Performancing Metrics

Establish the Blog SEO Basics

Filed as Features, Guides on April 2, 2008 6:30 am

by Chris Garrett

In my web career at times I have been both a rabid SEO obsessive and on occasion a potential SEO skeptic. Right now I probably fall somewhere in the middle, which I think is the right place to be.

My working philosophy is always to focus on people rather than technology or particular tactics. It’s the search engines job to please people just as much as it is ours, so if both are doing their jobs right we should have a decent amount of search love.

Having said that, it is worth making yourself aware of some basic Search Engine Optimization, because the only thing worse than being SEO obsessed is being SEO ignorant!

You want to write with readers in mind but without being unfriendly to our spiderbot pals.

  1. Use a modern, spider friendly theme and and SEO plugin
  2. Monitor your Google Webmaster diagnostics
  3. Determine your search terms to use in your titles and inbound links (more the better) with the free Wordtracker
  4. Craft your content to be reader and search friendly with these blog seo tweaks
  5. Monitor your progress against other bloggers with SEO tools

Any other advice for bloggers interested in some light SEO?

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Chris Garrett

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  1. By Lane posted on April 2, 2008 at 7:01 am
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    Hi Chris,

    Another great article. Thanks for the concise, very informative explanation.

    Lane of VeganBits.com

  2. By SEO Ranter posted on April 2, 2008 at 9:28 am
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    Ah, some more tools I haven’t found before. Thanks!

  3. By Chris Garrett posted on April 2, 2008 at 1:16 pm
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    Thanks for the kind comments both :)

  4. By james alexander posted on April 2, 2008 at 5:06 pm
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    it has a lot of new ideas and tools, tips that i don’t know till today……good thought

  5. By seo posted on April 7, 2008 at 1:34 am
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    thanks for this .. digged@!

  6. By Michael Anderson posted on April 8, 2008 at 10:33 am
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    Nice post. One thing I have noticed is that SEO is a continuous process. It

    cannot be done perfectly in one shot. You have to be on your toes and try out

    different things to get ahead of your competitors. There have been instances

    where my site’s search engines rankings have improved considerably with few

    small tweakings.

    - Michael

  7. By James posted on April 27, 2008 at 12:27 pm
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    I also would like to add to #1 … when using Wordpess change the URLs from those ugly ones with all the PHP parameters to a nice clean, SE friendly URL.

  8. By Chinese SEO Man posted on August 6, 2008 at 4:34 am
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    I agree an excellent article and a good point by Michael, it is a constant battle for the top and if you let up you will lose.

    Tom.

  9. By George Cleanthous posted on October 27, 2008 at 2:16 am
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    This is a great starting point for bloggers. In particular, it’s important to use your target search terms as titles and to keep the content valuable to both search engines and readers…

    http://www.webprofits.com.au

  10. By Alex posted on January 15, 2009 at 8:09 pm
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    There are a lot more in terms of on-page optimization than titles. Though description and keyword tags are no longer valuable for Google, we cannot discount the fact the other major search engines still use these in ranking sites.

    Few tips for your readers though, use a “nofollow” tags when crafting your on-page. A site owner should determine which among the pages he wants to rank in the search engine and add a “nofollow” tags on those he chooses not to. Doing this he will only pass link juices on important pages. Everyone involves in SEO must know how a link juice is distributed among his pages and external pages from his site.

    Cheers!

  11. By Adam posted on July 11, 2009 at 5:14 am
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    Thanks for that! Im writting my vey FIRST site! Im still on the front page he he.. But at least Im off to a good start now

  12. By Olivia Jade posted on June 26, 2010 at 4:43 am
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    Thanks Eddie.. It is very useful info and simple to understand.. I also came across an article about popular SEO myths that are still passed around as SEO tips. http://blog.directorymaximizer.com/2010/06/25/seo-myths-busted/#more-825
    I found it quite useful…

  13. By Olivia Jade posted on June 26, 2010 at 5:01 am
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    Thanks.. It is very useful info and simple to understand.. I also came across an article about popular SEO myths that are still passed around as SEO tips. http://blog.directorymaximizer.com/2010/06/25/seo-myths-busted/#more-825
    I found it quite useful…

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