Basic Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers

When you first create a blog, you may be a little obsessed with making sure that everything looks right. This may include making sure that your categories are all well thought out, that the URL for your blog is well thought out and friendly for search engine optimization, and that your titles do not overuse keywords while still remaining SEO-friendly as well. All three of these blog aspects have an extremely significant effect on the way your blog is ranked within search engines. This is because all three of these factors are looked to when search engines decide how to rank individual webpages when it comes to search engine results.

Categories

The categories that you use in your blog are an extremely important factor when it comes to SEO, because these are the inner links within your website. Your blog should contain a column with categories on your website, and these text links connect you to different parts of your blog. Because links on a website matter to search engines, these play an important part in how search engines like Google rank your webpage. You want to make sure that the categories you choose are keyword specific, so use popular search terms rather than simply categorizing. For example, if you are writing a blog about sunglasses, you may want to use categories like 'shades', 'sunglasses', and different brand names that you frequently write about, so that when people searching for sunglasses type in popular search phrases, your blog will be found. Categories are also useful in helping browsers find the blog posts that they are looking for, so make sure that your blog is categorized well. There is no harm in using multiple categories for each blog post, and not only will this help visitors find the blog posts they have interest in, it will also create more links for search engines to spider.

URL

Another extremely important portion of search engine optimization efforts for your blog will be your URL, because your URL, or website address, is your primary keyword phrase when it comes to search engines. You want to derive your blog URL from a keyword or search term which is searched for at least 1000 times in a single month. You certainly may choose a keyword term which is more competitive, but it really does depend on how quickly you want your blog to receive a higher rank in search engine results.

Titles

The last and one of the most important factors of your blog that you should pay attention to, is the titles that you use for your various webpages. The titles of your webpages play a large part in how you will rank within search engines. When you create the titles for your webpages, you should look for keywords and search phrases which pose low competition risk, so that you can easily rank well for each of them. These titles will be found on the main page of your blog website, and they will also link to the permanent page where your content is stored.

All three of these factors play a large part in how well your website or blog does when it comes to search engine page rankings. Optimizing all three of these factors for search engine friendliness is the only way to make sure that your blog receives the page rank it deserves in order to attract readership. There are two phrases which your blog needs to focus, one that is your main and more competitive search phrase, and one which is less competitive and works well for titles.

Search engine optimization for blogs is a drawn out process, but if you do your keyword research and implement the right keywords into your blog, there is no reason that you cannot achieve a top ten position in a matter of weeks. Search engine optimization may seem confusing or scary at first, but you should not avoid this part of creating a blog, because if your blog is not optimized for search engine friendliness, you will never attract ideal readership. Once you figure out which keywords to use for your blog, optimizing for them will usually be much easier so do your research, then watch your traffic increase exponentially!