So many bloggers are concerned with how well their blog and posts rank in the search engines. Time and time again, I get questions sent to me via email and instant message asking the same thing. “Garry, can you please take a look at my blog and tell me if it is search engine friendly?” or, “Garry, how come my blog doesn’t rank for the keywords I want?” or, “Garry, where do I start with learning more about search engine optimization?”
With the obvious demand for a better understanding of search engines, how to rank in them and how to market your content in them, here is a search engine checklist that I believe you’ll find helpful. It is a simple Yes/No checklist. The more questions that you can answer yes, the more you’re on your way to search engine traffic bliss! Drop a comment with your scores if you’d like.
If you can answer “Yes” to all these questions then you should have a healthy blog for users as well as search engines. Feel free to drop a comment and also I’d love it if you’d share this post with your readers on your blog.
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Date/Time: 3-28-2008 21:45:15 Comment #12914
Well, I think I need to do a little more work on some of my sites. My general score is 5 yeses, 4 noes, and 2 question marks. Yea, gotta do some more work.
Date/Time: 3-28-2008 21:54:40 Comment #12915
Well, if you’re not opposed to revealing your answers to each question and which site you’re referring to, I may be able to help you. Fire away if you’d like.
Date/Time: 3-28-2008 22:08:02 Comment #12916
You just want the world to see what a big dork I really am. LOLOLOL
I used my site ChristineSenter.com as my test site. And here is the sad news.
1.) Yes-well at least I like to think so
2.) ?-That can go either way. Sometimes yes, and sometimes no
3.) No
4.) No
5.) No
6.) No
7.) Yes-But then I learned that from you
8.) Yes-But that’s kind of the same as number 7
9.) Yes-I keep 5 posts on the front page, and offer archives in the sidebar
10.) ?-Again, sometimes yes and sometimes no. This one goes in spurts. I get a run of links, then nothing for weeks on end.
11.) Yes-I know how to do that, no sweat
Date/Time: 3-28-2008 22:25:34 Comment #12918
3.) Are you optimizing your pages with three to five keyword phrases?
4.) Do most of your important keywords appear above the top fold?
5.) Are your keywords hyperlinked?
6.) Do your graphics on your post contain focused and relevant keywords?
If you put these four into practice, you’ll notice a difference in not ranking better in the search engines but also you’ll capture the more interest in your readers.
I actually think you’ve got #3 and #4 nailed pretty good. These two attributes are things you do naturally just with your writing skills along. You know how to capture the attention within your writing and consequently, that also captures the attention from search engines.
I do agree, you need to do more hyperlinking your keyword phrases within your posts. Here is a very easy way to do that:
WordPress blogs have a search engine built in. The URL for search results are like this: ?s=keyword+phrase
There is also a search engine friendly URL for your internal search results. Instead of this: ?s=keyword+phrase you can simply do /keyword+phrase/
Here is am example:
http://www.garryconn.com/?s=Back+Links
http://www.garryconn.com/search/Back+Links/
Both examples lead to the same place, but the second url is more search engine friendly. Granted both will get indexed, but the second looks a lot cleaner.
Manually hyperlinking keywords from your post page direct to your WordPress search page is one of the easiest ways I know of. Rather than having to search the Internet for a relevant page based off your keywords, you can simply just internally link to your search page.
Date/Time: 3-30-2008 12:51:35 Comment #12984
Hi Garry,
I read this post a couple of days ago and I knew I had to come back and read it again. It really hits on a lot of points that I have not paid enough attention to. One thing I’ve been struggling with is keywords. For question number 2 above it says:
2. Does your content contain focused keyword phrases?
I’m going to guess not, since I have not really done keyword research before creating my posts, I know many of the words I use in my posts are probably highly searched keywords, but I’m sure they’re not properly optimized. But when you say “focused keyword phrases”, what would be an example of that?
Should I research keywords first via google or yahoo to get highly relevant keywords first? and then write article/post around these keywords? I have been basically trying to write naturally and in doing so I’m sure I’ve neglected my overall SEO.
Thanks
Charlie
Date/Time: 3-30-2008 14:58:06 Comment #12989
Hi Charlie,
If you were to write a post about a Pizza Hut pizza. You may mention those words once or twice but as you begin to write more about Pizza Hut and their pizza, the business starts to get referred to as “them” or “they” and the pizza starts to get referred to as “it”. Try to use less of the “He, She, They, Them, It” words.
That is one example.
Date/Time: 3-30-2008 15:10:38 Comment #12990
Gotcha, so write naturally but use the keywords and their variations throughout the post.
Thanks dude.
Date/Time: 3-31-2008 00:17:19 Comment #13007
Google also doesn’t consider punctuation in text when you have a keyword phrase.
So a post targeting the phrase “make money blogging” could appear as:
“If you want to make money, blogging can be a great start.”
“Finally, I learned I could make money. Blogging was my answer.”
You also want to use Thematically Related Keywords. That sounds complicated, but it simply means that when Google sees an article about Pizza Hut (to use Garry’s example) it expects to see thematically related words on the page like “restaurant” or “carry out”.
Date/Time: 3-31-2008 01:01:05 Comment #13012
“when Google sees an article about Pizza Hut (to use Garry’s example) it expects to see thematically related words on the page like “restaurant†or “carry outâ€.”
Excellent comment Aaron. I believe that you are right.
Date/Time: 3-31-2008 14:55:55 Comment #13039
This post is featured in today’s FullTiltBlogging.com’s Daily Blog Summary - a 5 minute summary of the top 50 Make Money Blogging sites. Great post. (I just realized the link is broken. It will be fixed momentarily.)