Blog SEO tips

Optimizing your blog for search engines can be tricky, but lucky for those of you looking to use a blog for marketing, search engines love blogs. Of course, if you use your blog incorrectly, you won't get as much of the search engine love. Here are a few tips for blog seo:

1. Provide quality content. More than key words, or optimal length, or anything else that people tell you, the number one thing that is going to give you an edge when it comes to getting rankings if having good quality content. Good quality content that actually helps people is going to result in people recommending your blog, sending others to it, visiting it over and over, all of which help your rankings. When someone likes what they read, the pass on links to your post, syndicate it, and the like. So, if you want to use a blog for marketing, provide high quality posts EVERY TIME.
2. Use keywords. When you write a blog post, ask yourself what people will type into Google or other search engines when they are looking for content about this subject. If you were searching on this topic, what would you type in? Then use those words throughout your post, and suddenly, you are a post that is going to be considered in that search. A lot of SEO boils down to common sense when you really think about it, but using the optimal keywords, if overlooked, will leave even a great post low on the rankings.
3. Be careful with your titles. When posting, your titles are key, you want to make sure that you post in the title tag, as that is a big indicator to Google and other search engines what your blog is about. So, set your blog up so that it puts the title of your posts in the title tags section on the back end of your blog. Choose the first and last word carefully, as it will be a key component of how helpful your title is when it comes to searches. Use strong key words in these positions.
4. Know what you want from your blog. There are different ways to set titles, and other things up to accomplish your marketing goals. For example, if you want to brand your blog and products, services, etc. you will want to invlude your blog name in the title tags of single posts. However, if you want to have your key words be strong, and those titles be really helpful with rankings, your blog name could dilute your key words, and give the post less weight on the listing.
5. Use keywords all through the post. Your blog will only be ranked for the keywords you came up with if you use them all over your blog. Obviously don't overload it, but make sure that you use the words in the content, in the heading and subheading, and in any alt tags used on pictures.