SEO Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

While it is true that "content is king" in blog publishing, writing blog content is not the only activity that a blogger should do to attract a following.  Quality SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is also important, otherwise the blog remains a well-kept secret -- all content and very few visitors.

Many bloggers may not know it, but there are actually several SEO tips that will come in handy to turn an ordinary blog into a highly trafficked site.

Placing Keywords Strategically

One of the most important SEO tips to remember is that search engines like Google and Yahoo, which send out automated web crawlers or “spiders” to categorize and rank all published web sites and blogs in the Internet, do so by searching for relevant content through prominently and strategically displayed keywords.  Make sure to follow the following best practices:

1.  The title (<title>) tag of the website is always crawled (i.e. noticed) by search engine spiders.  The blog with keywords placed in the title tag will be placed higher on search engines.

2.  The heading (<h2>) tags are also commonly crawled.  This means keywords should be incorporated in the titles of each blog whenever possible.

3.  Images in a blog are ignored by the search engine spider, but keywords placed as textual descriptions in the <alt> tags of images are not.  This is one of the SEO tips that is specifically for graphics-driven posts like photography or travel blogs.

4.  Search engine spiders do not ignore keywords in inbound or outbound links to blog sites.  For inbound links from other websites to your blog, this means using the keyword as part of the anchor text (the clickable text in a link).  For outbound links on your blog to other webpages, make sure that your URL link has the keyword.

5.  Another relevant SEO tip is achieving the right number of keywords to preserve keyword density (how frequent the keyword appears in your page).  The blogger has direct control over this metric, by writing blog posts with around 3% keyword density.  More than that could annoy blog readers and the post may be construed as spam. However, less than 7% may cause the spiders to miss the keyword for the blog.

6.  Search engine spiders are also friendly toward keyword synonyms.  So feel free to incorporate synonyms to limit keyword monotony in blog posts, and at the same time continue to optimize your blog site.

Linking for Ranking

Another useful SEO tip is establishing quality links in the blog, particularly incoming links from similar sites.  Similar sites translate to websites that are technically your niche competitors.  Getting competitor  sites to link to your blog is considered a major vote that increases the  blog’s status in your niche circle, as well as in search engine rankings.

Another SEO tip related to links is the setup of long-lasting inbound links.  Aging links are favored by search engines, interpreted as an endorsement by the linking website and as a proof of organic link-building.

On the other hand, avoid broken links at all cost, because search engines will demote blog ranking if they find links to non-existent sites.

Search Engine Algorithms

Different search engines index and rank websites according to their own algorithms, although many SEO tips focus on keywords and link building because they are common to almost all search engines.  Google, in particular, uses sitemaps to index blogs and websites.  The use of the robots.txt file is also another methodology that search engines use to ignore or index a site.  Use the file carefully to ban or un-ban certain portions of your site from search engine rankings.