Basic Blog Optimization

Blogs, have more optimization opportunities compared to a regular web site. As discussed earlier I expect by now you must have chosen the keywords, you want to target. According to a research done by EntireWeb, 31% of the people search using two word phrases, 25% uses three word phrases and only 19% try it with one word. Also, keep in mind the following:

1. Popular keywords will bring you untargeted traffic.

2. Do not choose keywords that you have no chance ranking for.

3. Do not choose keywords that no one looks for.

4. Do not choose a keyword that does not relate to your content.

5. Do not use words that may get your blog filtered or banned from search engines.

6. For best results, optimize one post for one keyword.

Let’s talk about a few simple yet very effective steps you should take towards optimizing your blog.

Title Tag- Undeniably, the most important aspect of blog optimization is Title Tags.

Your blog’s title tag should carry the major keywords you are targeting and should give an idea of the subject your blog is based on. Do not make it very long. Anything more than the Google’s Limit of 63 characters is superfluous. Although Yahoo displays up to 112 and MSN up to 70 characters, 63 characters would be able to cover your major keywords, and will make sure search engines display whole of your title tag.

Do not worry while using stop words like the, a, is, an- they are generally omitted by search engines, but make the title more palatable for humans.

A trick that you can use to shorten the length- Suppose the two major keywords you want to target is Blogging Strategies and Business Blogging. You can save up to 10 characters by combining them and using Business Blogging Strategies. This will be as effective as using them separately and will give you space to include another word.

As a general rule, the closer you place your keyword to the beginning of the title tag, the better the ranking advantage. However, bear in mind that we've seen fluctuations on this element from engine to engine and even from month to month. Regardless, on the whole, you can expect better results by placing your keywords first in your title tag.

Each of the post-page should carry a title tag including keywords you want to target.

Make sure to make your title tag consumable by humans... otherwise anyone would hardly click your link!

Writing Related Content- The most important part of blogging is fresh, interesting content, for both your readers and the search engines. Blog search engines sometimes display results chronologically. If you wrote about "apple iphone" half an hour ago, but someone else wrote about "apple iphone" twenty minutes ago, they get listed first in a search for "apple iphone".

So, whatever keyword you are targeting try and write good content on that keyword and its parallel ones, often.

Optimize Categories-

When you create categories for your blog, be sure to consider keywords in the titles. This will help not only search engines but also your audience to get to relevant content. So whenever you post, be sure to default to a general category that is relevant no matter what the post is about. Choose multiple categories on each post whenever appropriate.

Getting in Blog Directories-

To get registered in any directory, you should write at least one post today, at least five posts the current week, and your blog should be at least 3 months old. If this is not suitable for you, you can still get into some search engines and directories, but not all.

Personal bloggers should try to post every day at least once. Business blogs should post slightly more often than their competitors. New posts will need to be made at least three times a week for some search engines to list a blog at all.

Posting daily or more than that may not be feasible so post as often as you and your blog's audience can comfortably handle.

Social Bookmarking-

Social bookmarking is the practice of saving bookmarks to a public Web site and “tagging” them with keywords. Visitors to social bookmarking sites can search for resources by keyword, person, or popularity and see the public bookmarks, tags, and classification schemes that registered users have created and saved. Social Bookmarking sites can be excellent sources of traffic to your blog, so be sure to make it easy for readers to bookmark your blog posts.

Here are some bookmarking sites:

1. Digg
2. Del.icio.us
3. StumbleUpon
4. Reddit
5. Squidoo
6. Furl
7. BlinkList
8. Blogmarks.net
9. Ma.gnolia
10. Simpy
11. Spurl
12. BlinkBits
13. Shadows
14. Raw Sugar
15. Yahoo MyWeb

It’s important to realize that there are other factors also that can play into how successfully your blog gets indexed and how well the search engines treat it. We will discuss them in the coming posts.