Thursday, March 1, 2012

Blog Traffic Tips

 Blog Traffic Tips

When you hear the phrase "on-page SEO," what this means is all of the things you do on the actual page for better search engine placement. Think of everything, content as well as meta-data (the hidden data regarding your page), as all of it plays a part.

 

On-page SEO is still relevant and necessary, despite what you may be hearing about the importance of back links. If your niche is rather small, you can achieve great search engine placement just from good on page SEO, and it doesn't cost a thing.

4 Blog SEO Tips

#1: Research your keywords before you start.

#2: Create a title that reflects your keyword phrase.

#3. Write compelling content that uses your keyword phrase throughout in a natural way.

#4: Create a meta description that uses your keyword phrase.

Keyword Research

Keyword research involves using a tool to find the keyword phrases that people are using when searching for information online. Tools like Market Samurai and Google's own external keyword search tool are incredibly helpful for this. IM Eye is a similar, relatively new, tool that also provides information regarding the keyword phrases people are using. Ultimately, you want to find a great phrase that lots of people are searching for every day.

If your blog's niche is particularly crowded, spend a lot of time on this exercise and find phrases that people are using to search that are popular, yet have few competitors. So, you want to find phrases a lot of people are searching for, but for which there are not many results.

Titles

The title of your post is going to be the most critical part of your on-page SEO. Without question, it must include your targeted keyword phrase. So, if your keyword phrase is 'how to dry clothing,' you need to write a post that includes that phrase, such as "How to Dry Clothing Naturally."

Again, take care with your title. It is the first thing people are going to see about your post, and it must be compelling and at the same time, it must be structured properly for SEO.

Keyword-Rich Content

Take caution with this one, because the idea is not to fill up your content with a bunch of keywords in a way that makes no sense. Instead, write your post the way that you normally would. Go back and edit it, using headlines to address the keyword phrases if you can't seem to work them into the paragraphs.

If necessary, re-write your content until it makes sense to readers and also contains the necessary keyword density. A tool like SEO Scribe for Wordpress can help greatly with creating keyword-rich content.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description is not visible on the blog post itself. It's read by search engines (as well as several social media sites like Facebook) and is displayed under the search result listing. It should be no longer than 160 words, and the purpose is to compel someone to click on your listing. So, if you have control over your meta description, take the time to make it interesting to potential readers.

To read about more great blogging resources, including SEO Scribe, visit the blog resources at BizChickBlogs.