Evoire

There are so many calculations that Google uses to rank your site and articles in the search engine listings that it can boggle your mind sometimes.  So when I write my blogpost I always spend an extra fifteen minutes making sure it is SEO optimized for better SERP listings.  These methods will help increase your odds of ranking your article or site higher on the Google Search Engine Results Page and this is only one set of tips in an SEO arsenal that you should have at your disposal.

Think about what keywords you want for your blogpost

Most people write the content before they think about what keywords they want to target, but when you have an idea for a topic or article you want to publish.  At the time you are creating the article you should put consideration into what keywords you specifically want for your article.  Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find keyword ideas, this free tool is invaluable to find similiar keywords or phrases that might not have as much competition but still get decent search results.

So lets say you wrote an article about the new Amazon Kindle eBook Reader, you may want to pick the following keywords:  eBook Reader, Amazon Kindle, Kindle eBook

META tags are critical and the first priority

The META tags are the underlying HTML tags that exist in the source code of your website and each and every blog post. By default WordPress does not include META Description or META keywords tags and may not even have TITLE tag unless you have a WordPress theme that is configuring this or a WordPress SEO plugin like All in One SEO Pack. You should also make sure you optimize your WordPress Slug for SEO. The slug is the URI like yoursite.com/ and you want to make sure your keywords are part of your slug for optimum SEO.

<TITLE>

This is the title tag which tells Google and other search engines what the Title is of your website or blog post. The TITLE tag may or may not always be the post Title in WordPress. Your title should contain your targeted keyword in it.

<DESCRIPTION>

This is not the same thing as the WordPress excerpt field, though it should be treated the same way. The Description should be a 160 character or less description of your article or website and should contain your keyword and a variant at least one or two times.

<KEYWORDS>

Though Google doesn’t use the META Keywords tag for search engine listings according to Matt Cutts, it does get used by some other search engines for listing and ranking in the results pages. WordPress tags are not META Keywords, but you should use them the same way. Always include at least 5-10 keywords and variations of your keyword for the Keywords tag.

Now that you have focused on just the META information it is time to start focusing on what to put in the article body for SEO Optimization.

Optimizing My Blogpost Body for SERP

The first think you should do is make sure you have your keyword and a few variants that exist in the first paragraph or 250 characters of your blog post, this is a good SEO practice and should be one of your standards. In addition to this you should leverage, combine and alternate between the following SEO tips.

• Use keyword several times
• Use keyword variations or synonyms several times
• Include your keyword with <h2> or <h3> tags (only choose one or the other, but alternate on posts).
• Encourage your readers to comment, comments improves your SERP results
• Include images and use the ALT and TITLE tags to include your targeted keywords.  (By default most people don’t remember to put an alt tag on inserted images)

In Summary

The above methods of SEO Optimization are ones that I have been alternating through for my blogposts for almost two years now, I get over 65% search engine traffic to my Dragon Blogger Technology Blog and rank very well on Google Webmaster tools for a variety of Technology related keywords by leveraging these techniques.

But as mentioned in one of my tips, I invite my readers to comment and share with me other SEO tips on how to optimize your content for better SERP listing?  Note, this article focuses on what you can do in your own site/post/content and doesn’t include all the external methods like backlinks, forums, social media…etc which would consume several dozen separate posts.

-Dragon Blogger

Related posts:

1. 5 Great Tips on How to Optimize My Blogpost
2. Tips on SEO
3. List of Blog XML-RPC Pinging Services
4. 7 tips to increase blog traffic
5. How To Optimized My Blogpost?
6. XHTML and How to Write It
7. How To Choose The Right Keywords For SEO
8. My Blogpost
9. 1st of My Blogpost – Manifesto Of “Blogpost”
10. Comparison of Popular Articles Directory