How to Optimize Your Blog Posts For SEO

by R. Jerome Harris on April 7, 2009

This article will explain a technique I use to get great Google position from my blog posts. It works 8 out of 10 times. You don’t need to hire a SEO specialist or purchase a SEO course. As a Wordpress blogger, and you are using the right plug-ins, you already half way there as far as SEO is concerned. So all of those SEO books and courses don’t apply to you as a blogger.  You can do this yourself. Here is how:

Your Blog Title

Make sure your keyword(s) are in your title. Further, make sure your keyword(s) appear in the front of your title. The best performing blog sites and post have keywords placed in the beginning of the title. Assuming your keywords are "Dog Training." Here is an example of a Blog title that is not SEO optimized:

"The Complete Guide To Dog Training"

Now let’s rearrange the keywords within this title to:

"Dog Training: A Complete Guide"

Notice that the keywords were moved to the front.

Additionally, make sure your title is as short as possible.
 

The First Paragraph

The first paragraph of your post is very important. Make sure your keywords appear in the first sentence of the paragraph. Even better, make them the first words in the first sentence of the paragraph. Then, in the rest of the paragraph and in a natural writing style, naturally use iterations of the keywords. Again, assuming the keywords are Dog Training, look at a sample first paragraph:

"Dog training can be a very challenging task requiring an ounce of patience and a measure of perseverance. Dog owners have the most trouble training dogs rescued from the pound, but it doesn’t have to be difficult."

Notice that the keywords appear first. Next, notice that iterations of "dog" and "training" are used. Care is taken not to repeat the keywords over and over again.

 

The Rest of the Post

In the rest of your blog post you want to write naturally about your topic with your reader in mind. Remember, your reader is the most important thing. You want them to have a good reader experience. You don’t want your posts to read like you are just trying to get ranked in the search engines. Trust me on this as Google and everyone else are hip to this and it may get you penalized or banned altogether.

Use iterations of your keywords without over doing it.
 

Re-Optimization

Re-optimization is simply going back you any of your previous posts and applying the techniques you have learned above. You check the title; you check the first paragraph;  you check the rest of the blog post to make sure that iterations of your keywords are present (without over doing it); and you check to make sure that your posts read naturally and they don’t read like you are just trying to get high rank in the search engines.

These techniques apply only if you use hosted Wordpress (not wordpress.com). In other words, Wordpress runs on your domain and server and you are using the right Wordpress plug-ins such as the All-In-One SEO Pack for Wordpress.

Apply the techniques above to your posts and post to your blog often – as Google loves content – and you will see your blog and site rankings move up in the search engines.

 

 

 

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  • Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.
  • Hi, I cant understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me, please :)
  • Absolutely agree with the title and they keyword suggestions. Titles are the biggest mistakes most bloggers make. Chief Marketer Magazine just published an article I wrote called the 5 biggest corporate blogging mistakes:

    http://blogging.compendiumblog.com/blog/bloggin...

    You cover two of them Drake, CTA's are probably the other biggest miss.
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