25 Quick SEO Tips and Tricks To Start Your Blog

This is a guest post by Emma Tomlinson.

You may have heard many people say that blogging is easy. But is it really? There are plenty of bloggers these days; however, not all of them are getting considerable amount of traffic. In fact, some of them only have a few visitors.

WHY?

The main reason for this is that they do not rank well in search engine result pages (SERPs). As a result, they have less visibility on the Web. This further means that their target audience cannot spot them easily.

What should be the best thing to do then?

If you are one of the following:

• Planning to start a blog site
• Already blogging but not getting enough readers
• Already a successful blogger but wants to hone skills

Find out how you can boost (or further increase) your ranking in SERPs through these…

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

 

1. Register your domain name

   By doing this, you are off to a good start because you can take advantage of essential blogging features. What is more, you can advertise easily. Of course, do not forget to find an established and dependable Web hosting company.

2. Perform keyword research and analysis

   Always find out which terms are most relevant to your blog theme or topics. To help you with this, you need to…

3. Utilize keyword tools

   Some of these are free, while others are paid. Whichever you prefer most (while keeping in mind that you need to spend to enhance your online presence), remember that you require keyword tools capable of providing you with fresh and trend-related words.

4. Include keywords in your content

   When you put this strategy into practice, consider the following aspects:

   • Put the primary keyword at the beginning of the page title.
   • Use popular modifiers (i.e. adjectives, promotional words, places, etc.) for variation.
   • Use related terms and phrases throughout the article body but make sure your writing style still comes out natural.

5. Get inspiration from YouTube

   The video-sharing site has a list of the latest, most favorite, most discussed, and most popular videos. Plenty of these may not be relevant to your theme; however, you can surely find some that you can use as inspiration for your next topics.

   Additionally, you can…

6. Use a meme tracker

   If you are not familiar with memes, these are videos, images, catch phrases, etc. passed from one Web user to another. You can find out which ones are stirring the latest buzz by using tools that help monitor reader responses.

   Moreover, you can…

7. Obtain ideas from social news sites

   You can discover trending topics by checking out bookmarkers like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Del.icio.us.

   Do not forget to…

8. Check out your competitors’ blogs

   Look into other sites within your niche and determine which ones get more readers. Then, find out why many readers link to and talk about them.

   With tips 5-8, you can…

9. Come up with fresh ideas

   It will be easy for you to write interesting and buzz-worthy posts once you know which topics are trending online.

   Do not just settle on appealing content, you should also…

10. Write attention-grabbing headlines

    Descriptive, emotionally captivating, and eye-catching – these are what your titles should be, so you can provide a great start to your stories. As a result, plenty of people are more likely to choose your site when they see it in SERPs. Great titles can be in the form of:

    • Questions
    • Solutions to problems

11. Highlight your most-read posts on your homepage

    By doing this, you can lead new visitors to your top content without asking them to click on several links. Additionally, it lets them have an idea of your blog site theme and initial points of reference without repeating topic ideas.

12. Create categories

    When you do, the pages within each group will rank in SERPs for their keywords or tags. As a note, avoid using the same category titles as page tags to keep them from overlapping.

13. Link to previous, succeeding, and related posts

    Doing this allows search engines to crawl your site properly and index relevant content. It also helps your readers to spot related topics.

14. Put your post title first

    Several content management systems put site names before the post names. To let your articles rank individually, you have to place the page title first.

15. Use web analytics

    Through this tool, you will know the following:

    • Readers linking to your site
    • Your posts with most links
    • Search terms used to find your blog

    In return, you can guarantee these aspects:

    • Create link-worthy topics your target audience will like
      
    • Come up with topics that rank well in SERPs
      

16. Stand out

    Write stories that you know will get people talking. If you have to stir controversy, why not, right? Some bloggers have earned money and exposure for doing so. Then again, you have to prepare yourself for any negative comeback, which may come your way.

17. Prove your credibility

    Here is one tip, which you do not hear that much, about proving you are credible – provide your site with a professional yet attractive custom design and format. Why? Given that you spend time and money on it, it shows that you are truly passionate about your blog.

18. Link to other blog sites

    Choose blogs that have the same interests or biases as you. On the other hand, you can mention particular posts and explain your reasons for approving or disapproving the writers’ views.

19. Advertise

    By this, it means that you have to set aside money for tools like pay-per-click, AdWords, social bookmarking submissions, and reviews.

20. Take advantage of “push marketing”

    It involves using strategies that encourages your target audience to relay your message through word of mouth or sharing.

21. Encourage interaction

    You can organize contests or polls on your site to attract more readers. You can also start conversations or ask for opinions on the hottest issues to promote active participation.

    When you are able to obtain the interest of several users, the next step is to…

22. Publicize

    Display any proof of your accomplishments such as the number of subscribers (especially if you have hundreds) or positive comments from other readers.

23. Be consistent

    You will earn greater trust when you have strong beliefs and unswerving biases. As a result, other people will want to share your viewpoints.

24. Submit to general directories

    When your blog links appear on leading sites, search engines will consider your site credible and worthy of high ranking.

25. Build exposure and credit

    The more users look up on you, the more you will obtain Google’s (and other search engines) vote of confidence.

IN CONCLUSION

After going through the SEO tips, you have probably noticed that some of them require expertise. Then again, you have nothing to worry about. Just think about it, you do not acquire success within a day of blogging. The more you get the hang of it, the easier it will be for you to get that top position in SERPs.

About the author Emma Tomlinson is the Head of Retail at Smart Traffic, a professional SEO company in Britain delivering services to many clients across the globe.