How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines

Yes, i think that SEO it’s one of the first things to learn and remember….
Finally, it’s very very important that others popular website link your blog.
Good blog, I’ve added it in http://www.bloxpo.com database.
Byebye:)

What can I say Darren? As a regular reader of your blog this particular post compels me to comment here for the first time :)

Firstly wearing my ‘educator hat’ I have to say that this is the most informative and practical advice I have seen on the subject. Also the cautionary note interjected at appropriate times strikes a perfect balance. I know how difficult it is to get across some of the more complicated facets of SEO and you have written a masterly summary.

Secondly wearing my ‘SEO hat’ I have a couple of clarifications which might further help your readers.

You say that “Most SEO experts recommend getting your keyword density up to between 5-20%”. I don’t think this is true anymore and all the better SEOs that I know are now quite rightly unconcerned with keyword density.

Keyword density is not a phrase or even a concept that is used by search engineers working for Google, Yahoo or MSN because the importance of a keyword or a keyphrase on a page for any given query depends on the content in which the term is used not on frequency counts. Search engines actually use ‘term vector models’ which are mathematically complex but infinitely superior, not keyword density. The best advice is that which you hinted at – write your pages for the reader/user and do not write what you think the search engines would like to see.

You also say “You might also like to tryout some of the services around that offer to submit your sites to search engines for you…” but go on to say that you would “…be wary of paying for this sort of service..”. The plain fact is that using a paid for or even a free search engine submission service is to be avoided.

Firstly it is unnecessary (as you noted) because search engines like to find new sites and new pages with their own bots. Secondly most of the sites that these services submit to are there only to collect your email address and then make it available to spammers.

The best advice for a new site to get indexed is to have a link from at least one site (preferably more) that is in the search engine’s index already. Hand submission to reputable directories is a good way to obtain these first links.

– Michael

Hi Chris,

Are you aware that your blog doesn’t display correctly in Internet Explorer? The side bar seems to start way at the bottom after all the posts. It looks fine in Firefox. I am using Internet Explorer 6.0. Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads up.

I am not really sure still about the value of directories. I had submitted a few blogs to directories but in the end they have not really helped me, maybe it depends on the niche you are in. Anyway the best list probably of directories that I know of is a spreadsheet kept up to date at http://info.vilesilencer.com/

I very much agree on the subject of keyword and keyphrase optimization.

I start by writing my article for me, then I go back through it and add in the stuff to make the article better for you (external links, citations, references et cetera) then I make a third pass and look to swap out the likes of: “business initiatives” with: “business driven technology initiatives” which carries a little more weight because the ‘business driven technology’ is a key phrase for me.

It’s not hard, and in time it’s something that just becomes good practice and second nature.

Once you commit all of your keywords and key phrases to memory, you start dropping them in quite naturally.

Great stuff Darren. Good read…

Very good post. This one’s a keeper. Thanks.

Great post darren,

SEO is in fact the most important element of a site or blog.No matter how well written or designed without traffic you will succeed.

Excellent post – thank you. I’ve added it to my bookmarks.

I’ve found an initial SEO strategy that never fails to get valuable inbounds links and seriously improve the rankings for a new website, is to first submit to as many SEO friendly directories as possible. To increase chances of acceptance, always submit before adding Adsense or advertising of any sort to the website. That valuable listing at DMOZ is also more likely to happen if there are no adverts of any kind whatsoever.

The merits of outsourcing this time consuming task will soon become apparent, when your chain of websites continue to grow. After all it seems pointless to bicker about thirty to fifty bucks, if it saves a webmaster 4 – 5 hours of valuable time better spent, marketing, writing new articles or constructing a new niche blog or website.

Checking the validity of a website’s HTML code prior to submission is recommended. New webmasters will appreciate the new HTML Validator – a Mozilla extension that adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla, available from: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/249/

The number of errors of a HTML page is seen in the form of an icon on the browser’s status bar when browsing. The “Tiny” add-on checks and reports these HTML source code errors from the “view” source code tab. This great Firefox extension goes on to give a print out of the required changes, so a simple copy and paste of the validated code will simplify the task for a newcomer to web design.

Chuckle! the HTML validator definitely does not appear to appreciate Google’s Adsense javascript code… often flagging a number of “warnings” related to the Adsense ad block code.

A comprehensive post Darren. Interlinking is fine but you seem to have forgotten outbound links to most of your original sources. Very important. All of this information can be easily Googled and in fact I have already read elsewhere. I don’t mean to be a critic but it is absolutely necessary to give give credit where credit is due. Otherwise a good post. Cheers!

Thanks, great post. I think I may need to come back a few times to digest and go through all the things you’ve outlined more thoroughly. One thing I would like to add is that when you comment on other blogs, it can lead to more traffic, but this is generally of the more curious type. Just a thought. Thanks again. ProBlogger is one of my favorite and most frequent reads.

Great article. I’ve taken into account everything you’ve mentioned and I’m working toward optimizing my website for SEO.

Keep up the good work!

I have to agree on most of the stuffs that you have said. I do care about my sites and hopefully I can take onboard of what you have said into practical use. Thanks, mate.

Okay, everything you all are saying sounds interesting – and difficult. I have a little Web site that I’m thinking of adding a blog to. However, I’m having trouble just generating traffic for the Web site. Would it even be beneficial to add the blog to it now…or should I wait? And, is optimizing for a blog and a Web site the same?

Question: regarding the post on “optimizing title tags.” Can someone explain the “how” and the “why”.

Thanks in advance..I really appreciate any help you guys can give.

I just noticed this discussion written back in Nov. 2006. I wish I chimed in then, as we were already well into our beta. But it’s hard to imagine a discussion of SEO these days without the long tail discussion, where you target subject-matter which is just a little bit less than competitive in favor of picking up the top positions repeatedly and quickly. The idea is to start the snowball effect happening, and build your way to a critical mass of natural search traffic. The self-fueling snowball effect happens when you have enough “seed content” on your website, so that new writing suggestions start to automatically come in from your “web analytics” software.

Thanks a lot!
As a beginner we get lot to learn in our very first stage of blogging.
Now I realised the importance of inbound links and I was not giving much time on SEO, but now very serious.
And thanks again for your all in one good SEO collection in this post.
Which will definitely make me a Problogger!!