve been wondering of late about seo and what i need to do if i wanted in on its “magick” …and now i know! you’re TOO awesome.

    RC: everything i post is original work unless otherwise stated, babydoll. and wine – red or white? i know it might seem a little weak but i am absolutely in love with muscato!! yum.

    Reply

  42. I’m glad you shared this! I didn’t know how to alt text in images and now I’m planning on using this in my posts. Thank you!

    Reply

  44. This is so helpful! Thanks so much! I’ve been blogging for years now and still only have 20 followers — it’s not a tragedy, but I would love it if others would peek and my blog and the work I put into it 🙂

    Reply

    1. I left you a message on your blog about how to build a bit of a follower, I hope it helps! I don’t see why you don’t have more, you have some great blog posts, it’s just about getting seen!

      Reply

  45. Hello Corinne! Firstly, great post!! Useful, wise and generous! I like the alt text idea for photos! Secondly, NICE tartan dress! I love a bit of tartan, all stems from my red tartan trousers obsession in the 90’s!!!
    Regarding getting traffic to my site, I’ve been blogging almost 9 years and I would love other readers BUT I have the dilemma that I am a teacher and I really don’t want my pupils or their parents finding my blog end annoyingly, my blog url is my name!!! Bit thick when I first set it up!!! Could I change my url name to something more anonymous easily within losing my very modest 120 readers or losing my content? Not sure what to do really!!! Lovely to meet you and your blog!! X

    Reply

    1. I think the best thing to do would be to buy a URL from godaddy, they are really cheep! Mine cost about £4 for the year. Then you add it to your blog. You’ll keep everything on your blog, it’s just that the URL will be different – and even better, when somebody types in the URL you have now, it will automatically redirect them to your new URL!

      Reply

  50. Yes.I wanted this type blog. Thanks for your blog. I have idea about SEO.High PR Dofollow Social Bookmarking Sites List 2014

    Reply

  51. Thanks for the tips! I really need to start doing that alt image thing!

    Katie 🙂
    thesavvystyler1.blogspot.ie

    Reply

  52. Great tips, I’m definitely gonna start adding text to my images to see if it makes a noticeable difference!!

    Reply

  53. This is such a helpful post as I never knew half of these tips, especially about adding alt text in images so will definitely be doing that from now on. seo exeter

    Reply

  54. Thanks for this – so helpful! Now to go back through my posts and actually add some text to my images…oops! 🙂

    xx

    Reply

  56. Just found this 😀 Great tips they will really come in handy 😀 Thank you so much darling! ^_^ xx

    Reply

  57. I don’t know how I’ve only just found this post but thank you SO much! I didn’t even know what SEO was until tonight and your post has helped so much, so thank you 😀
    You’re such a gem for posting this!

    Alex xx

    Reply

  60. I know this is an old post but I stumbled on it and wanted to say these are really useful tips. I’ve been updating the wrong thing on my photos on blogger hahaha. Plus I never thought to change the url to be so simple, I’ve been using ones similar to the post title! Xxx

    Reply

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