Ultimate Resource for Improving Your Blog’s Search Engine Rankings

Jul 18th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | Scroll down for comments

The great thing about most blogs is that they come optimized for search engines out of the box. They naturally attract search engine traffic. Within 5-10 days of setting up your blog, you should be getting some hits from search engines (even if its a really small number, its still something).

The problem these days however is that a lot of wrong information is being circulated which is hurting a lot of blog’s rankings.

Before we get started, I suggest all beginners (and intermediates) in SEO check out this link: Google’s Webmaster Resource. This is a great knowledge base for anyone just starting out.

Below, I have accumulated a list of the top things you should do to improve your blog’s SEO. With these steps in place, you will be successful but it takes time. Commit yourself, better rankings aren’t achieved overnight.

Submitting your blog to search engines.

A good resource is this website: SubmitExpress. All you have to do is put in an e-mail, your website, uncheck the newsletter buttons and click submit! It then submits your website to the listed search engines, no hassle, no fuss.

Submitting your blog to blog directories and top lists.

What an easy way to get some incoming links for starters. Here is a good list of some blog directories.

1. BlogCatalog - A robust social blog directory with great pagerank.
2. Bloggernity - Blog directory and search engine tool.
3. BlogFlux - Great top list type blog directory.
4. Blog-o-rama - Another good blog directory (simpler).
5. BlogTopList - One of my personal favorites.

Research your opponents and review yourself.

Standing out from the crowd in your niche is what makes the best blogs the top of the pyramid. Here are a few great resources to check out traffic for other sites and other information.

1. Alexa - Get traffic rankings and charts on other blogs.
2. Overture - Keyword selector & analyzer.
3. DNScoop - Gets information on a domain, how much its worth, date started, etc.
4. SEO FireFox Plugin - If you use firefox, you must have this.
5. Google Keywords Tool - Get more keyword ideas.

Use these resources to find out more about how exactly your blog is doing and research your competitors performance.

Keyword choices are extremely important.

Make sure your posts (and your titles) are filled with as many prime keywords as possible without sounding like a blabbering idiot. Trust me, this is a vital tool, you need to get used to using keywords. Where you could’ve said “I made my site better”, you should have instead said “I improved & optimized my website.”

Make sure to get your blog ‘pinged’.

Most blogs have a plug-in for this. I suggest you find it and set it up, it is key. If not, you could always use PinGoat.

Images get picked up too!

A lot of my images get picked up by Google images. How? Alt tags and proper keywording. Instead of leaving a .jpg file named 0013951315.jpg, rename it to something meaningful like cup-of-coffee.jpg and always remember to use a descriptive alt tag of what the image is about.

Keep track of your statistics.

Most web hosts provide you with either Webalizer or AW Stats. Use these! Keep track of your traffic and see where it comes from and when. If you don’t have one of these two installed, you can always use StatCounter.

Work for those links!

Links don’t come easy, especially these days. Research your niche and the powerhouses that run it. See what those websites do, get involved, comment on them, interact, send e-mails, get your name out there. Eventually you’ll start to see solid inbound links. There’s no cookie cutter recipe for this, its all trial and error.

Get involved in communities.

Forums are a gold-mine of information, especially ones that target SEO and Blogging. Here is a quick list of some of the most influential and most visited SEO & Marketing forums.

1. DigitalPoint - Great resource, ton’s of users online daily.
2. V7N - Another great resource thats easy on the eyes and well populated.
3. Earner’s Forum - Still growing but the layout is perfect. Lot’s of good information and intelligent people.

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed this post. Definitely come back to it as I will be updating it every now and again with fresh information.

Leonid Shalimov posted this article under Traffic Tips, Search Engine Optimization on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 6:23 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.