Blogging Tips

If you’re constantly surfing the web looking for solid blog SEO content like me, you’ll notice a plethora of information and “top lists” on virtually every related source. Most of these lists are highly recommended, but in my opinion there are a few vital changes you can make that are not usually not listed.

1. H1 Tags for Titles
I cannot express enough how well this has worked on several of the projects I am intimately involved in. One of the major projects I work on is a wiki site with just under 5,000 pages indexed in Google. We work diligently to ensure that all URL’s are using the keywords of the page content title, and that each title is wrapped in h1 tags.

In doing so we have seen tremendous success on long tail keywords and keyphrases, and now that we’re starting to monitor some of the blogs we work with we’re seeing the same results across the board.

Now, I’m not suggesting that be simply making sure your titles are wrapped in h1 tags you will suddenly see magic happen within the SERPs, but as statistics have shown me in my experience, Google likes the tag and gives pages “points” in the ALGO for using them.

To check for the H1 tag, simply right click on your page and view the source. You should find the h1 tag wrapped around your titles as seen in the image below.

2. Rel, Title and NoFollow for Links
The “rel” tag is not extremely important, but it might be something you want to look at from time to time.

The title tag is very important, in my opinion, and a habit that you should work towards getting used to. It’s also one of the easier tweaks to overlook because WordPress and other blogging platforms have made it so simple to paste in URL’s when adding links. If you truly wish to get the most bang for your time when looking at your content from an optimization standpoint, you really do need to take the extra step of adding in title tags.

NoFollow is a thorn in my side, personally, because I actually want to pass on “link juice” to anyone I link to. I personally believe it is the way the web is connected and I think if done properly, linking with the dofollow mentality is healthy for all of us. That being said, Google has made it clear that the search engine ALGO is looking for NoFollow to help cut down on link spam. With this in mind, we need to do what is required to obtain as much likability from Google and other search engines. If adding NoFollow is what the search engines want(you know, the guys who send us MOST of our traffic!) then that is what we should be giving them.

3. Image Title Tags
Last year one of the blogs that I host had an image posted as one of those “caption this” posts. The image ended up ranking VERY well for a completely unexpected keyword. It was in the bottom row on the first page of Google Images and was pulling in 200 visit per day. I went in and added the title tag for that particular keyword, and four days later it had become the second image on the top row.

That image has seen 600 plus unique visits in a single day, and still averages at least 50 unique visits per day almost a year later. We optimized the page to pull in the audience searching for the particular image, and the move has resulted in quite a few new RSS subscribers.

If using tags a little more wisely can result in extra visits and new RSS subscribers… isn’t it worth the effort?