Basic SEO Tips to Expand Your Blog

     Before you start your major SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts, you must make sure your blog is "search engine friendly".  I mean verifying that each page is compliant with search engine standards and ready to be indexed the right way. Your blog could have a very professional looking design but unless it's ranking well in search engines, it likely to be hard for your new readers to discover you.  By most accounts, you want to be “Google friendly.  Google's reach is the best and will give you the biggest results.  Study them well.  Most experienced bloggers would agree that Google drives the most search traffic to their blog. There are two ways to drive visitors from Google to your blog.  First, you buy ads that show up on Google results pages for certain keywords (using AdWords) or second, work hard to get good rankings in search results (organic traffic). The first costs money, organic traffic is free but you need to devote the effort and know how search engines work in order to do it successfully.  Here are several tips to help you in your SEO quest;

Write clear, descriptive page titles- The title of your HTML page should be relatively short and describe the page content accurately. Where possible, include keywords too (without distorting the purpose of the title). When people look at (nobody reads all words) the different results on a search page, that first thing that will catch their attention is the title of your blog page.

Construct URLs chock full of keywords– Just like Titles, search engines always favor web pages that contain relevant keywords in the URLs of the web page. Make sure your url is a clear and productive for you.

Always Use Meta Tags-  Meta tags (keywords & descriptions) are still import (though they were so easy to abuse and search engines devised better algorithms to rank web pages).  But, use the description and keywords meta tags in the head of each web page.  Make these tags a little different on each web page.   Good descriptions in Meta tags can help bring search traffic because they appear as short snippets in search pages beneath your page title. If a meta tag is missing, Google may display some other text page from the web page that may not always be very relevant to your mean theme.

Earn Incoming Links - The best way to get incoming links is to make sure you have created web pages which other bloggers will want to link to. These natural links, the type of link which is created purely to increase a blog's . Natural links have several advantages:

• Not a lot of hard work acquire them (except thru creating great content initially).
• Free and you often won't have to reciprocate the link.= (but its OK if you do)
• Links will be diverse, from a variety of blogs with different anchor text.
• Keep the referring pages tend to be similarly themed (don't link from a pet supply blog to your automotive blog).

If you're good at it and persistent, you will attract natural links to your blog that give your site a boost. But since most blogs have to make an effort to get enough inbound links to move the needle, you will use other methods too. Aside from quality content and a good site structure, incoming links from other websites are also essential for your site to rank high in search engines. The best way to get those links is to write content that is original, informative, helpful and adds value to blogging.  It's important to network with other like-minded bloggers and build realtionships.

Tackle the Text– Verify that the text of your blog pages contain keywords and common phrases which people search for.  Be cautious with the frequency of your keywords, don't make your writing appear unnatural.  Also, don't repeat yourself so that the copy becomes unnatural. You want to spread keywords around without making it too obvious. Remember that elements like Flash animations, images and videos clips may make your site look attractive but search engines can read text. 

Remove Duplicate Content – Make sure that your pages have unique content.  If you have two or more pages with similar content the search engines will have trouble deciding which page should rank higher than and it may dilute your search rankings.

DANGEROUS SEO practices to avoid – Don't participate in programs that sell links with the purpose of inflating your PageRank. Also, don't "stuff" irrelevant keywords in your web pages as these “SEO tricks” could get you penalties or even removed entirely from the Google index.  And stay clear of any "shady" or questionable offers!

Give them a try and let me know how they help.  Don't just SEO, Blog To Great !