What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? – See what Moz has to say about SEO
SEO is a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand.
SEO isn’t just about building search engine-friendly websites. It’s about making your site better for people too.
Can I do SEO by myself for my blog?
Although SEO is a complex thing which involves tons of knowledge and industry experience, most people with the background of blogging can easily understand the basics of search engine optimization.
By creating content that is more easily found via search engines, you end up saving time and money.
The Basics of SEO for Bloggers – These are the 5 essentials SEO’s every blogger must practice.
Setup your blog with Google
First thing first, set up your blog on google so that Google will start scrolling your blog and index your blog on google search database, One of the easiest things you can do is head over to Google Search Console and add your blog.
This is a service that Google provides that basically allows you to see your blog from their point of view – how it appears in the search results, what position, how many people click your links, etc.
And then create an account in Google Analytics and connect your blog with google analytics, this way you can monitor your blogs visits and many more statistics.
Install the essential SEO plugins into your blog, If your blog is built on WordPress then I would suggest you install SEO Yoast an amazing plugin for all in one SEO.
Make sure your blog is mobile first and optimized
Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content.
Google prioritizes sites which are responsive to any devices, otherwise, you will be losing many potential visitors. Select a template/theme with clean code and support on all types of devices. Make sure your blog pages should load in less than 3 seconds, this highly effects on page ranking on google.
Do a basic keyword research
Before you start writing content for search engines, you need to decide: What are you going to write about? You need to choose your Niche.
Do a basic keyword research on the keywords you need your blog to rank high. There are plenty of free materials online for you to learn the basic of keyword research.
There is a great article on keyword research by Search Engine Journal which will help you to do your keyword research for your blog.
Optimize your content
You have to remember, the whole purpose of doing SEO is to rank your blog and its pages high on search engines, especially on Google. You want to show your content/pages for the searchers.
The phrase “original content” means so much more than just blog posts nowadays. You must optimize the contents to the best;
URL:
It’s important your URL isn’t too long or containing strange characters, also meaningful else spiders might render it as spam. So, it’s best if you keep it short and include the keywords.
TITLE:
The first place Google start analysing your blog.
The first bit of the title should include the meaning / the keywords of your blog post, this will help Google to relate your blog post with the searched keywords. The easy way is to do some google searches on your topic and then analyse which title could beat those search results.
HEADINGS:
The second place spiders analyze are headings or H tags, I recommend using H2 in these cases since they are the ones that hold more value. It’s recommended to place the keyword in each of them. It’s not necessary to include the keyword in each one because it’ll seem unnatural.
You should use subheads to lead your reader through the article, but also use variations of your keywords in your H1, H2, and H3 tags. (Note: Don’t use the H1 tag in a post if your blog system pulls this from your title.)
BODY:
Here go your main texts of your article or blog post, you can include the keywords within the text but in a natural way, you should not stuff the keywords on the article, focus on quality content than stuffing your keywords. Remember Google has over 300 variables to rank your blog post. Just stuffing a bunch of keywords will not help your blog to rank on top ten.
PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEOS:
Quality and meaning full phots are so much important to retain your visitors in your blog, a photograph can express a thousand words and the same way it can retain thousand visitors.
Rename the file name to include your keywords and include them in your image title, alt text, and description (this is also metadata).
The best is to get your own images which will give meaning to your article, that’s what I believe, or you can get some quality photos from some royalty free sites. Check out this article by HubSpot
It is good to include Imagery and Videos in your blog post, if it relates to them, as those contents give a diversity to the blog post. Images can also help hold the reader’s interest and can lead them to click other content on your site, as well.
Build your social media profiles
Social media channels have become one of the main factors in search engine ranking, so you must give some time and effort on managing your social channels. I personally do not prefer to be active on multiple social channels, as I pick what channel works best for me. And evolve with the trend.
Remember social media channels are free backlinks to your blogs. And a great way of sharing your latest blog post. Become members of those facebook groups on your Niche and share your blog post among them.
Most importantly do not worry about ranking on top of the google searches, you have to focus more on providing quality and use full contents to the internet world. It is all about how you present your idea on the world wide web.
I hope you found this post useful and if I’ve left anything out of this basic guide that you consider important or would like to know how to do, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment so I can add it!
