Search Engine Optimization (commonly referred to as SEO) has its roots in efforts by webmasters to make their websites easy to access and crawl by search engines. The concept has been evolving into something much bigger and broader than simply making websites “crawlable” by the machines. SEO has started to cover usability issues, conversion tactics, backlink acquisition and more. Most SEO experts, including Google engineers, agree that the blog is an area that holds great leverage in all aspects of SEO.
Remember: search bots only “see” text and keywords, they are straightforward and, well, they are machines.Your primary task is to make your blog easy to understand and interpret even for those robots. Three basics:
• Create a clear navigation and naturally link to your old content and posts.
• Create natural keyword prominence: have your important words in the “prominent” places.
• Make your pages lightweight for people and bots to load easily.
SEO Terms that all bloggers should know:
1. Title Tag
The title of each post is of crucial importance. Not only will it grab your readers’ attention and prompt them to read further, the page title is also the most “prominent” place to showcase your important keywords:
• Title tags are displayed in search results (this is the linked part of Google search engine listing)
• Title tags are used by search bots to “understand” the main topic of the page
Make sure to create catchy and attention-grabbing titles AND include some post-specific details in them. Helpful details might include the product you are reviewing, the person you are interviewing, the place you are describing, or the market you are covering. These “details” can help to get your post to appear in relevant searches.
Some best practices and rules:
• All title tags throughout the site should be unique
• Title tags should be preferably no longer than 70 characters (including spaces)
• Page titles should be specific and contain your main keyword(s) – to help Googlebot understand what the page is about.
Part 2 of this series will be about discussing Meta description and URL structure.
