Blogging is one of the easiest ways to get content published to the Internet.  Everyone, from the average Joe to the Corporate Communications Specialist wants to see their blog and their most recent posts on the Google results page.  But, just like SEO for any other web site, it takes time, effort, and patience.  Here is a collection of tips gathered from around the blogosphere on how to optimize your blog for search engines.

Content

• Content is always king.  Make sure your content is new, fresh, engaging, and relevant.
• Update your blog frequently.  The more it is updated, the more your content will be indexed.
• Stick with your blog – don’t get discouraged!
• Use an interesting title for your blog and each of your blog posts. 
• Limit each of your posts to one topic, keeping your pages focused.
• Keep your posts not too short, and not too long.  This keeps your readers interested and returning.
• Provide a list of your top 10 blog posts on your site.
• Make sure your tags, categories, labels, etc. also make good keywords.
• Use your keywords as often as possible, but only in a natural context.
• Use a blog service like WordPress, Blogger, etc.  These sites already have high content churn, and attract frequent indexing.
• Make sure that anonymous users can leave comments.  You will get more feedback that way.

Linking

• Increase your inbound links from other sites.
• Link to your own posts that have a similar topic.
• Outbound links to high quality sites help your page rank.

Markup

• Make sure your blog’s HTML is W3C Compliant so that search engines can spider your blog easily.
• Make sure your post titles are live links.
• If your blog supports it, don’t forget to use meta tags in your blog template.
• Use your primary keyword in strategic locations:
• Your blog domain
• In the title of your posts
• In the anchor text of links
• In the alt tags of your images
• In Header tags – H1, H2, H3, etc.
• In bold tags

Your RSS Feed

• Be sure that RSS auto-discovery tags are placed in the header of every page, one for each RSS feed.
• Your RSS feeds should provide full text for each post.
• Maximize the number of blog posts provided in your blog feed.  Typical default is 10, 20 or more is better.
• Provide a feed for every category your blog offers.

Post-Publishing

• Join blog networks and blog directories.
• Let other bloggers know about your site.
• Leave comments on other blogs with links back to your site, particularly industry leaders.
• Contact industry leaders who blog and ask them to cover your story.
• Swap links with other bloggers.
• Submit your site to Ping Servers so that your blog gets indexed faster.
• Some blog services will do this for you.
• If they do not, then use Ping-O-Matic – http://pingomatic.com/ .
• Submit your blog to the top search engines:
• Google – http://www.google.com/addurl/
• Yahoo – http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html
• Yahoo Directory – http://dir.yahoo.com/
• Yahoo Directory Submit – https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/
• Windows Live Search – http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx
• DMOZ – http://dmoz.org/add.html
• Feedburner is a great way to publish your RSS feed.
• Google Analytics is a great starter tool to measure your site’s activity, and it’s free.

 

Do you have other tips or resources for bloggers in optimizing their sites for search engines?  Leave me some feedback and let me know.

 

Resources:

• Scott Hanselman – Blog Interesting – 32 Ways to Keep Your Blog from Sucking
• Matt Cutts – Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers
• ProBlogger – Search Engine Optimization for Blogs
• BlogHerald – SEO Tips: Increase Page Rank By Revitalizing Your Old Posts
• SearchEngineGuide – Tips for Optimizing Blogs and Feeds 
• JohnTP – 8 Simple SEO Tips for Blogs