Optimize your Blog Post for Google - Tips that you might not have heard
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Hey, what’s more exciting than getting huge organic traffic from Google and other search engines to your blog? Every other day, you write posts. Not every post gets noticed. Not every post is picked up by Google. Not every post gets the fame it deserves.
Here are some tips to optimize your blog post a bit for search engines if you’re looking for driving some traffic from Google and other crawlers. Try these, some day one of your posts will drive tens of hundreds of visitors via organic searches.
Though I’m not an expert in SEO, I can give you a few tips based on what I’ve learnt in the last year of blogging. Here we go!
Use short, keyword-filled titles
Yes, make your titles short and optimal. Think of the words that people will use when searching on Google. Think from their point of view. Use those words in your titles.
Don’t make them too long. This could dilute the ‘SEO value’ of the words.
Themes that have the post title followed by the blog title aren’t a good option. Edit your theme so that the individual post pages have only the post title in the title tag, and not the blog title.
Use ‘Post Slugs’ wisely
Your WordPress posts have permalinks that contain the title of the post in them, like this: yourblog.com/your-blog-post-title
Put it to good use.
Check this post on Copyblogger. Compare the post title and the permalink URI. Both are not exactly the same.
The title attracts people like you and me to read, the URL slug attracts search engines. The slug is short, and uses very good keywords that are often searched for. Mind you - search engines read URLs as well. So it’s a good thing to use an optimized post slug and make it friendlier for Google and other search engines.
You can alter the post slug from the right pane in the WordPress Post Editor page.
Use Headings
Use heading tags like <h2>, <h3> etc to put in your posts (like I’ve done here). Search Engines put emphasis on the heading tags, so make sure your post titles are in <H2> format.
There’s nothing wrong in using Heading tags inside a post to highlight sections in the post (like I’ve done here in this article). Besides being good for organic traffic, this also makes the post more readable and scannable.
But don’t overdo. Don’t make every other paragraph beginning as a heading. I don’t see many bloggers doing this, but decided to include this tip here.
Have you got any secret tips? Shout ‘em out now in the comments.
This post is a part of a Group Writing Project from Daily Blog Tips. Vote for this post if you like it.
27 Comments, Comment or Ping
Nirmal
Nice article Shankar, I’m also concentrating on SEO a bit more now.
Jan 26th, 2008
TonNet
Thanks for the input. I m going to start parcticing your notes.
Jan 26th, 2008
Madhur Kapoor
Good article buddy. I think i should start using Post slug carefully now .
Jan 26th, 2008
Music Site
those are good advice but I really not sure if they are enough, I want to learn more about it,
Thank you for the advice,
Regards.
Jan 26th, 2008
Sumesh
Shankar, many comments above seem like spam (except TonNet, I know him personally). Don’t you think you should delete them?
Jan 28th, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
@Sumesh: Yeah man, I had the same doubt. Nevertheless deleted em now.
Jan 28th, 2008
inspirationbit
Shankar, how many blogs are you running?
When did you start this one?
Good tips, but how about the Meta tags? By default WP is using the same meta keywords and description for every post/page, that’s not good for SEO.
Jan 28th, 2008
Ashwin
Amazing article, Shankar. Thanks for the tips, going to implement a couple of them..
Jan 28th, 2008
Sumesh
I remember you giving me many of these tips way before you published ‘em. Thanks!!
And I’m considering voting for you as one of the three favourites on DBT group writing project. Are you hip?
Jan 29th, 2008
Sumesh
And you might want to change the RSS icon on top, its over a month past Xmas…
Jan 29th, 2008
Aseem Kishore
I’ve recently learned about the Title and post slug difference. It’s a smart way to write posts, but takes a lot of work. The other things I have been trying to do! Good tips!
Jan 31st, 2008
Rishil
Thanks for the tip Shankar, I have not yet finiliased on my plans to move to wordpress from blogger..
Feb 3rd, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
I’m so glad you found this stuff helpful.
@inspirationbit: Hi there! I’ve two blogs running now, one is this and the other one is blog.shankarganesh.com. The latter is for personal ramblings
Speaking of Meta Tags, I use the All in One SEO Plugin to add tags and descriptions. You can get it here: http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03.....-seo-pack/
@Sumesh: Yes, I need to change it. Thanks for the heads up.
Feb 3rd, 2008
Syahid A.
Thanks for the post slug tip. Implemented!
Feb 4th, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
implemented, Thanks.
Mar 6th, 2008
Mike
Nice post, especially about the slugs. I did not know that!
Mar 10th, 2008
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