What exactly is Page Rank?

In simpler terms, Page Rank is a terminology used to indicate the importance of a website in search engine results. The higher the page rank, the much sooner and higher your website appears whenever a visitor searches for a keyword in search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Google considers over 200 factors when showing up a website in their search results. Page Rank is one of them.

What is Page Rank and how to Increase Google Page Rank for your Blog / Website

Page Rank takes values from 1-10. 1 indicates least importance and 10 indicates the highest importance. Some also call page rank as Google Page Rank. This does not mean that the page rank is owned by Google. It simply means that is the page rank of a website/blog when a specific keyword is searched for in Google. So if someone searches for a keyword in Yahoo or Bing, there might be a variation of Google Page Rank & Yahoo Page Rank for the same website as it depends upon their algorithms, ranking factors, etc.

Today most of the targeted traffic comes from Search engines and hence it is becoming really important to increase the page rank of a website/blog. Trying to push a website’s page rank from 1 to 10 is definitely not easy task, but at the same time, it’s not impossible. And, it does not happen overnight! It takes years to achieve a page rank of 10.  And ranking high in search engines is definitely a sure way to make a website or a blog more visible in their niche.

To increase page rank fast, here are some of the most important factors and tips:

1. Unique and High Quality Content

Undeniably, all search engines want unique content and it is expected of us to provide high quality content, apart from making them unique. Gone are the days when people used to merely copy text off of other websites and then use it in their website and rank high after slight modifications. Such gimmicks won’t work anymore as the search engines have evolved over the years and have become smarter. So content scraping won’t work. Period.

Just focus on writing content on topics that interest you the most. Make sure that the articles you write, add value to your website and make sure that it is helpful. You would not be reading this article if it wasn’t going to provide you tips on increasing your pagerank, would you (unless you are our regular reader)? Similarly, for your visitors, make sure that the information that you provide will benefit them. Benefit for them = Benefit for you. Benefits are directly proportional, you see!

2. Frequent Content Updates

Now this does not mean that you keep on updating each and every post of your blog every day.  Let’s say that you have 20 articles in your blog and you publish your 21st article. You feel that the content in your 21st article is an extension of the first article and would help your readers if you linked back to it from your first article. If you feel so, then go ahead and do it.

So go ahead & update your first article with a link back to the 21st article. Also add a note towards the end of the article with the heading “UPDATE” or “NOTE” and write few words about the update that you have performed. That will help users understand what you are up to and will also benefit them as new readers who arrive on your first article, will easily find the link to the relevant article (the 21st article). All  they will have to do is simply click on that new link to read this article.

One another way is to update content using images. Often, I find that I am writing articles and I simply don’t have the time to search for relevant images. So I simply go ahead & publish the post with just text content. When I get some free time, I come back to this post, do my searches and find an image or two that I can add to this post. When I do find the images that make me feel satisfied, I add them to the article. So this is how I keep updating my posts.

Those are just couple of ways. You could come up with other ways of updating your content. There’s no hard and fast rule. See what works best for you.

3. Relevant Keywords

If Keywords are essential component of an article, then using “Relevant Keywords” are the “life” of an article. Without using the relevant keywords, the chances of search engines finding your articles are slim and the chances of your readers finding your article relevant are slim to none. That does not mean that you can go ahead & include tons of keywords in your content. That’s an absolute NO! Don’t ever do it, or you will be penalized on the grounds of “Keyword Stuffing”.

So when you write an article, make sure that you are using relevant keywords in the H1 tag, Meta Description and in the body of the content. This is an excellent way to increase page rank on Google.

4. Keyword Density

A perfect way to get your website penalized is by including keywords 100 times in the same article, in the manner that it makes no sense. Yes, you may have come across search engine optimization softwares that tell you how important keyword density is and how many times you must repeat the keyword in the article in order to improve the density of the keyword and make your article likeable by the search engines.

Although using Keywords in your article are mandatory, sticking to a XYZ percentage of keyword density is no longer applicable. Don’t try to fill in keywords just for the sake of filling up your article. Do it because you find it natural to include it in a place that you have chosen and make sure it makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense for you, it won’t make sense for your users either. So ignore the age old 10% keyword density rule and focus on the natural flow of content. That will help you increase Google page rank apart from increasing page rank in other search engines.

5. No Empty Rule

This rule is very simple. It states that you should not leave any necessary details empty. This includes details such as Page Title, Meta Description.

Who invented this rule? You may ask. Well, I did. How? Well, it’s simple. I learnt a lot from Google Webmaster Tools. If you have an account with them, simply login. In the left menu, look for “Optimization” & click on “HTML Improvements”. This section will show you any Missing title tags, Duplicate title tags, Duplicate Meta Descriptions, etc. Simply edit any of the articles on your blog that are missing this info & add it. The Page Title & Meta Descriptions are very important as it helps your readers find the page via search engines. So don’t leave them empty and increase your page rank.

You can get more free info for your website by visiting at Google Webmaster Tools

6. Take care of Images

I often see that people merely include images and leave it at that. Agreed that everyone may not have the time to tweak images, add info to them. But let me tell you, it’s totally worth it if you spend time and efforts in adding the info to them. By info, I mean the ALT tag info. If you are using WordPress, you will also see the option to add a Caption. Why not add it if you haven’t done it so far? Do it so that it provides more meaning.

Also if you could keep the sizes of images down to the lowest possible size, that would help increase the web page load speed. Google takes page load speed into account when ranking websites. So the faster your website loads, the better. That said, don’t go ahead & strip off images of your website. Your users won’t like it. Yes, I know. It might sound complicated to find it hard to judge what you need and what you don’t. But you will need to find the right balance to see what your users will like.

For example, if you are running a comic website, then you will need to explain the situation/jokes by using images as they have a great impact. In such cases, using images are unavoidable. But what you could do is instead of including the PNG version of the images, you could include a JPG image compressed at 80% of it’s quality size. In such a way, you can include images and also make them load fast.

If you are running a WordPress blog, then I recommend using WP Smush.it. Its a free WordPress plugin that lets you chop down on image size without having to manually do them. I use it on my blog to optimize all images. I have seen no side effects of using it. In fact, I have noticed an overall increase in load speed of images and hence I recommend it to you.

7. Accessible Website

Make sure your website is accessible. Ensure that there are no time outs, redirects, etc. And AFAIK, Google hates redirects, especially if it’s on the home page. For this, ensure that you are seeking web hosting from a reliable web hosting solutions company. If your website has a large down time or your visitors keep seeing the “Internal Server Error” messages often, that will affect your website negatively & can have a serious toll on your page rank. So make sure you compare web hosting services prior to committing to any one and pick the one that offers the best services at a reasonable price.

8. Using Signature

People often don’t think of this. Although its generally overlooked, using a signature can really help increase your page rank as it counts towards internal link building. Usually these signatures are in the form of images, so they look appealing and inviting. So if you don’t have a signature in your blog, make one now.

9. Social Sharing

Sharing your website / blog over the different social mediums have become really important and easy nowadays. If you are running a blog, then make sure you have placed social sharing icons underneath the post title and towards the end of the article. That way, you will increase your chances of getting your content shared. This will add towards increasing page rank.

10. Offer Newsletters

Newsletters are generally sent out when you need to inform your readers of news and updates. Sending newsletters not only help you keep in touch with your readers, but they also help you in receiving additional traffic.

There are different email marketing services available that also let you send newsletters to your users. Read all about such email marketing services here.

11. Offer RSS Subscriptions

Offer the option to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feeds. In this way, you will make it easy for others to distribute your content over the web and this will help in getting your website indexed by the popular blog engines.

12. Press Release

Press releases are an excellent way to reach the public directly. The only drawback of press releases is that you would need to pay the fees associated with it. But if you look at the positive side of it, you get to gain more traffic and exposure as it lets you connect with your audience quickly.

13. Freebies and Giveaways

We all like Freebies, don’t we? If you can possibly give out a freebie or two on certain occasions, that will help. If you are generous enough and can afford giveaways based on competitions, quiz, polls, etc. that would be great too.

14. High Quality Backlinks

Getting back links is not tough, but getting “High Quality Backlinks” is the real deal. Gone are days when you could simply pay someone to get backlinks to your website and expect to rank real high in the search engines. As per the last info that I have, Google not only looks at the back link, they also look at the source of the back link. So if you have a technology related blog and paid for backlinks on a Weight loss website, then sorry to say, but you have wasted your money. A weight loss website is “not relevant” to a tech website, so that won’t count under genuine back link. And if you ever get lucky with it, that won’t add much to your page rank.

15. Exchange “Relevant” links

Try to exchange “relevant” links with websites in your niche. Don’t try to do this exchange just for the sake of it. Do it if you genuinely think that it will help your users and do it in your niche for “relevancy” sake.

16. Directory Submissions

Directory submissions definitely add to the page rank of a website. There are different article directories  and web directories available and if you can get your website accepted into such directories, then you will have the advantage of receiving high quality back links.

Here are some of the top web directories and article directories that I know of:

• DMOZ
• Ezine articles
• Yahoo Directory
• Best of the Web

17. Blog Commenting

Help your users in issues that have by actively participating and leaving helpful comments. That will help build your relationship with your readers and problem solving will only make your more famous and known for your efforts and time.

18. Guest Blogging

Offer to guest blog on different blogs of your niche. See if you can get them to guest blog on your blog as well. This won’t be of much use if you are discussing on the exact same topic but will work wonders if you are discussing on two separate topics under the same niche.

For example, let’s consider the “health care” niche. Let’s say you deal with “eye health care”. There’s another blog that covers topics on “dental health care”.  You could approach them for guest blogging in this way, you both will get more traffic and will increase your fame.

19. Offer Language Translations

Primarily, most of the users on the web prefer English for effective communication. So if your target audience speaks a different language than English, then offer them language translation facility so that it makes it easy for them to read and enjoy your content.

20. Avoid Illegal Ways

Get creative in the ways of helping your users by providing valuable contain. Refrain from becoming creative in using illegal and/or bad ways of gaining page rank. If the search engines suspect that you are trying to deceive their web crawler bots by misleading or repeated words, nasty page redirects, including hidden text, duplicate site or pages, etc. you stand at the risk of penalization and your website may be de-listed from the search engine index. So avoid the bad ways and instead, focus on providing quality and helpful info to your users.

Your Turn!

What do you think of the above tips to increase page rank in search engines? Have you used any of the tips in the past? Did you see any increase in your page rank? Do you have any tips that you would like to share with us? Please feel free to share by commenting below.

Only the Top 10, Best Tech Blogs – Countdown Begins…

1. ZDnet

ZDNet

ZDNet offers latest news & happenings in the technology world and hence, they can be considered as a top technology blog site. They offer different options to switch blog “edition” so that you can read what’s hot in the different geographic locations of the world. Some of their areas that include (but not limited to) are Windows, Cloud, Networking, Storage, Tablets etc. The slideshow in the homepage of this tech blog offers a glimpse of the interesting topics following by Featured Stories. They also offer Top Stories, Debates, Photo Gallries, Videos, Downloads, etc.

2. Engadget

Engadget

Engadget excels at providing information and hence can be considered as the 2nd Best, Top Technology Blog. Some of the categories that they cover are: Gaming, GPS, Handheld, Portable, Science, Software, Internet, Laptops, Tablets, Networking and others. In addition to this, they also offer Top stories that could be of your interest.

 3. Cnet

CNET

Cnet is one of the oldest and reputed tech blogs out there. This tech blog specializes in Reviewing different things. So if you are looking for a review on a Camcorder or want to buy the latest cell phone but want to read others’ review first, Cnet would be the best place to start. They offer reviews on wide range of Categories, but some of them include: Car Tech, Home Audio, Home Video, Desktops, Mp3 Players, Digital Cameras, Televisions, Tablets, etc.

Apart from that, they also feature sections like Hottest Review, Latest News, Downloads on different platforms, How To, Deals, etc. They offer much more than what I can cover here, so make sure you check ’em out.

4. Wired

Wired

Wired offers latest info on a variety of categories such as Gear, Science, Security, Business etc. They also have sub-categories under each category and once you start checking something, you will only start sinking deeper.

On the home of their blog, they feature latest posts, Wired Video, Photo Galleries, Special Report, Recent Stories, All  Headlines, Hottest Web Links, Enterprise, Gadget Lab, Game, Life, Opinions and others.

5. I Love Typography

I Love Typography

I Love Typography is one of the top tech blogs that specializes immensely in providing you with only the best typography that you can use for Web Design. They also have a Shop and you can buy Codex Magazines. These magazines can feature articles, book and type reviews, interviews, tips, type history, new and notable fonts, essays, typeface design — from typography experts.

Apart from the above, they offer articles on origin of fonts, curated list of best fonts and other such related articles on typography. So if you are looking for font related font, forget others and check them out first.

 6. Mashable

Mashable

Mashable is one of the most popular tech blogs in the world. They specialize in offering information on Social Media. They also offer latest news and happenings in the wold of Technology, Business, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Videos and more.

The homepage of Mashable offers: “The New Stuff”, The Next Big Thing,  What’s Hot, etc. Due to the variety of the topics they cover,it’s easy to get lost in the pool of information, so make sure enough time on your hands if you want to check them out.

 7. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine

One of the brilliant additions to the Top Tech blogs is Smashing Magazine. They specialize in providing Web Design information. Some of the Categories include Web Design, Mobile, Graphics, UX Design, Coding and WordPress. Each of these categories contain their own Sub categories and you are bound to find a lot of excellent and useful information here.

Some of the other features include Smashing Highlights, Smashing Job Board. This is a must check out top tech blog, if you really want to get started with some quality articles on Web Design.

 8. Tech Crunch

Tech Crunch

Tech Crunch excels at providing information on Startups. Apart from that, they also cover latest information on Mobile, Gadgets, Enterprise, Social, Gaming and others.

Their homepage features, Latest News, Trending Stories, Upcoming Events, Product Guides, Crunch Board (Job listings) and other latest information.

 9. 40tech

40tech

40tech covers more like the “technical” part of anything. So if you are wanting to find out solutions for adding a label to mail message  in mailbox or Trying to backup your passwords, you should start from here. They offer news on variety of topics such as Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Google, Cloud, Evernote, Springpad, etc. They also include information on to increase your productivity.

10. Guardian

Guardian

Guardian covers a lot of areas and hence it could be considered as one of the top best tech blogs.  Apart from covering lot of info on technology, they also cover different areas such as News, Sport, Comment, Culture, Business, Money, Life & style, Travel, Environment, TV, Video,Dating,Offers, Jobs, etc.

Their homepage features latest news, Best Video, Best Sellers, Guardian Jobs etc.

 That’s it!

Do you know of any other best tech blogs? Do you think any of it will make a good addition to this list? Feel free to share by commenting below.

Free, Simple & Best Blogging Platform.. Hmmm. What could it be?

Free Simple Top Best Blogging Platform

Blogging is a great way to start & propagate your online presence. It gives you a very good medium that you can use to support others and build your relationships. A blog is nothing but online representation of your voice and your ideas. And you want to be able to convey your points to your audience in the most meaningful and the most effective way possible, without taking too much effort to do just that. So how is this possible? Well, there are different blogging platforms in the market today, some are paid and some are free. So I am going to list only the chosen top free blogging platforms in the market today, so that it’s easier for you to decide. So here we go:

1. WordPress

WordPress is by far, the most famous and the most used blogging platform available in the market today. You can get started within minutes of installing/uploading it on your website. It offers tons of customization options and you can modify anything and everything you want, as per your liking. You can change the menus, add/customize widgets, change themes, etc. in seconds. It’s so good that you can start blogging using WordPress for Free, as long as you have your sources for hosting the blog.

The official plugin from WordPress called “JetPack” will add loads of other functionality such as stats, etc. that you can use to get an insight into your blog usage and your visitors. The best part of WordPress is that you have two options to choose from to get started. If you have your own web hosting, all you have to do is simply upload files to your website and start using it. This is called Self Hosted WordPress blog.

The advantage of Self Hosted WordPress blog is that you can customize it endlessly. The only downside is that you have to maintain it manually and you get no external help, unless you hire someone. You can also add custom widgets, plugin etc. as you need and perform your own testing. So you can use it to develop custom plugin for your clients. So if you are (especially) a Web Developer, you will find this option immensely useful.

If not, you can choose to pay for your blog to be hosted by the guys at WordPress.com. This is called WordPress.com hosted solution. In this solution, although they limit the customization ability and such, much of the technical work is taken care of you. So if you are not technically sound and would not mind spending few extra bucks for the added convenience, then this option is right for you.

2. Blogger

Blogger is the second best blogging platform in the world. It’s owned b y Google. All you have to do is sign up for a free blogger account and you are on your way to blogging for free. Also it offers rich customization options such as free themes to choose from, monetizing your blog for free by adding Google AdSense, stat trackers, etc. If you have multiple authors, you can even create a team blog.

Blogger also makes it easy for you by showing your blog stats conveniently and you by using the tracking  feature they provide, you can also add the blogs that you would want to track the updates for and they will be shown on your dashboard. Blogger shares common features with WordPress in terms of having Search functionality, layout customizations, RSS Feed support and moderating user comments. The “widgets” of WordPress are replaced with “gadgets” in Blogger.

The most appealing thing for choosing Blogger as your blogging platform is that as your blogger account is directly connected with your Google ID and so, you can create as many blogs as you want, very easily.

3. Tumblr

Tumblr is another famous blogging platform very widely used. It’s more of micro-blogging. It offers you a variety of customization options and lets you share videos, images, text, etc. from any device that you may be using (phone, email, desktop, etc.). You can also add “Apps” that provide you with more functionality.

Tumblr is more content oriented, so offers very little scope for upgrading the visual looks by means of themes. So if someone likes your content they can simply “reblog” or “favorite” it and this action will show a snippet of your content on their page. This will include a link back to you, so you get additional traffic for all the favorite content.

Another specialty of Tumblr lies in the fact that you can either import and existing blog from elsewhere and/or export your blog outside, if you choose to go with a different blogging platform. Tumblr is a free service, so you can get started fairly quickly.

Conclusion:

Because of the various functionalities offered, the level of customization, be it just from a design perspective or usage,  WordPress is clearly the most famous and the best top blogging platform available in the world today. So what are you waiting for? Get started with WordPress today.

Note:

1. If you would like to read more about WordPress in great detail, visit our article on What is WordPress? Why WordPress is used? How to use WordPress?

2. If you would like a new custom WordPress theme designed for your blog, contact me today for a free quote.

Your Turn!

Do you know of any other free blogging platforms available in the market today (as of March 2013)? Feel free to share by commenting below.

The Best SEO Plugin For WordPress 2013 – WordPress SEO by Yoast

Undoubtedly, WordPress is proven to the most popular blogging tool used by millions of users today. WordPress has made blogging very easy and simple for all the users. Anyone with basic knowledge of computers can now start a blog. Apart from that, WordPress has gained immense popularity because of its ease of use, extensive customization, robustness, frequent updates and help from the community. And the best part is that WordPress is completely free and they don’t charge you a penny to use it to start a blog yourself.

Now as if it weren’t’ enough, the WordPress community didn’t stop there. Although they provide us with vanilla version of WordPress that any user can use to get started immediately with, they have gone a step further and have made provisions for us to add additional functionality by means of “plugins”. All these plugins are available for free and we can install these plugins and use them as we see fit. One of the most important reasons to use a plugin would be for the benefits of “Search Engine Optimization”. With a well Search Engine Optimized blog, your blog can receive large amount of traffic every day. And in order to get more traffic from the search engines, you have to make sure that your blog is optimized well and completely for the search engines so that the blog ranks higher. For a novice user, this is very difficult. So what to do?

Enter “WordPress SEO by Yoast”

One of the most appreciable additions to the plugin repository is the addition of a WordPress best SEO plugin called “WordPress SEO by Yoast”. This plugin is available free of charge and you download this from WordPress and get started using it within the next couple of minutes. I have personally used this plugin for over an year and because of the features it offers and for it’s simplicity, I consider the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin as the best WordPress SEO plugin. By using WordPress SEO by Yoast, you can perform Search Engine Optimization on your blog/website with minimal efforts and boost your website’s ranking in search engines. The following are some of the features that I find, are important and very appealing.

Very Useful and Important features of the WordPress SEO by Yoast

1. Article Posting area

WordPress SEO – Article Posting Area

1. Focus Keyword

This is by far the most important feature that separates WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast from other WordPress SEO plugins, in behavior and looks. As can be from the image, WordPress SEO offers different functionality in the article posting area. The main feature that I want to highlight now is the auto-suggestion of applicable keywords. Notice how I have entered my main keyword and how it is showing the related keywords for my keyword? I use the keywords as basis for my long tail keywords and I include the most relevant keywords from the suggestions box into my article. That helps my articles rank better in search engines and increases overall visibility of my blog.

2. Snippet Preview, SEO Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords

Under the General Tab, along with the focus keyword option, you can find Snippet Preview, SEO Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords. I am going to discuss the functionality of each of these features below.

Snippet Preview: Enter something in the SEO Title box & in the Meta Description textarea. The Snippet Preview area will show a preview of how your article might appear to visitors when your blog shows up in search engines. This is very helpful as I can either add new content or edit existing content in the SEO Title & Meta Keywords so that most of my content (if not all) can appear to the users.

SEO Title: There is a limit counter right beneath the box against this. This limit counter shows the number of characters that will be shown from as your Article Title to search engine users. You can fine tune this to make sure that the title does not get cut off.

Meta Description: This works similar to SEO Title with the exception that it previews Meta Description and allows more number of characters to be input. Fine tuning this Meta Description can help convey the intended message to your users and help increase more clicks to your website.

Meta Keywords: As I stated in my previous article, these are useless for Google, but may be useful for the other search engines. Use this if you want to target search engines other than Google.

3. Page Analysis Tab

WordPress SEO – Page Analysis Tab

This tab is awesome too.It shows the mistakes that I am making in terms of under-optimizing my blog for search engine optimization or if I am over-optimizing them for search engine optimization  Either ways, it analyses my mistakes and tell the same to me and I get to correct them. This is a huge time saver and I do not have to use any other external software do do my page analysis.  Everything happens right here, right now, with the blog. Can’t beat that!

4. Advanced Tab

WordPress SEO – Advanced Tab

Lets you provide more information that the search engines can make use of. This will again help increase your blog’s visibility  in search engines, so you can change them as needed.

5. All Settings of WordPress SEO by Yoast – Top WordPress SEO plugin

WordPress SEO – All Main Settings

As can be seen from the image above, there are loads of other options available. Each of these options have many settings, so I may not be able to cover them in this article. But I will try to summarize the functionality of each of those options below.

Dashboard: Provides different options to maintain general setting including Webmaster Tools info for Google, Bing & Alexa.

Titles & Metas: Provides you rich set of options to show default values in your blog articles/pages, should you forget to include any while posting a new article. So this will serve as backup if you forget to include all necessary info. This will save your search engine ranking, at least to some extent.

Social: Provides access to Facebook & Twitter sharing & lets you customize them.

XML Sitemaps: Lets you generate XML Sitemaps. This is the format that Google bot will need in order to be able to understand the structure & layout of the articles in your blog/website to crawl effectively.

Permalinks: Let’s you modify the Permalinks for boosting ranking in search engines.

Internal Links: Provides enhancements for Internal Links. This will improve ranking in search engines when used correctly.

RSS: This helps enhance your blog feeds and also protects them from dumb web scrapers.

Import & Export: Import & Export data for re-installation or for backup purposes.

Edit files: Let’s you edit the contents of the .htaccess file. Warning! This is strictly for highly advanced users only. If you are a new user or want to play safe, just forget about this option and use other options normally.

Conclusion:

So as you may have understood by now, there are many obvious benefits to using a SEO plugin for WordPress and specially WordPress SEO by Yoast for your blog/website, than not using it.

Note:

It’s a good idea to take a backup of your blog/website, whenever you are experimenting with a plugin or adding a new one. I have used WordPress SEO by Yoast for over an year and have had no problems at all. Hopefully this will be the case with you as well.

Your Turn!

Have you used WordPress SEO by Yoast so far? Do you agree that it is the Top Best SEO Plugin for WordPress? If you are using it, can you share your experiences with us? Or are you using different WordPress SEO plugins? Would you mind sharing your feedback on them? Please feel free to share your thoughts and views by commenting below.

So here are the Top SEO Blogging Tips

Tip # 1 – Start a Blog

This is the first of the many SEO Optimization tips for blogger. Let’s say you have a website. You might be thinking “I don’t need anything else to become popular!”. Well, if you have thought so, then you are wrong! Long gone are the days when someone relied solely upon their website for getting popular. With the introduction of new blogging platforms such as WordPress, Blogger, etc. it’s now very useful and smart move to start a blog.

The Top And Best SEO Blogging Tip is to  use WordPress for Blogging

I use WordPress and I find it very easy to blog using it. So if you would like to start using WordPress, then you can get started by visiting the official website. If you would like to download it to set it up on your website, you can visit the download page.

If you would like to start reading about WordPress from scratch, in easy to understand way,  read our article on  What is WordPress? Why WordPress is used? How to use WordPress?

How does this affect SEO:

I cannot over emphasize the importance of a blog when it comes to succeeding with the search engines. Your website can only have so much content and it will be toned to describe the product that you are promoting/selling and you would want to keep the best content out there. That part is taken care of.

Note:

A blog provides you an excellent opportunity to be able to voice your opinions in the manner you want. You are free to add as much content as you want, whatever content you want and whenever you want. And whenever you publish a new  article, the search engines are notified and the search engine bots will be sent to your website to crawl your content and index your pages. Hence it is very essential that you start a blog. This is your first step towards successful SEO.

Tip # 2 – Unique, Quality and SEO Friendly content

Write User Friendly Content

In the previous point, I did mention that you can write whatever content you want & as much as you want. When I say “whatever content” I mean “unique and quality content”. There are tons of articles available on the internet today. So why would anyone want to read yours? Well, the fact remains that all those articles are not written by the same person. That’s the first reason.

The second reason is that there are different people writing different articles on the very same topic. The difference lies in understanding of the things, their perception, their current feelings (at the time they write the article) and the future vision about the crux of the article. All these add up and make up a “unique” article and hence people like to read them. So unless all the articles are written by the same author, people would like to read them because of its uniqueness and it’s voice.

My Proof on this:

You must have read many similar articles on different websites. So you will be able to understand this better. Say, a website “A” published an article on “How to save 15% or more on car insurance”. People are interested in reading this article and they are reading it. Now website “B” publishes an article on the same topic. Even though people have read the topic already on website “A”, they still go to “B” and read the article. Why? Because of the “uniqueness” of the article and its value.

Website A might be offering tips based upon their own personal experience and the same holds true with website B. While it’s a possibility that some of the tips discussed  by website A may match with topic discussed by website B, it’s not necessary that all tips may match. It is for these unmatched tips  that people would want to visit and read the content of website B.

If you are still not convinced, try looking at the top blogs in every niche. Are they the only ones existing in their niche? Well, nope! There are other hundreds of other websites publishing their own articles on the same topic. Agreed that other websites may not be as popular as the top blogs, but they are still popular among their readers and continue to flourish. So you won’t see only 1 blog in IT field, only 1 blog in covering car finance, only 1 blog covering health issues, etc. There are hundreds of websites and blogs discussing the same topic. The difference lies in the way the conversations are made & the value each of these conversations provide to the end user.

Ok, coming back, the third  reason why people would want to read your article is for its “quality value”. An article that does not contain too many spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes is more likely to look like a “quality” article and suggests to the reader that you have taken extra care to ensure that the article is free of mistakes, to the much possible extent. Minor unnoticed mistakes are ok and not much of deal.

A good command over the language used can also help you write a free flowing article without hiccups, thereby making it easy for you to convey your point to the reader. All these points make up a “quality article”. In other words, if your visitors can get some useful value out of the article that you have written, that article can be called as ” quality content”.

SEO friendly content lead to a dramatic boost in your website visibility in search engines. This means that if you are writing an article on a specific topic, mentioning that topic as many times as possible without sacrificing relevancy will really add value to the article and help your website rank better for the chosen topic.

How does this affect SEO:

The effects of all the above can be dramatic. It could make tons of difference. Search engines have evolved a lot over the years and can easily tell the difference between copied content, an article that just has been copied and revised on certain lines and an original content. This art of copying someone else’s content and passing it as your own for your own benefits is called “Plagiarism”.  It’s not only shunned by people, but it is also hated by search engines. Stay away from Plagiarism, write useful original content and you should be good to go. So this would be second SEO tip for blogger.

Caveat:

Remember, a blog is your own personal voice. Do it in your own way. Do not try to copy others. This will help your visibility in search engines.

Tip # 3 – Invest in a good looking Website (if not great looking)

Get Good Looking Blog

My third SEO tip for a blogger is about the blog/website. Nothing can irritate your website visitor more than an ugly looking website. A website that is out of place, does not sync with the user can really ensure that the visitor never comes back to the website. Your blog may have great quality content, but if the visual appeal is not good enough to make the visitor stay long enough to even finish reading the first paragraph, then even great content is useless. Give the user ample opportunity and drive them to read your entire article by investing in a good looking blog created for your purpose. Make their visit to your blog as comfortable as possible. Focus on their comfort, not yours.

How does this affect SEO:

Although this does not affect ranking in search engines directly, it is very important as it affects the user’s decisions directly, whether to stay on your blog or not. A good looking blog with unique & quality content will definitely outperform an ugly website with great content. A good looking blog is more likely to be shared among users and the much your blog is shared, the much it is favored by search engines and can help boost your blog traffic.

NOTE:

If you are wondering how to get a good looking custom blog designed for your purpose, I can offer my services to you. I am a Web Designer + Web Developer. I have designed & coded this blog that your are currently on, from scratch. So I can create a visually appealing blog design for you. Contact me with your requirements and I will be happy to discuss the details with you.

Tip # 4 – Choose your topic wisely and Focus on it

Choose on what topic you want to start blogging. If you want to blog on “health insurance”. Write as many quality articles as possible on the main topics and sub topics of “health insurance”. For example, some of the topics can be “How to save more than 10% on dental health insurance”. Try to revolve your articles around the key topic and build your blog on it.

How does this affect SEO:

Search engines love quality content and they absolutely love related articles. When you publish such related articles, all of these count towards your domain authority in the specific niche that you have chosen. As such, with every article you post, you will be proving your authority each time. The much users find your articles useful, the much your authority will rise and your website will rank better in search engines. So that’s my fourth Tip for Search Engine Optimization.

Tip # 5 – Keyword research

Research Keywords For Effective Search Engine Optimization

My next Tip is to do your keyword research before you write an article. A very good & free tool is the Google AdWords tool. This tool will give you an insight into how the keywords are being used and how you can use them and benefit from them. This will also give you an insight into the reach of the keywords used and how a specific keyword is performing. Using this data, you can decide which keywords to use in your article.

How does this affect SEO:

This is exactly how search engines will find your website in their own database when visitors are searching for information. When you write an article based around a keyword, the search engines will compare this keyword with the indexed data that they have of your website and if they determine that your website is a relevant match, it will be shown to the user, when they perform a search. The much relevancy the keyword has to the article that you have written, the much better your article will be ranked. This will help rank your article higher than other articles and higher rank means greater visibility and more clicks.

Tip # 6 – Use Targeted Keywords

If you want to write an article, make sure that you target your keywords right and focus on them. Nothing can be more devastating than thinking of targeting a specific keyword and writing an article that does not have any relevancy to this keyword or an article that satisfies a totally different keyword.

How does this affect SEO:

Again, it’s all about keywords first. Keywords help find your website when users search using those keywords in search engines. The greater the match your article is to the searched keyword, the better is your website’s visibility and ranking. That’s my sixth tip to become a successful blogger.

Tip # 7 – Focus on your target audience

Focus Target Audience

The next Search Engine Optimization Tip talks about focusing on your target audience. Instead of merely writing down as you please, think of your target audience first and focus them. If your website provides health insurance and you want to focus on the benefits of health insurance for senior citizens, then write articles that will help them. For example, in this case of senior citizens, you can write an article that talks about how to get a discount on health renewal for someone who is 60+ years of age. The article title could be something on the lines of: “Are You 60+? Then Save $500 On Your Next Health Insurance Renewal”.

See what I mean? The above article title tells the users instantly that it is applicable for someone who is 60 years or older. That instantly grips the attention of someone who is of that age or older and also tells them the benefit of reading such article.

How does this affect SEO:

If you are really running a health insurance company and you are offering a discount similar to the one that I mentioned above, try it! You will see it works wonders and it reaches only the targeted audience. You have already targeted the search engines with the keyword “health insurance renewal” and your are now narrowing down your audience to someone who is 60+ years of age. This will boost both your search engine visibility and get only highly targeted audience. So that is my seventh tip for a blogger.

Tip # 8 – Write a gripping Title/Headline

One of many Tips for SEO is about writing a article Title that catches attention of the users. Let’s take my example in the earlier point. I mentioned the article title as “Are You 60+? Then Save $500 On Your Next Health Insurance Renewal”. As you can see, it immediately grips the attention of senior citizens at the first glance. Someone who is 20 years of age is unlikely to bother about that article as the number “60” wont’ appeal for a 20 year old person. At the same time, you are mentioning that the senior citizen can save about $500 on next health insurance renewal. That’s good enough of a deal for anyone who wants to save money on health insurance renewal. Such an article title will definitely appeal and increase targeted traffic to your website.

How does this affect SEO:

This is more than just SEO. It offers the benefits of inclusion of targeted keyword in the article title and also filters out unwanted traffic. Additionally, it will lead to increase of visitors that are highly targeted for your offer. It’s a win-win situation.

Tip # 9 – Work on Meta Descriptions & Meta Keywords

Meta Descriptions:

Writing meaningful Meta Description for your article is very essential for your website to show up in search engines. It is the first introduction of your article to the users as this info will be shown as the little snippet to the user. A user will then read this snippet (afte reading the title) and will then decide whether to click on your website link or not. So make sure that you summarize the article in under less than 150 characters. So spend some time on it, think and write the most appealing summary for your article.

Meta Keywords:

Meta Keywords were a hot topic back in the days. Users can write all the keywords they want even without ensuring it’s relevancy. As such, during the recent years, Google changed their approach towards Meta Keywords. In a video, Matt Cutts claimed that Google is not considering Meta Keywords as a basis for ranking your website in Google. This means that its useless to include keywords if you are focusing on getting your website shown up in Google.  You might as well leave them blank if Google is the only search engine you want to target.

However there are other search engines like Yahoo Search, Bing, etc. that do consider Meta Keywords for indexing your website. Unlike Google, they do consider Meta Keywords but not as much as they used to do it in the past. So you can include them if you want to consider ranking for websites that actually consider Meta Keywords in ranking the websites.

How does this affect SEO:

Meta Description is really important as it gives a short glimpse of your article to the users. Hence its out utmost important to spend time on writing meaningful and related description for you article.

The importance and value of Meta Keywords has decreased drastically in the recent years. And if you want to make sure that your website gets indexed for Meta Keywords by the search engines that do consider them, sure, by all means go ahead & include the Meta Keywords in their tags. Just make sure that they are highly relevant to the article that you are writing and don’t over stuff the keywords. Or you risk your website getting penalized by search engines on grounds of “keyword stuffing”. So that’s one of my tips for blogger.

Tip # 10 – Lots of Relevant Content

The next Tip is about the content. When you write an article, write lots of relevant content can actually help your visitors to visualize and understand the point you are trying to convey. An article is a good as non-existent if the user can’t make any sense out of it or can’t find value in it. So don’t limit yourself to writing only 10 lines of content, just for the sake of posting an article. If needed, go an extra mile, include relevant examples, references & make the entire article appealing. If that includes adding lots of relevant content, so be it.

How does this affect SEO:

As Search Engines love content, they will love your related content as well and rank you better. Most importantly, your user will find it useful and will consider sharing it with others, thereby increasing the social appeal of your article. This will help you get more traffic from social networks places. That was my tenth blogger tips & tricks.

Tip # 11 – Maintain Clarity in content

Ok so now you have decided to write the content? Great! But how should you present the content? Your main intent should be to focus on providing something that adds to the value of the website and/or as an independent resource and must be helpful to a user. That said, if you writing an article that does not make sense, it’s not use. So try to lay out the key points concisely and maintain clarity. That will help the readers understand your content better. This is one of the most commonly overlooked points, so pay very close attention to it as it is one of the most important SEO Optimization Tips for a blogger.

How does this affect SEO:

Like I mentioned earlier, search engines have evolved over the ages. A content that lacks clarity might look as “spammy” to the Search Engines. So maintain clarity in content in order for the article to appear meaningful, both to users and to search engines.

Tip # 12 – Article length

My next tips & tricks for blogger is based on the article length. What should be the length of your article? Can it be 25 words? Should it be 100 lines? Well, you are the best person to answer that. And you can answer it well if you know what you want to provide the users with.

But to help you get started, here are my suggestions. A decent article would have about atleast 500 words in it (Could vary depending upon what you are posting about and the motive behind it). A good article would have 1000 words in it. That said, don’t go about adding extra content in all the articles in your website to push them to 1000 word limit. If you are able to provide quality value to your users in 500 words, then stick with it. If your article needs more lines to arrive at the conclusion, make the change. 500/1000 words is just a mere guideline to get you started. Don’t worry too much if you have problems coming up with articles that has fewer words. You will develop your blogging skills much more with time, so go with the flow if you are just getting started.

How does this affect SEO:

Article length does not directly affect SEO. You can write a 500 word article or a 1000 word article. It could have the same impact as far the SEO is concerned.

Note:

You will notice that this article itself is not limited to 500 words or 1000 words. Simply because I cannot convey my points to you if I focus on the word limit, especially because of the topic that I chose. My intent is to share information with you that is beneficial to you. And hence I had to break out of the words barrier. To me, the crux of the matter is more essential than the number of words used.

Tip # 13 – Optimize article for keywords

The next tip to become successful blogger, is about optimizing your article for keywords. When you write an article, make sure that you are using the targeted keywords at least few times. At the same time, don’t use it too many times. Using keywords too many times can make your article look spammy and search engines can penalize you for this.

So your next question would be: “How many times should I use the keyword then?”. Well, though there is no pre-defined rule as to the number of times, I say using 4 times should be safe and decent enough. This includes using the article in the Article Title and all the article body, up until the conclusion.

How does this affect SEO:

Having keywords in your article is great as it helps search engines find your website. Without the keywords, you risk losing your rank to any other article/website that may have used the very same keyword. So make sure you include those targeted keywords to enhance your website visibility in search engines. This is one of my main tips for blogger, so make sure that you follow it.

Tip # 14 – Consider long tail keywords

“What are long tail keywords?”. This would be your first question if you never knew about it. Long tail keywords are nothing but a variation of your main keyword. Let me give you an example.

Let’s assume that you have  a “health insurance” website. Now you want to write an article on “health insurance”. The long tail keywords in this could include:

• health insurance quote
• health insurance benefits
• health insurance discounts for senior citizens

So while you are working on adding keywords, consider adding long tail keywords to it. Don’t force yourself to add long tail keywords if you don’t have any or can’t find a use for it in relation to the main article. It’s good to have them but not mandatory to write an article. Forcing yourself to include unrelated long tail keywords would make the article look out of place to your visitors and can look spammy to search engines.

How does this affect SEO:

Long Tail Keywords can provide greater visibility in search engines as long as they are related to the main article and provide value to users. That concludes my one of my tips for blogger.

Tip # 15 – Add Images, Illustrations, etc.

Add Photos and Illustration To Increase Website Appeal

The next SEO Optimization Tip may sound silly but it really works! It’s all about using Images & Illustrations in your article. If you find an appropriate use for images or if you can explain the motive behind your article by using relevant images, illustrations, etc. go for it. When you use them, make sure you specify the “alt” information so that its accessible to screen readers and to your visitors. The “alt” attribute of an image will describe the image and hence can be used to provide additional value to users.

For example, while posting an article about health insurance, you can include an image of a  first aid kit, or a stethoscope and describe in 5-8 words about the paragraph that you are writing about. That will help boost your search engine visibility.

How does this affect SEO:

Including relevant images and describing your content in few words can help increase search engine ranking. So that’s the end of 15th blogger tips & tricks.

Note:

When you add images to your website, make sure that you are the owner of such images. If you are not, make sure that you get the permission of the owners explicitly or it could be categorized as Plagiarism. If using an image requires you to link back to the source or the creator of the image, make sure you do it either immediately at the end of the paragraph (best method)  or towards the end of the article. If using an image requires you to purchase it to get the rights for it, make sure you do that. You don’t want to get into legal trouble for using someone else’s images, etc. without their permission. Rather have an article without images than an article with images that you don’t have permission to use.

Tip # 16 – Backlinks – Link back to yourself, Link back to others

When writing an article, you may often find yourself referencing a different article on your website or an article on a totally different website. You may find those articles to be offering much more details information on a specific subject. In such cases, it would be worth to provide a link to that article, in the article that you are writing so that readers can click on that link to visit that website and read more info on that topic.

There are basically two types of linking. Internal Linking and Outbound Linking

Internal Linking: If you are linking to other articles of your own website, from a page on your website, this is called Internal Linking.

Outbound Linking: If you are linking to other articles of a totally different website than the one you are publishing an article on, this is called Outbound Linking. Note that in Outbound linking, you may or may not be the owner of the external website. So say you have 2 websites A & B. You own them both. Your friend owns a website C. You are publishing an article on A. You can now link to an article on B & C. Both will count towards Outbound Linking and are perfectly valid ways of providing linkback

Now you might ask: “Wouldn’t that send readers away from my website if I link to other’s websites?”. Well no, not necessarily. You can simply link to that website and provide “target” attribute in the hyperlink with a value of “_blank”. That will open the related website in a new tab/window. In this way, your visitor will still be on your website and will have the option of choosing to read the information on the other website or close it out.

On the other hand, when people find out that you are linking back to them, they will be more inclined to provide a link back to you. I would say don’t worry too much about getting backlinks from others and don’t force others to backlink to you, either by hook or by crook. What really matters is that you are trying to provide additional information to your visitors for their benefit. You are the “good guy” in their eyes because you are benefitting them with more info than they would have actually have, had you skipped on including that URL. So a linkback may not mean a lot to you, but it can make a difference to your visitors. So stop worrying about it too much and provide a linkback as needed.

How does this affect SEO:

Linkbacks are excellent for SEO. Most of the websites on internet, run on the basis of linkback . You like some article, you take an excerpt from it and provide reference to it in the form of a linkback. Someone reads your article, likes it, takes an excerpt from it, adds it to their own website & provides a link back to you. This way, what goes around, comes around. This will definitely increase your website popularity in search engines. That concludes the 16th Search Engine Optimization tips for blogger.

Tip # 17 – Use SEO Tools to optimize your blog posts

Use Seo Tools To Make The Most Of Search Engine Optimization

This tip could be immensely useful, if you are new to the world of blogging. This could reveal all those hidden spots in your article that you can fill up to reap the benefits of. The SEO tools can differ based upon your choice of the blogging platform.

As I use WordPress for blogging, I am going to share my choice of SEO tool with you. I have been using only a single tool since the day one of my blogging. It’s called: “WordPress SEO by Yoast“. It’s a WordPress plugin created by an awesome guy by name “Joost de Valk”. Joost is widely known and respected for his work. His plugin WordPress SEO by Yoast has over 3.7+ Million downloads as of today. I highly suggest you use this plugin if you want to do get started very easily. I personally never experienced a problem with his plugin & I suggest you try it out too.

How does this affect SEO:

SEO Tools can really benefit your websites and improve their visibility in the search engines by many-fold if you know what you are doing. Usually SEO tools have their own guide and implementations procedures, so make sure that you take time to read their manuals, guides, etc. understand them & use it for your benefit.

Tip # 18 – Permalinks / URLS

When you are done writing an article when you want to post them for the entire world to read, stop for a moment. Think about the URL that the visitors will need to visit in order to read the article. This URL is nothing but the “Permalinks”. Permalinks is an abbreviation for “Permanent Links” as it helps users reach the article using this link.

That said, ask yourself a question. Does the URL provide any meaning to the article that I am writing? Does it describe what the article is about? Is it in human readable form? If yes, then you are good to go & you can Publish your article. If not, then it’s time to tweak the Permalink settings.

If you are using WordPress for your blogging, then navigate through the following menu in the Admin panel of your WordPress blog: Settings > Permalinks. On this page, if you have the “Default” radio button selected under “Common Settings” option, go ahead and click the radio button that is next to “Post name” and click on “Save Changes” button. So when you post the article, the URL will be in human readable form.

How does this affect SEO:

Human readable Permalinks are great way for search engines to find your website. They will make your website rank higher in search engines and will increase visibility. Without human readable permalinks, the visibility factor will decrease. So I strongly suggest you look for such option in whatever blogging platform you choose and thereby make the permalinks human readable. Many users don’t know about this tip at all! So know that you know, make sure to work on it before you publish your first article.

Tip # 19 – Use Social Sharing

Use Social Sharing Such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus

The value and importance of this SEO Optimization Tip is undeniable! This is one more area that I cannot over emphasize the importance of. Nowadays it has become a lot more common to see at least 3 social share icons on each article. They are “Facebook Like”, “Twitter Tweet” and “Google +1” buttons. There are other buttons such as “Pinterest Pin”, etc. but these three are the most generally used buttons.

Social sharing enhances the reach of your article and it helps covers more audience. An article that goes viral can reach hundreds, thousands or even millions of users in very short time. Hence it is very important to enable social sharing on your website.

How does this affect SEO:

Nowadays, search engines have become smart enough to differentiate between popular content that is widely read, shared and unpopular content. A shared content/article over the social networks will get more preference over an article that is not shared. Such a shared article will rank high in search engines.

Tip # 20 – Optimize blog for performance

Optimize Blog For Performance

My next SEO Optimiztion Tip is for you to Optimize your blog for increased performance. A site that is optimized and loads fast will be much appreciated by the users. There are different tools available depending upon the blogging platform you choose.

As I use WordPress, I will share the plugin that I use to optimize my blog. I use “WP Super Cache” to improve performance of my blog. The creator of this plugin is “Donncha O Caoimh”. It helps me optimize my blog by caching the commonly used files. This way, my users don’t have to wait for all the files to load each time they access a page on my website.  This increases the overall speed of my blog and makes my users happy 🙂

How does this affect SEO:

A fast loading website is given priority by Google. So an optimized, fast loading website will most likely rank high in search engines.

Tip # 21 – Use signature in blog and emails

When you use signature in your blog at the of your article or in your emails that you send, it counts towards link building and the much link backs you have, the much better your website will rank. This is a very simple tip that you can practically put into use in just few minutes.

How does this affect SEO:

This has a positive effect on SEO. It helps increase exposure to your blog and thereby provides additional chances to increase your website’s popularity and can lead to increase in overall placement in search engines.

Tip # 22 – Use pinging services

“What is pinging?”. You may ask that. Simply put, blog Pinging is nothing but a way of notifying a server that a blog’s content has been updated.

Different blogging platforms do it differently. Because I use WordPress, I know that WordPress has an internal pinging system and whenever an author publishes a new post or updates an existing post, it pings the servers. These “pings” serve the purpose of a notice. When the servers receive such notices they send out their bots to visit the blog that pinged them, to crawl the blog and index them.

How does this affect SEO:

Pinging is a great and fastest way to notify the servers that your blog has new content. That way, search engine bots will visit your blog soon, crawl and index your website faster. Pinging will increase search engine exposure.

Caveat:

One important thing for you to remember is that excessive pinging in short intervals of time can get your website banned from ping services. Lately, the ping system has been abused and now the servers have decided to ban blogs/websites that ping excessively within a short amount of time or within reasonable limits. So make sure that you use this system with caution.

Tip # 23 – Provide RSS Feeds

Provide RSS Feeds

Provide RSS Feeds to your users so that users can subscribe without having to visit your website, each time you publish new content.

If you wish to learn more about what RSS Feeds are, how they work, read our article on “What are RSS Feeds? Why to use RSS Feeds? How to use RSS Feeds?”

How does this affect SEO:

In my opinion, this does not affect SEO. This is more of a use for your readers to stay in touch with your website and become a regular reader.

Tip # 24 – Submit to Web Directories

This blog Optimization Tip for SEO requires that you actively submit your blog/website to Web Directories. There are tons of web directories out there. Submit your website to them to get more back links. While I don’t suggest that you submit them to each and every web directory that you come across, I suggest you do it to only few such as Dmoz, Web-Directories Inclusion of your website in such directories will help leverage the effectiveness and  reach of your website.

How does this affect SEO:

Inclusion in Web Directories is known to increase the exposure to your website. Usually the web directories, such as the ones I listed above, are known to exist from a long time and hence a link from them counts a lot. This will boost your visibility in search engine rankings.

Tip # 25 – Respond to Visitor’s Questions and Comments

Respond To Comments

Unlike the search bots, your blog readers are actual human beings. When they read an article on your website, they may possibly have different questions on the discussed topic. As such they may even leave their question in the form of a comment and may want to return back at a later time, to read your response. So providing answers and indulging in conversations with your blog users will really help build your relation with them.

In course of such conversations, links to different websites or to your own websites may be exchanged. Such link exchanges will contribute to the overall link building and will help increase back links to your website.

How does this affect SEO:

Active participation not only grows your community of users, but it also known to help in the process of link building. This helps to increase exposure to your website and this can boost the visibility of your blog in search engines.

Tip # 26 – Consider Guest Blogging & accepting them on your blog

“What is Guest Blogging?”. I thought that must have popped up in your mind (if you didn’t know it already). In simple words, guest blogging is nothing but inviting others to post articles on your website or the vice-versa. This means even you could blog on some others websites.

Why invite others to blog on your website? Well, that helps increase the usefulness of your blog. If a different author is sharing his/her knowledge by posting an article, that will help your blog as your users will like it as they get more variety and more info and thus more value out of your blog. At the same time, the guest author will receive a link back to his own blog/website and that will improve his visibility in search engines.

Similarly, when you guest blog on someone else’s blog, their blog users will get more variety and you will get recognition and link back. It’s a win-win situation for both yourself and the guest blogger. So there you go with an unknown SEO Tip for blogger.

How does this affect SEO:

This can help increase recognition among people and will help boost visibility in search engines because of the link building involved in it.

Tip # 27 – Consider other Search Engines

There is no question that Google is the undisputed leader when it comes to internet search. So far we have talked about optimizing our blog with Google in mind. But if your target audience’s native language is not English, then you might want to optimize your website for search engines such as Ask, Bing, Overture, etc. This tip is one of the unknown and now that you know it, make sure you put into practice, if it applies to you.

How does this affect SEO:

This can help increase the visibility of your website in search engines other than Google and will help increase your band awareness among non-English speaking users.

Tip # 28 – Be one among your audience

One another excellent way to increase SEO for your blog is to take part in active communities related to your niche. These communities can include, but not limited to forums, established websites, established blogs, etc. When you are active in the community, you get brand recognition and also link backs, whenever a link back to you is posted.

How does this affect SEO:

When you start replying to other’s problem and participate in related discussions in your niche, you have the possibilities of either giving out links on your own or receive linkback from others. This will help build back links and will add to the overall link building strategy. This will help rank your website higher in search engines.

Tip # 29 – Team up

This is an unknown and  Valuable Tip for bloggers. If you are willing to, you can team up with other websites in your niche that cover topics that you don’t. For example, let’s assume that you deal with insurance and specifically “health insurance”. Now say you have a friend “A” who runs a blog called “a.com” and blogs about “dental insurance”. As you both cover topics of insurance, you can team up and share link backs to each other. So every two weeks or every four weeks, whenever you publish an article, you can add a link back to the other website asking your users to check out information on “dental insurance”. Your friend can do the same with the only exception that he will post a link back to you and will ask his users to check out your blog for “health insurance”. This way, both of you can build back links.

How does this affect SEO:

This method can very easily and safely build backlinks, both to your site & to your partner site. Because both the blogs are related, that will help sustain the relative values of the blogs and at the same time, improve user base for each of the blogs.

Tip # 30 – Treat your Visitors like Customers, not like Visitors

Treat Visitors Like Custoemrs

My last SEO Optimization Tip for a blogger may sound strange, but it is true! You might be wondering how that is possible and why one should do that. Well, if you think about it from my perspective, you will see the reason why. I feel that every visitor could be a potential customer, but it’s usually not the other way round ( at least as far as my experience is concerned ). So when a visitor lands on your blog, finds value in what you have to offer, they are more likely to consider your services, if you are offering any. This will be for your advantage.

At the same time, I don’t  see a difference in a visitor and a customer. Both are equal to me. I personally try to provide high quality information to both of them, regardless of whether someone is a visitor or chooses to be a customer. My goal is to provide quality information to all my users, whether they are just visitors or a customer. And I will strive to do the same. If someone chooses to become a customer, they are more than welcome. If not, I do appreciate them for being a visitor. Either ways, I am thankful to both kind of users, regardless of the role they play.

So the only difference between a visitor and customer IMO, is that a customer is directly hiring me for my services, whereas a visitor isn’t doing so. That’s the only difference for me, if at all I have to mention a difference.

So that’s my attitude and my way of life. If you think it makes sense, you can try to follow it and see how it works out for you.

How does this affect SEO:

Well, that was not an SEO tip actually. It was more of my personal approach towards my services to my users and customers. I hope you like it 🙂

Conclusion:

I hope you will be able to personally put the above Tips into practice to improve ranking for your blog in search engines.

Your Turn!

Do you know of any other SEO Blogging Tips for a blogger that can add value to SEO? Do you have any other blogging tips in general? Feel free to share by commenting below.