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.
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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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.