I'm not going to pretend to be an SEO genius here. What I am going to do is share with you a few simple ways to improve your SEO. Before using these few simple techniques, my traffic from Google searches was around 3% of my visits. It's now around 20%. It's not a huge leap, but I think it's pretty good when you see how easy these tweaks are!
1. Title
Your post's title is, I would say, the most important aspect for boosting search engine traffic. Make sure you use key words (ie, words people are likely to type into a search engine) in your title. For example, let's say you just wrote a post about your fabulous new camera (for the record, I haven't got a fabulous new camera, this is just wishful thinking!). Calling your post "My New Camera" isn't going to get you results on a search engine. Something like "Review of the Nikon D3200" will be much more likely to have search hits.
If you really want to nail it, try something like "Why the Nikon D3200 kicks ass!". You still get the SEO hit off the key word (Nikon D3200) and the post title is catchy enough to make people chose to click through to your post rather than the other options available.
2. Images
The alt text on images is searchable by search engines. On Blogger, add your image as normal, then click on it. A menu will come up, select properties, then add your text to the alt box.
In theory, you are meant to describe the image. I tend to use the post title in this box. It contains your key words, and also, if people choose to pin your images, it gives an idea of what the post is about if people click through to it.
Again, it's all about what people will be searching for. If you don't fill in this box, it defaults to whatever you have saved the image as, so you could end up with an alt description of something like "img123" if you don't change it!
3. Body of text
Try to include one or more keywords in the post itself. Particularly, the first paragraph. Generally, the first line or two is an introduction to what is to come in the post anyway, so it is just a matter of wording. To continue with the above example, rather than say "My new camera just arrived and I am so excited", try "My new Nikon D3200 just arrived and I am so excited".
4. Sub-headings
To make sub-headings searchable, just add a bit of simple HTML, effectively turning them into post titles in the search engines eyes. I only use this one if I feel the sub-heading will contain key words, I don't actively try to use them here. In this post, I don't see anyone searching for the terms I have used as sub-headings, so I haven't bothered, however, in our example post, it could work. Say you are comparing your new camera to your old one. You could use the sub-heading "Why my Nikon D3200 is better than (insert old model here)". You now have two key words in there! To make it a sub heading, use the following HTML:
<H2>Enter sub-heading here</H2>
That simple!
5. Post regularly
Google robots check to make sure your site is a reliable site. If it is, then your posts will be higher in the results list. The higher it is, the more likely you are to get hits. By regular, I don't mean you have to post three times a day - or even once a day! Find a schedule that works for you, and try to stick to it where possible. For example, posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, or once a week on a Sunday is regular. Google doesn't like sending searchers to sites that aren't regularly updated.
That's it, my five simple tips. Easy right!
For the record, Nikon haven't asked me to plug their camera! It came into my head when I was thinking of an example to use (a bit of wish fulfilment maybe?), and when I typed Nikon into Google, the D3200 was the top result! I feel a bit guilty for anyone who Googles it and ends up here, a post totally unrelated!
Do you have any tips to add? Let me know in the comments!
