If you’ve started your SEO education, then you already know there are two major factors that comprise search engine optimization…onpage factors and offpage factors. Today, I’d like to share the 8 things your normal blogging habits should include to make sure you master the Onpage Factors
Title Tag
The number one onpage SEO tactic to have is meaningful, keyword rich, descriptive titles for each blog post, blog page and search/archive page in your blog.
Be advised though, Google is onto those *black-hat* tactics like keyword stuffing, so the title should read naturally. Using the same word over and over in your title will get your site banned. Period.
Words closer to the beginning of the title, are given more *weight* than those that are at the end. So, make sure your title gets to the point, quickly.
“I’m blogging, I can’t control the title that appears at the top of the blog window, can I?”
Well, actually, if you are using WordPress right out of the box, probably not. However, there are a number of ways to enhance the title tag, or browser window title with plugins. A couple that come immediately to mind are All In One SEO Pack and HeadSpace2. Both offer customizations that will ensure your title tags contain the right information, as long as your post or page title does. Both of the plugins I mentioned, also help with the next few factors as well.
Description Meta Tag
Yeah, I know. You’ve probably only heard of this one. The Description Meta Tag is not something humans normally see, unless they are looking for it. It’s purpose is to speak to the *spiders* that crawl your site. It was originally designed as a helpful way to explain the content of the post or page.
When Google finds a description meta tag, it will use the first 160 characters to display the *description* that appears under the link when your site is returned in the results for a search term.
It is important to note this tag is more than a way to explain your content to the search spiders then…it’s a way to talk to your target market, and explain why they should come read your content.
If you don’t provide a description meta tag, Google will grab either the first 160 characters of your content, or 160 character near the keyword that was searched … to find your content. Leaving it for Google to *build* your description is a little like relying on someone who hasn’t seen the movie, to tell you if it worth seeing. Hmmm.
Keywords Meta Tag
This search engine optimization factor is getting some bad press, and experts are unable to agree on the validity and importance of this one. However, for years, Google, Yahoo and MSN used the keyword meta tag to help them weight your content based on the keywords found.
Here’s my thinking on this matter.
Having 3-7 of your main keywords related to the content in this tag won’t hurt you, and very well might still be ranked pretty high on the internal thinking of spiders who index your site.
Header Tags
I don’t want this to become a tutorial on HTML or anything silly like that, but you need to know something about how web browsers *read* the content and display it to you. They use a *tag* system that allows them to define how something will appear, on the fly. For example, to make the word bold, appear in bold in a sentence, an instruction (a tag) is placed right in front of the word and immediately following the word.
For example, this word will appear <strong>;bold</strong> when read by a browser.
Now that you understand that concept (yeah right, clear as mud, right?), there are tags used by all browsers to display text at various heights. In fact, there is a standard set of header tags, numbering 1 through 6, (with 1 being the largest, 6 being the smallest) that every browser understands.
With me so far?
When you put a keyword in a header tag, it is given more *weight* on the relevancy scale, than that same word just appearing in the text. A header tag automatically tells Google it’s more important.
Alt Tags
An Alt tag is a small bit of text that is displayed in place of an image, until the image loads. Perhaps you have surfed a site and seen text just kinda hanging out in space, and then, when the page finished loading, a photo magically appeared instead of that text.
You are seeing the Alt tag at work.
Since photo’s can be large and take longer to download to the local surfer’s machine, Alt tags let them know something is coming.
However, the Google spiders crawl Alt tags and if your keyword is there, it’s like another small vote in your favor. Again, I remind you that Google is onto the *black-hatters* that stuff keywords in the Alt tag, just to get better rankings.
A good rule to follow would be to use the title as the Alt tag, and add the word photo. For example..you have a post called *7 Travel Destinations Everyone Can Afford*, and it displays a beautiful photo of the beaches of Fiji. For the Alt tag of that photo, insert the text *7 Travel Destinations Everyone Can Afford Photo*.
Please note, your photo names can also help your SEO. Just name the photo the same as the title as well, and add the word photo. For the photo name though, you will want to replace all spaces with dashes. Although there a couple of plugins I have seen for this task, I have had problems with them and the new version of WordPress. If I hear of one that rises back to the top again, I will let you know.
Link Text
Also called Anchor text, this is the text that is displayed when you include a hyperlink in your content.
Let’s say you have a site all about Pool Service. And within a blog post, you are sharing your experience with a great vendor that offers overnight delivery for their supplies. If you will include keywords within your text (rather than just *click here*), a few things happen for you.
- You have your keywords included again on your page (in natural sounding language)
- You are linking to an outside site (that might have a great page rank) that is related. So, you are *voting* for the other site.
- The vendor you are linking to get’s some business, making them happier with you
- Google sees you now, as more of an authority on the subject, since you are a linking to another known authority.
This habit is all on you. I know of no plugins to help with this process… just remember, the better the anchor text you highlight for a link, the better all around it will be.
Sitemap
I should mention that there are two types of sitemaps. One, is built for humans. The other, is built for the search engine spiders. I am referring to the one for Google here, although, it’s a really good idea to have a good sitemap for your visitors as well.
This one requires a bit of work unless you choose a plugin to handle it for you. In fact, I highly recommend using a plugin since getting the priorities, scheduling, category hierarchy and other obscure and difficult to follow factors go into this.
A sitemap built for Google looks like raw HTML code. In fact, it’s called XML and is a cousin to HTML. It basically recounts everything that Google can expect to find on your site. A small snippet is shown below, just for the curiosity factor. (I did mention I am a geek, right?)
-
<urlset>
-
<url>
<loc>http://www.cenaynailor.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2009-01-31T07:00:03+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>1</priority>
</url>
<!– Debug: Start Postings –>
-
<!–
Debug: Priority report of postID 399: Comments: 4 of 74 = 0.1 points
–>
-
<url>
-
<loc>http://www.cenaynailor.com/techniques/niche-research-techniques/google-personal-assistant/
</loc>
<lastmod>2009-01-30T22:24:53+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>0.1</priority>
</url>
Again, unless you are really really into that geeky stuff, I highly recommend a plugin for your blog to handle this chore. Google XML Sitemaps is a good one that comes to mind.
Good Content
Obviously, this really should be weighted very high on the scale of things to do to bring visitors to your site. None of the Onpage optimizations you do will keep your visitors on your site or coming back like delivering some killer content.
Need a few ideas? Try Google Alerts.
About The Author
Cenay Nailor is an Internet, Affiliate and Networking Marketing success coach with mad technical skills she loves sharing. Visit her blog and sign up for a weekly injection of Tech-Based Marketing help, sent right to your inbox. http://www.CenayNailor.com
About The Author
Dali Burgado, also known as "The Dali Blogger" teaches creative entrepreneurs how to carve a web presence that connects with their Inner Guru and their target audience. Her first online marketing love is SEO. She's an avid connector on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. When she's not coaching or teaching, she's tweaking sites for Search Engine Visibility, working on her PHP and Javascript coding skills, Singing Opera, or learning about gardening. Circle Dali on Google+
30 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
I find blogging one of the good ways of internet marketing. I have received a small number of visitors on my site especially from the sites where I commented their blogs.
A comprehensive *commenting strategy* is a great way to bring in new visitors, connect with your readers and establish credibility, especially if you are adding value to the conversation. Check next Saturday’s post for more information on A Commenting Strategy to build your traffic.
Syntax highlighting shows comments in colour. That doesn’t sound like an important feature, but once you start using it you will find that it helps a lot. You can quickly spot text that should be a comment, but isn’t highlighted as such (you probably forgot a comment marker).Or see a line of code highlighted as comment (you forgot to insert a “*/”). These are errors which are hard to spot in a B&W file and can waste a lot of time when trying to debug the code.
Can Anyone suggest best SEO tips for promote blogs ?
Great Article, I was just looking for something to pass on to one of my friends to help him not get discouraged, and this is perfect. I love how you have focused on realistic expectations. What metrics would you tell a new blogger to watch? Are there free resources that you would recommend to a new blogger .Thanks
I’m looking for a nice digital camera under or around $200 for the purpose of blogging.Any cool features like video would also be great but mainly I’m just looking for something I can take quality pictures, and that will hopefully hide my total amateur abilities.
here are errors which are hard to spot in a B&W file and can waste a lot of time
I love how you have focused on realistic expectations. What metrics would you tell a new blogger to watch? Are there free resources that you would recommend to a new blogger .Thanks
<>seo is a best work in the word for the marketing.
Yeah, i blog. My names actually Perez Hilton – i blog about a celebrity named Paris Hilton. I believe she bought you as a pet once, correct? Anyway – she opened this new store called stupid spoiled whore. I assume you’ve heard of it.
I dont know whats wrong but i tend to take on this expression, its like a big habit, maybe i think something could be wrong with my eyes, cause they kind of pain or feel dry, and i just take on this expression and then no matter how hard i try it is hard for me to relax my eyebrows. It could be habit though.
What are the Feeding habits and breeding habits of the bunched arrowhead?
Also what is the current population of this plant?
Have any companies used consumer behaviour theories (for example theories relating to ‘self image’ and ‘motivation’) for commercial gain?
I have friends from Peru and Brazil and they smell wonderful due to the fact that they bathe regularly. The hygiene habits of my European coworkers leave something to be desired I’m afraid.
ha, I’m doing the same thing now. Unfortunately, I need the internet to get my project done. If you need to be on the computer, try firewalling websites that you don’t need to be on. Such as your blog. Unplug the video games and let everyone else in your house know that you need to be working on this project, and ask them to please, make you do it.
I’m particularly interested in relating it to online, eg companies utilising the technology and/or habits web 2.0 (so blogging, rss feeds etc) has created.
I will suggest you to start working as a freelance and after gaining some experience we will get some bigger clients
Well my friend and I were talking and I just told her one of my weirdest habits, and it was so akward because she just watched me, and i watched her and all i had told her was that i had various blogging accounts and pretended to be people from different countries visiting the U.S.
I keep playing video games and blogging when I’m supposed to be working on a HU-GE project due tommorow that I haven’t even started.
I want to read as many books as possible, and gain a larger vocabulary. I also am into blogging and want to get into the habit of writing more, and am taking a few writing courses at my community college. I am planning another small career on the side for a better income. Are there any other tips you could give me.
I keep playing video games and blogging when I’m supposed to be working on a HU-GE project due tommorow that I haven’t even started.
I’m curious what habits you all have found to be give yourself more energy. Specifically I’m interested in things related to nutrition, exercise, and sleep patterns.
Just live for each day. Choose one thing to focus on and devote your energy to accomplishing the task. This is easy enough at work, but becomes more important to do on the weekend when you have more free time on your hands. Getting rid of a bad habit is really about about replacing that bad behavior with another positive one.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of enhancing the visibility of a website on search engine listings. It refers to a list of marketing tools required to arrange a website in order to increase its rankings in the context of the result of pages of search engines and directories or blog/ fourm/ top commentator blog etc/.
Hey man I’m somewhat assuming people who ask these kinds of questions have a problem they want to hide from others, well if you need somebody to talk to, cheezily I have to say this – your not alone without yahoo answers, and also I’m there for you, message me on yahoo aim if you’d like.Thanks
i just joined twitter to follow you and hopefully win this incredible prize. i am new to twitter and cannot figure out how to send you a message! i hope that i will have a chance and i am so glad to have found your blog. what a great resource!
I’ve always enjoyed the comments as a form of discussion. Sometimes it results in traffic or subscriptions but most of the time it results in learning a bit more about the topic you are writing on.
your photo names can also help your SEO. Just name the photo the same as the title as well, and add the word photo. For the photo name though, you will want to replace all spaces with dashes. Although there a couple of plugins I have seen for this task, I have had problems with them and the new version of WordPress. If I hear of one that rises back to the top again, I will let you know.
I live dilemma like always. I have to hobbies, first one is screenwriting and second one is blogging(creating websites). Only one of them I have to do as both of them don`t go with eac other. So wanna do screenwriting but blogging is always in my mind and it disturbs me everywhere. I can not forget creating sites but i want to forget. PLease help me. How can i break my habit and how can i take this thought out of my mind ? Please help. Thanks…
Queen Blogger Liquid Kitty has decided to post her own original poetry for all to see and I see some talent, not perfect, but I do like this poem written by the Top Online Poet FLASHY TIMES FLY BY dedicated to STEVE CAPUTI WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THEN.Thanks for sharing information
Additional comments powered by BackType