Optimizing your blog is akin to walking a very fine line. On the one hand, you want to post active and engaging content that will capture the interests of a target audience. On the other, you want to optimize your posts so they show up in search results. Failing at the latter while succeeding at the former is a mistake many bloggers make to their detriment. SEO has vast marketing potential and is not that difficult to implement and upkeep. When used in tandem with engaging content, your blog will be attracting business like flies on… well, you get the idea. Here to lend a hand with this is a list of the six best practices for optimizing your blog.
1. Research
Research does not only apply to content, far from it. Effective blog research also includes what keywords are implemented into each post. More often than not, effective keywords are used unintentionally simply by writing an engaging post pertaining to a particular topic. However, plenty of tools exist that will aid you in uncovering topic-related keywords that may have eluded you. For example, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool helps users locate essential keywords.
2. Use Keywords Effectively
After you have uncovered the keywords you will be using, the next step is to arrange them in an impactful way. The caveat here is that they must not only be rendered impactful to the humans reading the post, but also to the search engine crawlers indexing the content. One clever means of appealing to both is by including keywords in the title, headings and subheadings, preliminary sentence, final paragraph, anchor text, and meta descriptions. However, it is important to refrain from infusing your content with too many keywords, especially in a way that renders it difficult to read. This will push away potential followers and result in penalties from Google.
3. Keywords Apply to Images Too
When uploading a photo, make sure to use keywords in the file name and alternate text field. For the latter, a brief description of the photo using some of the most prominent keywords should suffice.
4. Use Reference Links
Whenever you cite or mention other bloggers or articles, be sure to include a link to whatever you are referencing. This will inspire others to link to your blog and could result in higher search engine rankings.
5. Subscription Buttons Should be Prominent
RSS and/or feed subscription buttons should be included in posts and emails in order to afford users an easy means of subscribing to your content. Once they subscribe, they will have instantaneous updates pertaining to all of your future posts.
6. Utilize Social Media
Most businesses understand the promotional importance of social media: it enables them to build direct connections between their brand and customers. Is your blog any different? By utilizing social media as a means of outreach, you can deploy links to all of your recent and upcoming posts across the internet. Additionally, certain programs even enable you to schedule future posts, affording the ability to effectively automate your social media outreach!
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