Friday, 20 March 2015

SEO basics for Bloggers

SEO but what does it all mean? I know I wasn't alone in being totally lost in a sea of mumbo jumbo I didn't understand, so here it is, the basics need to know about how to improve your SEO in one simple blog post.
SEO basics for Bloggers

Search Engine Optimisation

This means making your site stand out for search engines, thus improving your traffic and being easier to find. 

Naming your images
As a blogger you use photos a lot, let's face it! Most blog posts contain at least one picture and you need to keep in mind a photo says a 1000 words so it's a good idea to make sure your images are being picked up by search engines.
Start by renaming your photos to something it's actually about. No more DS474497.JPG's please! Not only will not naming your images be a nightmare for you to find among the thousands sitting on your PC but search engines only recognize text. 
Once you've edited and saved your pic, upload it to your blogging platform and add an alt tag. Most blogging platforms have this as an option already (no need for you to trawl the internet for HTML codes!), Blogspot has an option once you've added your photo. You simply click the image, go to properties and fill in the title text and alt text. Sorted!
If you do need the HTML code here it is;

So you've written a blog post, it's fantastic of course so obviously you want as many people to see it as possible right?
Obviously advertising on social media is awesome but you want to include a few words that are going to get it noticed! Google Adwords is a brilliant source as you can search for words and see how they rate. 
For instance if you're writing about lipstick, you not only want to include the word lipstick but also women's beauty, beauty, makeup etc. This opens your blog post to be a result in a wider range of search engine results. A good idea is to write a list of of keywords that correspond to your post and then add them into the post when you are writing.

When you created your blog it popped up on the searched engines instantly because basically, search engines are nosey little buggers and you were all new and shiney.
However, just because a search engine now knows you exist, you're still small fry and you need to stand up and make yourself noticeable. Think of it as being back in school, your a nobody and you somehow make friends with a popular kid. You instantly become more popular right? People suddenly take notice and want to be friends with you.
Well, you've got it. The more you link your blog to social media channels or have links to other blogs and websites the more highly they will be ranked by search engines. It will still take a few months to get noticed mind, as until a website is established for around 3 months search engines don't really pay much attention.
All in all, indexing takes time and won't happen overnight! Comment on other blogs, promote your own blog and the more you find ways to get links back to your blog, the higher you will rank!

Title Tags 
It is what it sounds! It's your blog post title. Duh right?
Title tags are a very valuable tag since this is the first thing search engines 'see'. It's also what shows up when you search online for something. The title tag should contain your keywords and in brief explain what the post is about. 
Your title tag should be unique for every page/post. It's the only thing that will draw people in to click on your link so make it interesting!

Meta Tags
Meta tags are those few sentences under a search result that let you know what the post is about. The aren't really that important for the search side of things but they are almost as important as you blog post title (title tags) for drawing people in. Meta tags should also include some of the keywords you decided upon and are in the post but you want them to be included in your description. Again be interesting and get them to click your link!

If you've got any tips I'd love to hear them!
Until next time,




  1. Thank you for this post! I have just started a new blog this week and this will really help me out in expanding

  2. I don't have any other tips that I can think of from the top of my head, but those that you shared are the most basic and essential ones. Thanks for sharing!

    Yaya ♥ My Dreamality

  3. Thank you for explaining SEO in a more simple way, so that I can finally get to grips with it :D

  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

  5. I found this so extremely useful, thank you for explaining in such a good easy way! x


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