5 Mistakes Bloggers Make with SEO and What to Do About Them

Search Engine Optimisation and all that goes with it is an incredibly important part of successful blogging, but it’s also a topic than many find too advanced – particularly for beginners. It’s not unusual to get expert help in the area, and my guest on today’s ProBlogger podcast is the person I turn to for help with SEO here on ProBlogger and also Digital Photography School: Jim Stewart.

Jim has been in the SEO business since 1999, and helps companies across Melbourne rank well in search at StewartMedia. In this episode, Jim goes through what he thinks bloggers are doing right (even better than his brand customers), and the five things he sees bloggers get wrong – and how to fix them!

5 Mistakes Bloggers Make with SEO and What to Do About Them

Not understanding how Google sees your site – what pages it is crawling and indexing. Is Google indexing duplicated content? Jim tells us how to find out, and how to eliminate the problem.
Bloggers don’t have Google Search Console set up (used to be called Google Webmaster Tools) – this console explains everything Google knows about your site, things like errors, broken links, duplicated titles etc. Jim explains how to set it up via Yoast, how often to check in to see how your site’s performing.
Not optimising URL structure – if your permalink isn’t simple, Google will rank you lower than someone else. Google is all about speed and accuracy, and if you have an unwieldy URL they might skip over you. But don’t rush to change all your links without redirects! You may need a professional’s help.
Not having good document structure: page title, URL and headings. It’s important for the URL to match the page title, and also the <h1> tag in your post, or Google won’t understand that your content is worthy of ranking highly.
Not having interlinked posts on your own site optimised. You show Google what is important on your site, and interlinking posts or creating sneeze pages can help (find out more about how to create them here)

Jim also answers questions submitted from the ProBlogger community (mostly the Facebook page):

Should bloggers invest my money in buying SEO tools? or is that only for advanced blogs?
What really is successful seo? is it just ranking? how can I measure this?
Tips for changing blog platforms and what to do with the content left behind
How much should you “stuff” your posts with key words?
How imporatnt are on-page factors? Is it worth all the hard work to get them right or is it more about links coming in?
Is there any value for SEO getting links on any kind of social media? Or is it more about getting them to your site?
What to do when another site is scraping your content and is ranking above you
Do domains only rank after they’re a year old?
Are some webhosts better than others from an SEO perspective?

I hope you find today’s episode insightful, and Jim’s tips useful – I know he’s really helped me a lot over the past few years.

You can catch Jim at the ProBlogger Training Event on the Gold Coast this year in September (sign up here to be notified when tickets go on sale), or chat with him on Twitter here.