* Join * Upgrade * Blog * Tools * Forum * Training * Videos * Aff * About * Support The Blogger's Guide to SEO - by Aaron & Giovanna Wall

Sections

• Background
• What Google Knows About Your Blog
• Why Blog SEO is Different From SEO for Other Websites
• Domain Registration & Hosting
• Keyword Research
• Keeping Up With the Joneses
• Writing Clear & Compelling Headlines
• Optimizing Site Structure
• Web Analytics
• Controversy
• Use Push Marketing After Launching Your Site
• Understanding Network Effects
• Learn More About SEO

Background Information

While we wrote a 300+ page book about SEO, only a dozen pages are needed to cover how to do SEO for a blog. Why? As search improves, Google and other search engines collect more data, which allows them to recommend and rank blogs based on how well people trust those blogs.

What Google Knows About Your Blog

What Google Owns

Search engines have a wide array of trust measurements for blogs. Google knows a lot more about your blog than you think. Consider that Google owns...

• the #1 search portal
• a leading email service
• a leading customized home page
• a leading feed reader
• the leading feed management system
• the leading analytics product
• the largest distributed ad network
• the most widely distributed traffic monitoring toolbar
• the largest video content hosting site; and
• Google collects data from millions of Google accounts every day

Extrapolating Trust from User Data

If a Google user subscribes to your blog how much can Google trust that person's attention and subscription as a sign of trust? How long have they subscribed for? How often do users interact with your site? What other sites do they subscribe to? What other sites do they interact with? How regular are their search and email habits?
If another blog links to you, how much should Google trust that link as a vote to help your site rank better? Do any popular and trustworthy blogs link to that site? How many people subscribe to their RSS feed?
While services like Bloglines or MyBlogLog are able to answer some of these questions, Google can answer them more precisely than any other company.
In addition to the above data, Google knows how old your site is, how steady you have produced content, and how steady your link profile has grown.

Why Blogs Are Different Than Static Websites

SEO for a blog is different than SEO for most other websites, largely because of the social elements baked into blogging technology. SEO for blogs is less about buying links or tricking inadequate search technology. SEO for blogs is more focused on giving people something to talk about and creating something worthy of attention.

The Social Nature of Blogs

1. RSS and feed readers make it easy for readers to subscribe to every post you write, and be notified the moment you publish it.
2. Many people who read blogs also write them, and many of them have hundreds or thousands of subscribers. If a few reputable bloggers syndicate your story it can have a cascading effect where many of their readers share your story.
3. Popular blogs that solicit reader feedback may have dozens or hundreds of comments on each post, adding unique content which the page can rank for.
4. Optimizing a blog is more about capturing attention and getting credit for spreading ideas than it is about optimizing page copy to match search relevancy algorithms.

Domain Name Registration & Blog Hosting

Services such as TypePad, Blogger, and Wordpress.com allow you to host your site as a subdomain off of their sites. Do NOT do that! Some of those services offer a limited set of features and/or prohibit placing ads on your site. It can take months or years to build an audience. Rather than eventually moving your site away from one of these services, you are better off starting with your own domain name and hosting it with a reliable web host.
You can register your own domain name for less than $10 at GoDaddy.com. Dreamhost is an affordable web host, and they offer one click install of the Wordpress blogging platform.

Keyword Research

Traditional Keyword Tools

A wide array of free and paid keyword research tools exist. Many of these tools, such as Wordtracker, have traditionally return keywords that people recently searched for.

Trend Related Keyword Tools

As a blogger, you are not only looking for what is historically popular, but also what is fresh. You can gain insights into what is going on right now by performing searches on Technorati, Google Blog Search, and Google News. Services like Google Trends and Yahoo! Buzz Index show you what searches were popular in the last day.

Where to Use Keywords in Your Page Content

It is crucial to use your keywords in your page title, preferably near the start of your page title. You may want to use your keywords, related phrases, and popular keyword modifiers in your page content a couple times, but with an emphasis on writing natural. Make sure that your content reads well to humans, as that matters much more than what a robot thinks of your content. If people like your content and link at it that is more valuable than getting on page optimization down perfect but sounding robotic in the process.
Regular keyword research tools show you popular modifiers, and some graphical tools like Quintura make it easy to visualize related words in top ranking documents.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Meme Trackers

What ideas are spreading today? Who is at the center of the conversation in the blogging world? TechMeme and TailRank highlight recent popular blog posts. Spin off topically oriented meme trackers are also available. The World Bank launched their BuzzMonitor as a free open source software program allowing anyone to create a meme tracker.

YouTube

YouTube lists today's most popular, today's most discussed, and today's favorite videos. Many of these are irrelevant to your site, but any of these could help you find ideas that have already displayed some level of social proof.

Social News Sites

The Digg homepage, Del.icio.us Popular list, and StumbleUpon Buzz show ideas that were recently popular amongst social bookmarkers. Pligg makes it easy to create niche social news sites.

Focusing On Competing Websites

You don't have to track everything to be successful. You only have to compete in your market. If you read a dozen or two dozen blogs in your market, track who is getting linked to, and why people are talking about them, that makes it easy for you to identify and create ideas and content worthy of being mentioned.
It is easy to subscribe to competing blogs in your marketplace by using feed readers like iGoogle, Google Reader, or Bloglines. You can view links pointing at competing blogs by using Technorati or Google Blogsearch.

Discovering New Content Ideas

Use the above mentioned popular lists to find out why ideas are spreading in related markets and past ideas that worked. From doing that research, it should be easy to tie those ideas to your own market to create remarkable ideas. Every piece of content you come across (online reading, books, pictures, magazines, conferences, personal experience, etc.) is a source of inspiration. Carry a camera and a notepad everywhere you go.
You can keep up with general blogging trends by reading Darren Rowse's ProBlogger and Performancing.