If you are a blogger, stop writing. Now. And shhhhh…listen. You’re about to learn five SEO tips for bloggers that will rock your blog.
I am very excited to have finally managed to pin my dear friend and sister Vanita Cyril here today for a guest post. She kicks ass as THE authority on SEO + WordPress for Bloggers and Entrepreneurs and helps bloggers make their blog rock. And? She always, always over-delivers.
You know what’s funny? We chat all day long, on and off. Some days we just say “hi” and then comfortably work together in silence – with the happy feeling that we can crib/gossip/share info/laugh/joke any time we want.
So I was on her back – bugging her to share some SEO tips for bloggers here. Maybe it is not rocket science, but admit it – we would all rather just write and be done with it, no? Okay, I speak for myself.
But don’t you wish there was a short sweet to-do list you could do to give your post / blog the best chances of being found online? And that’s exactly what Vanita came up with.
There’s one quote that instantly comes to mind when I think of Vanita. It is this: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” She’s the sort who teaches you to fish, generously. As a student of her Google Luv ecourse, I know that first-hand.
Welcome, Vanita! Squishy hugs! Take it away!
Cartoon credit Edouard Blais
5 solid SEO tips for bloggers
by
If you, my blogging buddy, have a need to increase your search engine traffic, then you need to stop writing, right now. No worries, I will share with you why, but first…
If on the other hand, you couldn’t care a flying flamingo about Google and increasing your blog traffic, I suggest this wonderful post from my dear sis Vidya on the miracles of friendship.
Now, let’s get back to why you need to stop writing to feed your Google traffic fetish.
Believe it or not Google loves bloggers.
If it weren’t for bloggers, I’m not sure how Google would reach it’s goals of providing content that’s as information packed as Life Hacker, yet as entertaining as Oprah and as unique as the Mona Lisa – I know tall order – all at lightning speed.
Now, some of you may be thinking, I’ve got great content, why isn’t Google loving my blog?
Pandas people, pandas.
The Panda was designed to weed out low quality sites. Wait, I’m not saying your site is low quality.
But once upon a time, our high quality posts could rank on page one of the Search Engine results even if we had some posts that weren’t content rich.
Now? Google looks at your whole site and you know what they say about one bad apple…
But never fear my blogging buddy! It’s fixable.
How do you know what needs fixing? Check out the list below to learn if you need to stop writing [for now] and start fixing.
Content Length
Have any posts with less than 750 words? Then you’ll want to open that post using Google Chrome with the SEOQuake extension installed and take a look at your html to text ratio. Aim for at least 20% text. If your percentage is rated lower, your options are increasing the length of your post or removing anything from the post, sidebar or your footer that’s adding html coding to the page. Think widgets and ad codes.
Content Quality
How is your post better than the other posts ranking for the same keywords in the search engine results? Take a look at your competition, what are they doing to rank on page one? Can you improve your post to be better? Of course you can!
Unique Content
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to be unique. Your blogging voice and point of view alone makes you unique. For that extra oomph, add pictures and your own YouTube videos or SlideShares. Spruce up those posts that fall flat. Not sure which posts? Dive into your Google Analytics account and from the sidebar on the left, choose Content > Site Content > Landing Pages and improve those links that have a bounce rate of over 80%.
Irrelevant SEO
I know SEO can be a bore, but I do push people to search engine optimize their posts. The little things you do for your post from adding the keyword phrase to your first paragraph to filling out the meta fields in the seo plugin area on the post page, these things assist Google in knowing what your post is all about. If you are following these practices and they’re not helping, then I need to ask, are you optimizing your posts incorrectly? Yes? Time to fix those posts, bud.
Let’s say each and everyone of your posts are dynamic and optimized for search engines, but you’re still not ranking in the search engine results. Maybe it’s not your post. Maybe it’s your whole blog.
Visitors from the search engine land on your blog to learn of whatever they searched for and then they leave. This hurts your bounce rate and signals to Google that you may not deserve to rank, no matter how good you post is.
No worries! All is certainly not lost. We just need to keep your visitors longer on your blog. I love infographics, though I’m not a pro at compiling info to create one. However, Visual.ly will inspire you and allow you to make your own infographics for free. Add one to a page on your blog and add a screenshot of it in your post that links to the infographic page. When your visitor follows the link from your post to the infographic, it signals to Google that the visitor is cruising around your blog and that helps your bounce rate. For more ideas, I have a post for you on making your blog sticky.
And there you have it friends, 5 reasons to stop writing and start fixing.
Thanks for reading and thank you my sis Vidya for inviting me to share my seo geekiness.
Thank you, Vanita!
Follow Vanita on Twitter and “Like” her page on Facebook – TheStrategicMama
Hire Vanita to:
- Move your blog
- Design Your WordPress Blog
- Rock your blog
- Teach you to make Google love your blog
I must confess I did not care about bounce rate or about attempting to learn about SEO for bloggers. The truth is, it feels great to have the search engines choose your blog when someone searches for something online. So it makes sense to be relevant and unique so that your visitor can hang around your blog.
So now, tell me – Do you think Vanita’s basic SEO tips for bloggers will help you?
Have a question about these tips? Please Ask!
Great advice Vanita! These are things I kind of know but not really. I may need to get your help when I have some more time on my hands this summer. Thanks for sharing Vanita’s wisdom with us Vidya!
xoxo
Betsy
PS Love your cartoon Vidya!
Betsy, girlfriend! you reach out to me for anything. A lot of times, we know stuff, but we don’t practice them, only because we don’t have the time or we don’t realize how important it is for our blogs. like this guest post. vidya has tortured me for the longest about writing a guest post. and though i knew i should and i know the benefits, i haven’t. until now. after she twisted my arm at 5am. 😀
Lovely to see you Betsy, you birthday girl, you! It is my turn to hit fifty in Sept! 😀 Vanita is my go-to and she’s fabulous!
I loved that cartoon the moment I saw it too!
Hugs – and happy weekend to you1
Welcome Vanita to Vidya’s blog 🙂
This is surely great advice and there’s a lot still to be done with my blog too. Yes, I do use a little of those things you mentioned regarding SEO – but there’s a lot more than meets the eye – isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing this with us. Enjoy your weekend – both of you 🙂
Hey Harleena! Nice to see you chica. Girl, there’s all kinds of ways to improve your blog, but it all must start with a strong foundation. For those interested in search engine traffic, strengthening your foundation by fixing old posts will add a good boost. Have a lovely weekend dear!
Well said, Vanita! Hi Harleena! I know you recently revamped your blog and no matter how much we know, there’s always more. It is a fun journey!
Thanks for commenting, Harleena!
Hi Vidya and Vanita!
Great post! I know a TINY bit of this stuff, but have so much to learn!!! Vanita, I’ll be back in touch with you over the next handful of months – need your wisdom, creativity and sanity. (You do offer sanity, don’t you)? 😉 Thanks for sharing this guest post, Vidya!
Hugs,
Christine
Hi Christine! Believe it or not I do offer sanity. Many clients have told me I keep them sane. 😀 It’s great meeting you and am happy to help in any way i can.
Hey Christine, thanks for coming over! I can endorse Vanita’s offer of sanity. Ah, I fondly remember the days when she was moving my blog and setting everything up while I just got in the way and bugged her, hoping my questions sounded intelligent!
Vidya, you’ve done it again. Another great post with tons of information. I love Vanita, she’s done great things for me…and continues to do so. What an invaluable resource, someone who manages to demystify SEO and why it’s helpful.
Thanks to both of you.
Love Elle
xoxo
awww i love you to Elle. don’t know what I’d do without you and Vidya.
Elle, hugs! Vanita’s such a champ, no? Well, my turn to tell you both that I am so glad you’re in my life!
Thank you for giving me a good place to look in analytics. I get so lost in there! 🙁
Now I have the best places to start cleaning house at.
You’re welcome Val! Next week I will have to create a video on Google Analytics. Maybe several…
I would need several. I could promote the heck out of a course if you create it for just reading my analytics and how to use it efficiently. No joke
You create products that are user friendly and are non-techy. xoxox
Val – that’s Vanita’s USP! She makes her “students” want to learn! 🙂
Vanita! Do it, girl!
Will you stop giving me advice? My head is going to explode.
LOL LMAO you got me good.
Hehehe, Poppy! That’s so funny! Hugs and welcome!I hope to see more of you! (No, I won’t pull your hair)
very nice blog, lots of great informations. thank you
isloveforever.com
Vanita, You had me digging into stats! That’s not an easy thing to do 🙂 I learned that I don’t have a robots.txt file and they tell me over on SEOQuake that it’s an easy thing to fix but they don’t say how! Oh well just like everything else, information is power and eventually I will figure it out. Thanks for the tips and very nice to meet you!
Julie, it’s good to meet you too girlfriend! Rumor has it that Vidya will be giving away a Google Luv Course Membership soon. Robots.txt is the least of all you can learn. So keep any eye out for it!
Take her google luv course, you will NOT be disappointed and your brain won’t explode. Ignore Poppy above 😉 lol
Val, you are a doll! 😀
Julie! So lovely to see you. (Loved your prompt in Joy’s Illuminate your heart whispers) I remember each time I got into webmaster tools and saw robots.txt – I’d hurriedly sign out, too afraid to mess something up. Yes, information is power 🙂 Still, always nice to have an expert take care of it all practically.
Hugs!
Vanita, I love that you broke this down into easy-to-understand piecemeal advice that anyone, even tech idiots like me, can follow. Than you!
Alison! It’s what i do girlfriend. Take the tech-crap and make it so creative types like yourself don’t have to waste creation juice on deciphering it. 😀 yes i know u love me. i love u too 😀
Hey Ali! That’s the special thing about Vanita – she’s Ms.Coolness!
(I don’t believe what you called yourself for a minute, Ali! I know you are amazing too!)
Hugs!
Hi Vanita and Vidya,
Thank you so much! I haven’t done any of these things on my blog. I didn’t even know such things existed! I’ve just been happy when people from all over the world find my posts, mostly by word of mouth, I suppose. Time to take a closer look. Good thing I was a math major. Your mention of statistics has me salivating!
Thanks again to you both, and hugs,
Carole
Carole! Hello and happy Friday. That’s a pretty blog you have there. Looking forward to learning more about your books. As an author, you can totally leverage the search engines girl.
Carole, my husband works at the Indian Statistical Institute and is a mathematician. 😀 It is rare to hear that someone loves statistics!
Hugs and thanks for coming by!
Vanita rocks and has saved my site on many occasions!
Great post!
Jen 🙂
Aww thanks Jen! I’m happy to help, just love that site (headway…eh…not so much dude) 😀
Hi Jen! Thanks for being here today! :-)We’re in good hands, no?
Vanita,
I love love love reading your tips & words.
You kick Ass.
Vidya, love you more then blogs. xx
Hugs, Kim! I love you more than the forty-odd mauve bougainvillea trees in bloom on the campus right now! You always lift me up!
Aww thanks chica! big hugs and love to you!
Vidya,
Thanks for introducing me to Vanita- i think my blog may need your help Vanita. Wow I know about seo and do some, but the first point made me want to pull the covers over my head – I know that google would love me more so I will book mark this and find some time to explore how i can make my blog rock. 🙂
Hi Suzie! You’ll love Vanita. So glad to connect you both! Hugs! (Loving your 21 Day love challenge!)
Suzie! It’s great to meet you girl. i took a peek at your blog. i can see right away you’ve got a lot of great content including your own videos on Youtube. and your seo-ing your youtube videos! very impressive girl. I’m around whenever you need me girlfriend!
Appreciate this post as I am always ready to learn more about SEO and how I can improve my blog. Interesting idea on the infographic which helps with the bounce rate. That is something I’m going to look into. Thanks for the information.
Hi Cathy, Glad you like the infographic idea. just remember to place the infographic on a page (not a post) and add a screenshot within your post that links to the infographic page. this creates a 2nd click that signals to google that the visitor is interested in your site and cruising around. not to mention, infographics can be pretty long. adding them to a post isn’t always visually appealing.
Bounce rate is a very interesting topic, Cathy! Also, it is logical that we’d want people to spend longer on our page. 😀 Do check out Vanita’s post about making blogs sticky! Neat tips in there.
Hugs!
Vanita, I am so very happy you are here. Love you! And I absolutely appreciate that you wrote at such short notice, I know your plate is overfull! Hugs!
Excellent post. It is good to see more people focusing on bounce rate. That is something I’ve seen a lot lately and it really can make a huge difference. The more engaging and content rich your posts are, the better. And I like the “Did you smile today?” check box. Subtle difference that stands out. Thanks for posting.
Welcome, Chris! Bounce Rate is a very interesting topic and the best part is, there are ways to keep it at the okay level.
😀 Thanks for the kind words. So…did you smile today? Ah, you did!
Yes, I sure did! 🙂
Chris! Nice to meet you and i’m glad you liked the post. i’m all for fixing what’s not working and keeping an eye on your bounce rate is a good way to do so.
All these tips make my head hurt– in a good way. It is a never ending battle to make blogs better.
hmmmph…you and vidya, you creatives you. don’t want to be bothered with the logistics. 😀 listen, find what works for you and make it part of your routine. your head won’t hurt so much. hugs Josh! Nice to see you bud.
I hope Vanita is not listening…but Josh, I feel that way sometimes. 😀 But as far as frequency of posting is concerned, you give me a solid complex 😀 Hugs! I am loving your blog anyway!
Hi Vanita,
I really enjoyed your guest post and Vidya, thanks for introducing us to Vanita.
Vanita, as a small business owner whose main way of finding clients is through the web, I’ve recently started to take increasing traffic to my site much more seriously. I appreciated the points you made and I loved how you explained that we can improve our existing content, by going back to it and optimising it. I’m definitely going to check out the SEOQuake extension.
Thank you.
Hi Hiten, Thanks for your lovely comment. I am always happy to help. SEOQuake is great for pulling a “mini-report”. Think of it has an additional round of editing of a post. great for updating old posts.
Hiten Bhai! I could have sworn you and Vanita knew each other! 😀 🙂 Glad you enjoyed the post. I am very happy you came over and commented. I’d love to know about your experience with SEOQuake!
Cheers!
Lots of good information for bloggers who want/need more traffic. I admittedly didn’t understand half of it but I’m way behind on such things. I’m one of the minority bloggers who just wants to write and not worry about the mechanics. I guess I should maybe, worry a little, though. Good post.
Terri, trust me girlfriend, you are not a minority. lol. so many do not want to be bothered with the mechanics and that’s perfectly fine.
on the flip side, I have several clients that want to increase their search engine traffic but prefer I just do it for them. 😀
different strokes for different folks and it’s all still good. Happy Monday!
Terri, your blog is fantastic as it is! I must confess I’d like to just write and not worry about anything else. But some of these tips are so do-able – that I’ve started paying attention. At least, Vanita keeps it simple. I still get my panties in a twist about keyword research and Google Analytics and just want to hide in a corner when I think of them.
I’d rather take pictures and write when I feel like! 😀
Hugs! I am so excited about your news in your latest post. Love you, Terri!
Woopies… Look who’s here 😉
Hey Van,
Glad to see you on Vidya’s place and back here after being lot of time offline 😉 Mmm… Starting day with SEO? No problemo 😀
SEO is tricky 😉 Some bloggers obsess while some others ignoring ’em completely. But I know when you mention it’s FIXABLE Van. Absolutely it’s fixable, and as I find if you follow white-hat SEO tricks, no need to worry about Panda, Penguin or Elephant 😉 I’m sure lot of bloggers find this one helpful Van.
Have a fabulous week ahead for both of you, V & V 😉
Cheers…
Mayura bud! I haven’t been offline…you just haven’t seen me 😀 thanks for stopping by. I’ve found that many bloggers who once enjoyed SE traffic, that never got involved with black hat tactics, have still been hit by Google. When you go from having 800 visits a day to 300/day, it tends to hurt. By optimizing their pages to basically say “hey Google, look over here dummy, I’ve got exactly what you’re looking for” these bloggers who were hit can gain that traffic again. not much to do with black hat tactics. that’s something mostly found in the affiliate marketing niche (those guys who only write to sell a product) among bloggers, it’s more improving structure and optimizing pages so we get the attention deserved. Google wants content rich. who can supply that better than a blogger?
Looks like a party, eh, Mayura!
The best thing about SEO is – most of it is very very easy to take care of when we just develop the habit. Vanita’s tips cover the simple part very neatly, don’t they? It is the complicated stuff that freaks me out.
Wishing you a fabulous week, too, Mayura!
Thanks Vidya for the great tips here and good to meet Vanita = she’s the same person who helped you move your blog right to wordpress?
Lof of valuable information for someone like myself who spends 0% of my time on seo. I have always know it’s important but glad to know more details. I will be contacting Vanita to help my blog get found easier and by the right people.
Hi VIshnu! It’s great to meet you and I’m absolutely loving your blog. I was so busy reading I almost forgot to come back and comment. 😀 Truly looking forward to your book.
Vishnnu – hey – I just realized, Vanita, Vishnu and Vidya. Talk about power! 😀
Yes, Vanita is the goddess who eased me from Blogger to WordPress and put up patiently with my silly questions with a smile. She’s the best. You’ll be in excellent hands with Vanita.
Vishnu, I am loving your guest blogging style!
Yikes I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know 🙁
I’m not even sure where to start but at least I have an idea of where to begin
Glad we’re in the same tribe I’ve been loving your posts
Lady Bren, hugs and thanks for coming by today! As Vanita says, there are lots of easy things about SEO that we can implement on our own. Happily a lot of the tougher SEO stuff takes care of itself so long as we keep a few important things – like the tips above – in sight.
I had a rush of guilt looking at your latest post title! 😀
Have a great week ahead!
Great tips, ladies, I am going to be following Vanita and see what she has to say! I didn’t understand the html ratio so I will have to look into that one!
Jodi! Nice to meet you. HTML ratio can even bite you when you don’t have ads. About a year ago I removed my blog roll list from my sidebar. 1500 word posts had only a 15% text ratio. I didn’t forget my bloggy friends though. I use Mailchimp for my RSS feed and all are listed in the rss emails. 😀 So I still get to pimp friends but keep my coding ratio down. easy peasy 😀
Jodi – hugs! Vanita gives great stuff – I meant it about her being the type that teaches you to fish rather than give you a meal. 😀
That html ratio thing stymied me initially, but it makes sense, you know? The Search Engines would rather have us write than an overdose of code. 😀
Your blog is beautiful – I just got your latest post and loved the title! I know I am happy to see you here now!
Vanita,
I think I need to have you come and live with me. You’re simple directions are over my head. I’m going to go laugh now or else I’ll cry. LOL
Vanita,
Thanks so much for this valuable advice! Some of these items are things I had never thought about before, or considered to be major items. As someone relatively new to blogging, I’ll take your advice and see what I can do to continue to improve things. Thanks! 🙂
Hi Victor! Isn’t it great that Vanita’s tips are easy to do on one’s own? That’s the sort of advice I enjoy – because it is a learning experience. She is generous with tips 🙂
Always wonderful to see you!
Hello Vidya and Vinta,
Thank you so much for this post! I’ve read so much about SEO lately that my head is swimming with it but these tips are truly unique!
I’ve not read them anywhere else, especially the first tip about text-to-html ratio – makes so much sense now.
Thanks again lovely ladies 🙂
– K
Vanita** Sorry there, typing too fast!
Sounds a lot like me! Hugs!
This is fantastic information. Thanks so much to you and your sister for sharing it. I am not on chrome, so I guess my first stop will be installing it (if it works on Mac). I really like the quantifiable tips. I find things so much easier with clear guidelines like 80% etc.
Thanks again. I am new subscriber and looking forward to your AtoZ.
Welcome, Rhonda! 🙂 Yes, I am rather partial to Vanita’s tell-it-like-it-is tips. I am glad you can use them. Yes, Chrome works on Mac (Vanita uses a Mac).
I look forward to our AtoZ too! 😀 I am so hyped up about it! Thank you for visiting!
As always great info Vanita!! I love having reminders of just how to make my blog better. Now to get my butt in gear and do more of the SEO classes I love from V!
Cheers sista’s! xo
There are some new things I learned today on your post. I’m very new at blogging so this has been full of great information for me to now apply.
Thank you 🙂
Wow, a lot to look at. Since I’ve moved my blog/recipe site, I have had more traffic, but it’s tough when mostly what you want to do is motivate people to cook! I’m going to take some time to look at your advice and see if I can get more, more more! I have a cooking video on YouTube with over 150k views, but I’m not sure that is translating to my web-site. Thank you 🙂 Lindy
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