Tips to Help your SEO
Blogging, it’s just sitting down, writing a post and hitting publish right? While that may be true for some, the reality for those of us who blog for a living is that it is so much more. What you don’t see is the hours we spend just crafting a single post, as we also have to make sure our content is seen and that not only includes sharing on social media but also learning the basics (if not more) of SEO (search engine optimisation).
Now I will never say I am expert in anything blogging, I learn new things every day, I do try and pass on things I have learnt via UK Bloggers, alongside some other amazing people and today I thought I would pass on some easy to do SEO tips.
Publish Quality Relevant Content
Last week I published a post on why your content isn’t that great. I think all bloggers are guilty of publishing content that isn’t their best. There are many reasons for this, perhaps it’s an off day, perhaps the topic isn’t something they are enthusiastic about (I know for me this is a big thing, if I don’t enjoy writing the post – it shows in my words) and sometimes we just forget the golden rule to proofread. Now we are never going to get it right 100% of the time, but if your content is littered with spelling and grammar errors, it is likely to cause issues in the long term with your searchability.
Also, make sure your content is relevant, I guess I am pretty lucky as here I can write about pretty much what I want, due to being “lifestyle”. However, if you have a niche-specific blog, going off-topic suddenly can cause issues.
Load Time
Did you know your load time is taken into account by some search engines? So it is always worth making sure your blog is loading as quickly as possible. I personally noticed a huge difference in load time when I switched hosts and had better caching installed. However, checking for errors in your coding and making sure everything is streamlined as possible can make a big difference.
Metadata
If you are working on WordPress you’ve most likely heard of Yoast (or similar plugins) and have them downloaded and work with the metadata of your posts. This can be harder to do on other platforms, but it is always worth finding out how you edit the metadata of both your website and singular posts. It is worth getting used to using; your title; a description and of course keywords within in a post to help search engines determine what you’re writing about. However be careful, don’t keyword cram posts as that can lead to them being ignored.
Ask an Expert
Like I said at the start, I’m no expert, I can only share what I have learned through muddling along. And sometimes you need to just call in the experts like click.co.uk and get them working their magic for you. Other websites such as enterprise SEO services can also be on hand to help you when needed.
Submit a Sitemap
Sitemaps help search engines navigate your website, it’s basically a list of links, leading to all the important areas of your website. They don’t take too long to set up and submit but can make all the difference to your SEO.
Make Sure Your Website is Mobile Friendly
Google has stressed the importance of your website being mobile-friendly, it most definitely a part of their ranking mechanics. If you aren’t sure if your website is set up OK for mobile, you can run it through Googles test here.
This is just a small insight into some things you can do to help make your website be more SEO friendly. There are a whole host of other items to look into such as internal linking, growing natural links from others, use heading tags and more! So why not schedule a day to do some learning.
It is worth looking at this post on how to write a blog post for SEO if you are after more information.
What is your top tip for making your website more SEO friendly?
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Some great tips on here and food for thought for bloggers! It is amazing how much work goes in to running a blog for a living 🙂
It can be a lot of work, but it can also be really fulfilling I find.
Hi love the article
Can I be cheeky. I know you mentioned ask an expert in the piece. Would you look at my blog and see what you think. I was advised to change my theme yesterday. I am on WordPress. I am open to any comments and I appreciate your help
Thanks
Hey, if you want to give me an email I can have a look but I’m by no means an expert. x
One tip I would add is to write long-form content as it helps your time on page. Now you can argue that readers attention span is too low to handle 1500+ words but I would counter that and say it is how you set up that counts. Do you use headlines? do you break your content up with images? Are you using bucket brigades? All of these factors help keep readers on your page for longer.
Something else that you have mastered on this post is, conversation, you have some great comments on your comments section below and that is some good time on page as readers write those comments and some good return traffic when they come back to read replies.
Regards Dexter
Great tips in your post! This is a very helpful article for beginners in blogging!
This is some great information about SEO. I feel like most website owners don’t know as much as they should about it.
Great tips in general and amen to ‘Publish Quality Relevant Content’ – it’s always going to be the deal breaker!
It really is a big thing isn’t it – I know if I niched up I would do better but hey I just can’t lol.
SEO is critical for being noticed in Google and get good rankings for the keywords you want. Currently I have a lot to do with my web shop and get it optimised SEO wise so Google knows what the desired keyword phrases would be.
If you let it be and do not do it Google is just going to use random broad related terms it thinks is realative and rank accordingly to that.
A page does not need more than 1 keyword in selected areas to feel naturl to Google.
Most definitely there is so much that goes into SEO – it is something that takes a lot of learn about and I have to admit I don’t know a huge amount.
Love this post girl! Such great tips!!
I am glad you are liking the tips.
Yoast has been a massive help to me for understanding the basics of SEO, but I still have a lot to learn.
It is great isn’t it – definitely not perfect but it does give a base idea.
This is an awesome post! I haven’t used Yoast just yet, but what i’ve heard from your post and others comments, is that its very great! Thanks for sharing!
It is definitely worth downloading and having a try with.
This is such a helpful post, I am currently working on this for my blog now. These tips are awesome!
I am so glad they have been helpful 🙂
Glad I stubleupon this post. Indeed such a great remiber for bloggers. i need to learn more about SEO. Thanks for this, learned something new by reading your post. Good points.
Good luck with learning some more about SEO! I hope it helps get your blog out there.
What is the ideal load time? I think it’s also important to note that the loading speed in mobile should be faster since more people are now using mobile than desktop when viewing websites.
The average is around 20 seconds but a lot of people will leave if it takes more than a couple of seconds! (Gone are the dial up days hey haha)
I really need to work on my page speed. I think optimising my images would be the perfect place to start 🙂
Good luck! Image optimising can really make a huge difference!
I need to learn more about SEO. I don’t know half as much as I should. Just checked and apparently my blog is mobile friendly. Thanks for the link x
Yay! Good to know your website is mobile friendly that’s a big thing.
This is a really useful post as I would love to learn more about SEO and improve my blog position . I totally agree writing quality posts in very important.
It’s always worth spending some time getting used to it.
I needed to read this on SEO. I never knew a sitemap was so important. I am going to be using some of your tips for sure to try to improve my SEO skills.
Good luck I really hope it helps you in the long term 🙂
This post came just in time. I have really been working on better integration of my blog with an SEO.
Good luck with making those changes I really hope it helps you.
This information is very insightful. Knowledgeable content will make or break people when it comes to their SEO.
There really is so much to learn isn’t there when it comes to SEO.
Knowing more about SEO is so important for a blogger nowadays! Finding the right tips at the right moment is just great!
It really is I think day in day out we all have to look to learn something new to help us progress.
Very informative and helpful article. I am still working on my blogs loading time. Thanks for sharing!
Good luck with getting your blogs loading times down!
What a cool post! These are some spot-on tips. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
No problem at all I am glad it has been of help to people.
I use Yoast and I find it really helps me get my SEO right
It is great isn’t it – such a useful plugin to have.
Some really handy tips here, Sarah. There is so much to remember when it comes to SEO isn’t there? I really must double check my load time, haven’t done it for a while
It is like a whole world of new things to learn isn’t it!
SEO is so tricky. I love learning more and more about it. It’s absolutely fascinating.
It is something that is ever changing as well – you just have to keep on learning.
Great tips to help with SEO, I need to check my blog’s load time so thank you for the reminder.
No problem at all I’m glad I’ve remembered a few people about things.
SEO used to be the bane of my existence! I finally overhauled my site last year and couldn’t believe how much faster it got once I optimized all the imagery.
Well done that is awesome! It really can feel a bit like it is driving you mad can’t it.
I’m slowly learning about the things that get you noticed by the internet. It’s exhausting!
It really is I don’t think people realise all the things we do behind closed doors lol.
Awesome tips for people who are having a difficult time with SEO. It can be confusing but taking note of these tips can definitely help.
It really can be – I hope I’ve made these tips at least a bit more simple for people to understand.
SEO is so important & at the same time, very challenging. Any & all SEO tips appreciated now and always.
It really is – I do hope some of these help people.
Thank goodness for Yoast! The task of learning SEO otherwise seemed so daunting. Even with Yoast, it’s good to have tips, so we’re not constantly rewriting to appease the program. Thanks!
Haha Yoast is most definitely a saviour isn’t it!
All great tips that really work. Thanks for sharing
No problem at all I am so pleased people are finding them useful.
I love Yoast. It really helps me to get the blog post out with good SEO. It is so fun seeing your blog post on Google.
It really is – I’ll never get over being able to google my own blog lol.
Those are great tips. Posting relevant content and the load time are two things we don’t hear about often enough. So, good tips.
I am glad you find them to be good tips – means I’ve gone down the right route.
I love using Yoast! If it weren’t for that I would have no idea about SEO and my posts would not have anything going for them SEO wise.
It is hard isn’t it – I think Yoast at least makes a simple starting point.
When I first started blogging, I didn’t realize the importance of SEO and page loading. Now I try and compress images so that it loads much faster.
Images make such a difference, I know so many bloggers who upload full size?!
These are some nice reminders. Submitting a Sitemap is something that I honestly have not looked into, but I do see the importance of it.
It is well worth looking into 🙂 Something to pop on the list.
Having a mobile friendly site is so important these days! Luckily a lot of themes are beginning to make this so much simpler!
It really is such a big thing to have, search engines put a lot into it too.
SEO is something I have been really working on lately. I have found the Meta tags are so great! Using YOAST helps as a great guideline too for beginners.
Woo! It is always such a big step when you start to get your head around it all.
I think YOAST has really helped my SEO. It’s never blinking perfect though, there’s sooo much to learn! 😀
There really is I am sure I wake up and learn something new every day.
I love Yoast and at first, it was so hard to get the all green light. Now, I get it every single time I post. It has helped me tremendously.
Yay! That is awesome, it is amazing how things become habits.
Yoast is my saving grace when I blog. It has taught me so much about SEO and I am very grateful. This is a great post and I will definitely keep these pointers in mind as I write more posts.
It is really a great tool to kick start you going on the right foot.
I will be using these steps as I know mine isn’t what it needs to be and if I do one step at a time for a certain length of time and then add the next step I know I will get to where I need to be.
It is such a good idea to take things slowly and one step at a time for sure!
It’s a good point to think about how your blog looks on a mobile device. Not something you always think about, but very important.
It is such a common thing now for people to surf on their phone isn’t it.
the mobile version of my website I struggle with a little – it’s hard getting every detail right for all platforms!
It really is – I sort of just rely on my theme doing it for me lol.
I always like reading post like this because I learn something new every single time. Like you there is always something new coming out and ways to improve.
It is amazing how things change and that we have to learn and adapt all the time.
It amazes me how many bloggers I see missing these simple steps. SEO is tricky but worth learning.
It really is – it will help everyone take the next step.
Thank you for the awesome tips! SEO is sooooo important and making sure my site is optimized for it is crucial!
xoxo
Annie
It really is – it does seem like a bit of a chore learning it at first though.
Thank you for sharing! I always have struggled with SEO but I’m still learning a lot of things. Great tips!
It is such a big thing to try and get your head around isn’t it.
Load time is so true. I get very frustrated waiting on a site to load. I can also relate to the metadata. There is no single way to better get your footprint out there then emphasizing your key words through metadata. Insightful post!
It really can be I should try and work on mine at some point I really should!
I heard having a cheetah as a co-writer can often bring some great traffic…but since I rarely see my pal Sarah visiting us…..I could be wrong.
I do try and make my content worthwhile but still haven’t hit upon the magic bullet as far getting massive traffic.
I do pop over I’m just awful at leaving comments I need a big old slap on the wrist to get better! Must remember!
SEO is such a complex field and I think you have covered the basics very well in this article. The site speed is part of the Google algorithm and many website user’s don’t seem to worry that their sites are slow. A slow website will automatically bring a higher bounce rate, which is also part of the algorithm.
It is hard isn’t it – I think there is so many parts that all fit together to make up the whole picture.
I need to learn way more about SEO. It’s one area I really struggle with.
Good luck with learning more about it – it can be such a good thing to do.
I noticed that my load time had a HUGE effect on my bounce rate! People consistently seemed to be bouncing off my site, especially if they were from Pinterest. After fixing it, my bounce rate dropped immediately. Thanks for these great tips!
It seems to be a lot of people just won’t hang around if things take a long time now.
SEO is very important. I’ve started to work it into my blog now.
Good luck with working on your SEO! I hope it goes well.
Great article and I love the artwork done on the top of the page. This article has really put a highlight on SEO and I would love to be better trained in it. Ive started my blog with weebly, Is it the same as wordpress!?
Weebly is different to wordpress – I don’t know much about it to be honest as it’s not a platform I have used. You could still submit a sitempa to google I would assume, you would need to look up how to do that for Weebly though.
I think Yoast helped me understand what I wasn’t doing before and has helped significantly.. so I’m glad to see you have mentioned it. It’s mad how important this stuff is.. and I certainly had no clue when I started.
Yoast is great isn’t it – it definitely helped me be more mindful of things.