Here are my top seven SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips:
- Know what keywords you want to rank for
- Keywords are one of the most important SEO hacks. As a mom, lifestyle or professional blogger, you need to determine what keywords you want searchers to be able to find your blog when they are querying.
- Use long-tail keywords in your content. These types of keywords are 3 to 4 words in length and are specific to what you are selling or offering. For instance, if your are a recipe blogger, instead of using the word recipe alone, add more description such as pumpkin pie family recipe.
- Research competitors for the top keywords they are ranking for. This will also give you ideas on additional keywords you can use within your content.
- Don't over use one keyword throughout your blog. Again, it will appear spammy when crawling your site.
- Sprinkle long-tail keywords within your informational blog post. When Google crawls your site, it is looking for consistency and a few keyword variations to be able to understand what your content is about.
- There are lots of tools available for getting keyword ideas such as Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Google Trends, and SEMRush.
- Optimize your Titles
- Include your keywords in your mom blog title.
- Try to keep your titles under 55 characters. Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title tag.
- Format URL's so search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo can read them
- Include descriptive keywords in your URL's. When creating titles and content, write for the reader not for the search engines crawling your page.
- Use hyphens instead of underscores to separate words. A word of caution though, overuse of hyphens can be seen as spammy by the search engines. So watch out how long your make your URL.
- URL character length should be no longer than 2,048 characters. If longer, Internet Explorer won't be able to load the page.
- Add Alt Text to all your images using keywords and variations of your keywords
- Sprinkle keywords and links within your blog post.
- Many bloggers believe that they should load their blog post with the same keyword and also link to ten plus sites. This is seen by the search engines as being spammy. Instead, include variations of your keyword and link a few of your keyword variations to other sites.
- Ensure link relevancy
- Building link relevancy helps establish trust for your site. Link relevancy is determined by search engines by both the content of the source page and the anchor text.
- Include short-tail or long-tail keywords in your Anchor Text. Anchor text is the words that hyperlinks display when linking to another website, landing page or document.
- Register your blog with Google Search Console
- Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you monitor and fix your blog. Your able to see which pages are causing 404 errors, what keywords Google thinks is relevant for your blog and if the search engine is having problems crawling your site.
