This is a guest post! If you want to write for us, check out the Guest Post section.
It’s quite strange that bloggers, of all people, can be utterly illiterate about internet protocols, particularly SEO. “Search Engine Optimization” is actually a very good description of the basic role of SEO for anyone online. SEO is how the internet operates. It’s also critical that bloggers appreciate the value of SEO to their work. There are uncounted millions of blogs, and most of them don’t seem to have realized that blogs must get rankings to succeed.
SEO fundamentals
There’s one basic equation which adequately defines the importance of SEO to bloggers:
No SEO = No blog
SEO is designed to provide results for search requests. Most people online find sites and blogs through searches or links related to searches. Blogs, which can be otherwise lost on websites with only a few tags (out of sometimes thousands for the website, let alone the rest of the net) as their only information for search engines, need an SEO profile to exist at all.
Another basic equation:
Relevance is the key to search engine rankings
Forget anything you’ve ever heard about gimmicks for getting search engine rankings. It’s no longer 1995, and Web 2.0 has long since moved on from the theory that tags can replace the criteria modern search engines use to rank sites. Search engine use algorithms to assign values to searches, and the simple fact is that the site on top of any search is the most relevant to the search criteria.
Your blog should be literally stuffed full of relevant materials for searches in your area of blogging. If you blog about gardening, your blog should have a whole range of materials and links related to gardening. (Compare that approach to a tag like “roses”, and you’ll see why search engines get so fussy.)
Defining your SEO profile
To set up your SEO for your blog, you really need to do some careful thinking:
- What specific terms best describe your blog?
- What SEO terms and phrases describe your subject matter?
- Do you have any unique terms and/ or materials which you use for your blog?
- Are you in a niche market where particular terms are extremely relevant?
Not difficult, but as you can see, there are some great opportunities for leaving things out of your SEO, too. You really will need to go through your blog materials and pin down your best terms.
Links
Keywords and links, the more relevant to your content the better, are the best possible SEO forms for keywords and key phrases. This also applies to external links to your blog on other sites. These are called “backlinks”, and they’re particularly effective if well targeted on other sites in the same field. They’re proof positive to search engines of relevance, and therefore do help your rankings.
Search Engine Optimization isn’t difficult. If you put in the effort to get it right, it will repay you with a lot of hits on your blog. It’s not hard to keep your SEO up to a good working level on blogs, either. Just make sure that you don’t leave out new materials or forget to include the SEO values and links with them. It really is that simple.
[Image via Flickr]
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Writing great content, conversing with your readers and sharing across social networks will help grow your blog as well. This is really very good and informative article. The points were well chosen and well explained too.
Hi Mahesh!!
This blog is really very informative and interesting to read. Search Engine Optimization is the best technique to rank your website in the search engine among all other websites. I like this SEO fundamental which says No SEO = No blog. This is absolutely true. Thanks.