Maybe it was just laziness on my part, or because I was too busy with other things. Another possible reason that has prevented me from delving deeper into SEO is the ever-changing world of Google's algorithms, which can be incredibly confusing and overwhelming.
.jpg "SEO Basics for Bloggers Introduction to SEO Basics Every Blogger")
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In fact, as a blogger, you should not worry about SEO, because your blog itself, naturally does the things that Google prefers, so you will probably have better SEO than traditional sites simply by owning a blog.
However, there is a lot to learn, and there is a lot you can do to help raise your ranking in Google and get your blog better for search engines in general. If you're ready to get started, follow along with this series.
In this and upcoming articles we will take a look at:
Factors Affecting Website/Blog Ranking in Google
?Keywords: how to choose them, and what are the best words
Metatags: are they still used? Is it suitable to use
Links: external links, backlinks... what are they?
Tips and tricks to improve your blog's SEO.
WordPress plugins that will help you improve and manage your blog's SEO.
Buy PPC (Pay Per Click) Ads.
How can you write blog articles so that they don't look like they are written automatically because they are optimized for search engines?
I assure you, this is going to be a lot of fun, let's go!
SEO Essentials for Bloggers
Whether you just launched your blog, or you did it a while ago, in this paragraph I'll share with you some SEO basics for bloggers. These are some of the elements that you should make sure to have on your site that will help you optimize your blog for search engines.
Here we'll take a look at the things you should do to help set up your blog as a whole. In a later article, we will learn how to configure each article individually.
WordPress Hosted Blogs vs Self Hosted Blogs
SEO Success Factors (Search Engine Optimization)
If your blog is hosted on WordPress there is not much that you can do, so it is better to have your blog self-hosted to be able to do what you desire better.
I'm not sure about Blogger blogs, which we all know belong to Google, but blogpost.com's SEO could be better than it for a WordPress-hosted blog.
What you are required to do: Register a private domain for your blog (ideally the name of your blog that contains your keywords), and host your blog on your server.
Permalink permalink structure
In WordPress, the default option for the permalink structure (the direct and unique address that is generated for each single article you publish) is similar to the following:
And this link is terrible for SEO, because that string of numbers means absolutely nothing. You can optimize your permalinks to be optimized for search engines, as we will detail in a later article. But for now, go to:
Choose the "Post Name" option at least, or create a custom name (as I did in the image below):
Metatags
Previously, Metatags were one of the primary means used to get people to find your site. Essentially, these tags were keywords that defined what your site was about, and were added directly to the pages' code, so they would be legible and readable by Google spiders, but not necessarily so for regular readers. Metatags are no longer as important as before, and the reason is that people have tried to circumvent the system and stuff these tags with keywords that may or may not be related to their real websites.
What you are required to do: Install the Yoast SEO plugin on your blog, after that, click on the “Titles and Meta” option. And under the "Home" tab, enter the keywords for your site.
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Sitemap
You need a sitemap for Google to know your location. The map allows Google to recognize all of your site pages and articles, and also speeds up Google's ability to index any changes to your site.
What you need to do: Install the XML's Sitemap Generator and use it to create a sitemap for your site. Or, if you have installed Yoast SEO plugin you can use its available options. From the control panel, click on SEO > XML Sitemaps, then check the top option.
Speed matters
Google will check how fast your site loads, so if your loading is slow, you won't get a high ranking. The loading speed depends on some page contents such as images and videos (their number and size).
What you need to do: Check your blog's loading speed from here . To make your blog load faster, install a caching plugin like Quick Cache , and use images with lower sizes.
Continuous posting
Simply put, the more you post, the more traffic you will get. I realize that not everyone can post multiple times a week, or even many articles in a day, especially if the blogger is one person. With that, create a schedule and stick to it. Aim to post at least once a week.
What you need to do: Create an editorial calendar for your blog and schedule articles for publication times, as well as select the topics they will revolve around.
In the upcoming articles, we will talk about creating individual articles, as well as some concepts such as backlinks, social media, and keywords.