Search Engine Optimization Tips For Bloggers

I will be offering SEO tips for bloggers at tonight’s WCCO Webinar, so I thought I’d share. If you are going to attend, please do say hi.

• Search engine optimization fundamentals: The StepForth blog has a series of articles on how to optimize for Google in three parts that are the best I’ve read for understanding the essentials.
• Research keywords people might be using to find your content and use these keywords in the title of your post, the body copy and your tags. Do not write for search engines, write for humans but weave keywords into your post so it reads naturally.
  • Keyword Research Tools: Google Insights for Search, Google Hot Trends, Google AdWords Keyword Tool, Keyword Discovery, Keyword Discovery Keyword Directory, Live Search xRank, Microsoft adCenter Keyword Forecast Tool, WordTracker,
• Optimize Your Blog
  • Learn enough HTML/CSS to be dangerous
  • Use keywords in your domain name
  • Use keywords in file name of posts
  • Use keywords in categories
  • TITLE first, blog name last
  • Unique TITLE, META DESCRIPTION & META KEYWORD tags for each post
  • Do not allow comment spam
    • Consider using Nofollow attribute
  • Make sure your site is easily indexed
    • Turn off "hide from search engines" function
    • Search engines can’t use forms or search boxes
  • Implement an XML Sitemap
• RSS Feed Optimization/Marketing
  
  • FeedBurner
    • Brand
    • Customize
  • Submit to search engines
  • Import to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and others
• Ping
  • Make sure your blog pings the major services for each post
  • Feedburner pings are built in
  • Technorati
  • Blog Flux pinger
  • PingMyBlog.com
  • Ping-o-Matic!
  • Pingoat
• Link Building
  • Other blogs:
    • Blogrolls
    • Comments
    • Trackbacks
  • Social Media:
    • Profile links
    • Social networks
    • Social bookmarking
    • RSS Aggregators
  • Web site/blog directories
    • Local blog directories
    • dmoz
    • Yahoo Directory
    • Business.com
  • Mainstream Media
    • If interviewed, ask for a link
• Analytics
  • Google Analytics
    • Examine incoming links
    • Look for crawl errors
    • Examine visitor patterns
    • Watch bounce rate
  • Google Webmaster Central
    • Submit RSS feed/XML Site Map
  • FeedBurner
  • Google AdPlanner
  • Yahoo Web Analytics (in beta)
  • Yahoo Site Explorer
    • Submit RSS Feed/XML Site Map
  • Live Search Webmaster Center
  • Quantcast
  • Compete