Keyword Research Guide for Bloggers - Case Study

The biggest mistake I have ever done to previous blogs is not targeting any "Primary Keywords". Every normal blogger research on various tools before writing every post. Have researched for keywords before starting your blog ?

Answer to this question is most frequently "NO".

Reason behind this silly mistake is blogging is a sort of passion and bloggers want to write on the things which they love to write. No matter what competition is.

Result of this kind of philosophy is low organic traffic and even if there is traffic, that traffic is not targeted as traffic is coming from wide range of subjects. It is impossible to scale-up these kind of blogs in terms of revenues as well readers' base.

Let's not waste your precious time and start the keyword research process

Ethical Link Building Guide for Bloggers

Links are one of the important SERP rank determining factor. Google, By their various search algorithms they have threatened the small blogger like me to not to link any low authority website. This is giving birth to era of "Mega Blogs" as capitalism in our economic system.

As rich are becoming more rich in capitalist economic era, these so called Mega Blogs are becoming bigger than ever as small bloggers are not linking each other at all. Even in case some blogger connects and makes a community, Google will penalize them labelling it as "Link Network"!!! I  am still to find anything bad in this. What is bad if some bloggers from similar niche, writing about similar topics join their hands to provide users' a better reading experience and providing them deep insights by linking various sources and blog posts from their network bloggers' blogs. After all it is helpful for bloggers, they need not to go back to Google and search again for deep insights.

How to increase CTR in Google Search

What does SEO mean to you in 2013 ?

Do you still thinking about commenting on other blogs just to get some "nofollow" links. In past that works to increase post rankings but do you think Google will let those spammers reach page 1 of any important keyword.

The answer is a big "NO".

Due to high competition in almost every niche searchers have wide range of choices while selecting a source of information.

As per me SEO in 2013 is more about how users takes your site while searching on Google.

1) Use authorship

If you are a blogger and posting articles, you should apply for Google authorship. It creates a personal brand. There are endless websites that people are unable to recall most of them but author's picture on search results with his name makes a deep impact on user's mind.

Author's picture ensures user that the web page is not a spam and he can visit the website safely and get useful content.

I took this picture from Justin Briggs where he shared heatmap of searches. Searchers are more interested in knowing about the author.

I saw 40% growth in traffic from Google in one of my blogs just after applying Google authorship.

You can apply for authorship in two easy steps :-

1. Put your Google plus profile link on every page where you want to apply authorship.
2. Apply for authorship here.

You can find detailed tutorial to authorship on Bloggingcage, a blog by +Kulwant Nagi. He already wrote a nice tutorial so I don't want to waste my time on writing same stuff again.

2) Write "Useful" instead of "Catchy" titles

Till now everybody know that title of a web page and article headlines are one of the major ranking factor. You need to think like a searcher.

For example I need to make a CV last week so I need template. I search on Google - "How to make a CV".

First result was CV Maker. Why should I download a template and edit it in old school way. That CV Maker was great, I made an account and every time I make changes to my CV it is stored on cloud so that it is available to me everywhere. I never went to any other website to make CV.

Now give a look to result 2, this is an article from About.com and it almost matches my query but I was not interested in knowing how to make my resume better rather I just wanted to make a good looking CV. There is no way that I click about.com.

I am tracking "resume templates" keywords for some personal interests. This CV came to spot 1 so quickly because of high CTR. Google tends to increase rank of results having high CTR so that searchers need need to go down to get what they want.

3) Write Meta descriptions for searchers not Search engines

Adding target keyword in description is really helpful in getting higher ranks. Description is the second chance to attract searchers to click on your results.

Generally bloggers make this mistake frequently, You write a 800 words post and did everything to make it look good but when it comes to write meta description you copied the opening lines and paste it. I admit that I made this blunder in past many times.

You need to think as searcher and answer that why a searcher should choose you and invest his precious time on your web page. If the title is related he gets assured of related content. But before clicking on result searcher reads meta description to ensure that it is a useful website. Be truth full in what you have for visitors. If you provide free study material for IIT exam just write it.  

4) Simplify URL structure

URL is one of the few things that a searcher can see while searching on Google. As I am using Blogger platform I am not allowed to change url structure. But if you are using WordPress then you can change permalink structure. Give a look to default Blogger permalink structure

http://www.thegoodblogger.com/2012/10/6-places-to-find-paid-reviews.html 

User can see the date before clicking the search results and users tends to click on fresh content then on old content. Only thing I hate about this URL structure is when I update an old post which is getting good reader's attention, the post's url show that post is still old :(

As per me best url structure is
http://mysite.com/category/post-name

I hope you will find this post useful. Please share on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

10 SEO Tips for WordPress Blog

1. Enable comments

To let users interact with the ability to maintain a fresh and updated post to post and adds theming.

2. Create original articles

It is useless plagiarized articles, search engines have developed algorithms that can identify plagiarized posts. A rather original content will be viewed with an eye on, both by users who probably will link both by search engines.

3. Use keywords / keyword in the title of the post

The title tag and the h1 tag is generally placed where the post title, hold still a fundamental part in the optimization “OnSite”. Try entering the keywords, naturally, you’d want to be found.

4. Use keywords as even in links

The even text links has always been one of the main techniques for positioning a website, because he makes it clear to the search engine and contains the user what the content of that link. Try to put the keywords in a natural way inside, diversifying the various links.

5. Use keywords in the content such as images

If an image is inserted into a page that talks about a particular agormento, enter the keyword in the file name and possibly in the image alt tags.

6. Use tags to group the blog post

The wise use of tags allows further thematize your blog posts and help in the natural positioning. Do not overdo the use of tags you might otherwise remain penalized by search engines. 

7. Enter Meta Description on each page unique and original

Allow the user to quickly identify if the page content is what you are looking for and improve click rates in the results of the search engine. A description is sometimes more effective than a site located in the first place but without a clear description. 

8. Make your site simple and lightweight

Do not use too much effects in javascript, jquery, etc. .. css3 not all your visitors have a browser that support them.

9. If you want to attract the attention you give a gift to your visitors

Give your visitors something arouses interest and could provide interesting data in case of registration. Generally then if the bonus is you will also get quality backlinks natural.

10. Promote your site in social networks

You have no idea how much traffic can lead to a link on facebook or any other social network, then put in place a strategy to promote social networks, it is simple, requires low investment and leads to many results (try to think that word of mouth can be created).

Seo Tricks For Bloggers

Now a days there is stiff competition in search engine rankings. Getting high ranks and even maintaining the rankings have become very difficult. A lot of good bloggers quit blogging, because of low traffic and even that low traffic is not permanent. Even after so many articles, lectures and hearings so many videos on YouTube, bloggers are making similar kind of mistakes. Most of the speakers give similar kind of tips and tricks, the only difference is the way they are able to demonstrate the effects. So today i am going to tell you these well-known tricks in detail. Today these are the only ways to make your blog seo friendly. So give them a look :-

Using heading tags

It's really very important to give heading tags to content all over your blog. A lower tag for as per the importance of keyword. You should give h1 tag to blog title, I have seen some of the big bloggers giving h1 tag to post titles, but it is a very bad practice. Here should not be more than one h1 tag on a webpage. In case you give h1 tag to post titles, your home page will have more then 15 h1 tags, as you my use popular or recent post widgets. So I recommend you to use h2 tags to post titles, h3 tags to subheadings in the posts and h4 tags to minor posts in the posts.

Use no follow tags

Giving dofollow links to unrelated and harmful websites give search engine a clue that you are selling links. So in case you are proving sponsored review services which is one of the major source of income, it is advised to give nofollow property to the links.

Avoid link sharing

Now search engines have started giving attention to normal bloggers and natural link building. In case you try to fool Google, the will catch you sooner or later. Recently Google removed many high-profile websites who indulged in link sharing networks. You should keep one thing in mind, the only way to increase search engine visibility and hence your blog traffic is to write useful and unique content