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Optimize a Single Post On Your Blog for SEO

This is an unofficial extra task for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook.

SEO-optimize-blog-post.jpg

Today I spent the morning working on a task that I try to do at least once a month – SEO on individual key posts in my archives.

While it’s important to know and practice the basics principles of SEO in the way you set up your blogs structure and in the writing of your posts – I find it can be very worthwhile periodically going back through key old posts to optimise them even further. I’ve used the following process for a while now and in most cases where I do it I find I’m able to increase my ranking for different posts.

I’m not the world’s best SEO but here’s the process that I use in doing this (I invite you to share yours in comments if you do this type of thing) – I hope you find it useful:

1. Identify Key Posts to Optimize for SEO

Across my active blogs I have 10,000 blog posts so I need to be a little strategic about choosing which blog posts I go back to to give a little SEO attention to.

For me the way that I do this is to dig into my Google Analytics account to work out what posts are already having some success with search traffic – but which could be improved. I generally look for posts that are ranking anywhere from #2 to #10 for their keywords (although sometimes focus upon those which are #1 to strengthen them further).

If a page is already generating some traffic from Google for a keyword but isn’t in the number 1 ranking for the word and increase in ranking should also see an increase in the traffic that the post receives. I’ve seen a variety of studies over the years that show that the #1 ranked result in Google can be getting anywhere from 35-55% of all clicks – the higher you are to the top the better.

Lets look at an example:

I’ve got a page on DPS which ranks #2 (depending where you are) for the term Portrait Photography.

It is a good page to optimise because it’s a relatively good term in the amount of traffic it drives (it’s a term that get a fair bit of searching for in Google) but also because the page is a ‘sneeze page‘ which links to quite a few pages across my photography blog and as a result those who visit that page end up visiting over 7 pages on their visit (the site average is a bit over 2 pages per visit).

The page already generates some healthy traffic (a few thousand visitors a month) so I know if I could get it ranking higher it will generate more.

2. Analyze the Competition

I don’t tend to get this deep into SEO too often but from time to time it can be worthwhile doing a little analysis of what pages that are ranking higher than you for a keyword are doing.

market-samurai-SEO.pngOne tool that I use for this (and other keyword analysis) is Market Samurai. It’s a tool I’ve only been using for a little while but it’s very handy. That link is an affiliate link but it does give you a 12 day free trial. I’ve shelled out for the full version as it has been so handy a tool for this type of analysis.

One of the modules in the Market Samurai system (there are quite a few more) is one that does analysis of what competing pages are doing for a keyword. Lets take a look at what it gives us for ‘portrait photography’ as a keyword (click to enlarge).

portrait-photography-analysis.png

You can see that the #2 ranking is for my site but it also shows a variety of information for other ranked sites in the top 10. Some of the information given is not overly relevant to me (or at least is out of my control like the first column which looks at the age of the domain) but some of the information is useful in getting a handle on how your page compares to other sites.

Knowing this might help you work out what you need to do to rank higher – or it might also give you an indication of whether you have much chance of ranking for the keyword at all (if the site you’re trying to compete against is way beyond what you can achieve it might be an indication that you want to go and work on another page).

In this example lets compare my page with the #1 ranked page:

  • DA – domain age – they have a real advantage here.
  • PR – page rank – their page is a 4 and mine is a 3. Something to work on.
  • IC – index count (the number of pages indexed on the domain) – they are obviously a lot bigger site. This doesn’t mean I can’t rank for the term but gives an indication that I’m up against a pretty established site.
  • BLP – the amount of backlinks pointing at the page. They obviously have more (we’ll do some more analysis of this below).
  • BLEG – links from .edu/.gov sites pointing at the page – they have a couple here while I don’t
  • DMZ – is the site in the DMOS directory (I don’t page a lot of attention to this but some say it can be a factor)
  • YAH – is the site in the Yahoo directory (again, not something that I pay much attention to but some say it can be the difference between getting a higher ranking and not)
  • Title – is the keyword/s in the title tags of the post (we both do this)
  • URL – is the keyword/s in the URL of the post (I have the advantage here)
  • Desc – is the keyword in the meta description tag (not something that I’ve found to impact SEO much but perhaps something to consider with the way your post appears in Google)
  • Head – is the keyword/s in a header tag on the page
  • CA – The Cache Age (the number of days since Google Cached the page)

In this case – the analysis shows me that I’m up against a pretty heavy hitter. It’s an established site with lots of links pointing both at the domain and the page itself. I’m tempted to settle for just ranking #2 for this page but for the sake of the exercise I’ll push on.

Note: Market Samurai also gives you the opportunity to dig deeper into competing sites and can give you a breakdown of the actual links pointing at a page. I won’t do the analysis here (it might be deeper than where people are at) but what I found was that in the case of my competition on this one is that the competing site had a lot of forwarded links pointing at it. I’m not sure what was going on with it but it seems that the majority of the links pointing at my competition are from forwarded domains and not actual live pages. This gives me a little hope so I’ll push on with optimising the page.

3. On Page Optimization

The above competitive analysis might give you a few hints as where to begin in optimizing your page. For example if you’ve not got your keywords in ‘title tags’ or ‘header tags’ – you’ll want to fix that. If your keyword is not in the URL, that’s another thing to consider. Those three tweaks alone could have a fairly significant change (I’ve seen changing title tags to include keywords as increasing rankings significantly).

Once you’ve done that you might want to also look at some smaller tweaks that could play a part. Using keywords in bold, using keywords in alt tags on images etc. These are probably not going to have a major impact but could help a little.

Ultimately if you want to rank for a particular keyword – you need to be using that keyword on your page in key spots (titles, headings, URL). Don’t stuff your page full of the keyword (and whatever you do keep your content useful and readable to readers) but a few tweaks might help.

4. Off Page Optimization

You might find that with some on page optmization that your post is already increasing its rankings – particularly if the keyword you’re looking at is not highly competitive. However at times it can be worth looking at ways of generating some extra links to your page as the number and type of links are important in determining how a page ranks in search engines.

I don’t tend to do much of this type of SEO as I find my site tends to get a nice number of links pretty naturally from other sites but I know those who are more into SEO will work hard on some of the following:

  • analysing where the competition is getting their links and looking for opportunities to get links there too – for example if a link is coming to your competitor from a forum discussion or blog comment you might also have an opportunity to leave a quality comment there with your own link.
  • links from other blogs you own (particularly one on a relevant topic) link to your page from it
  • internal links – this is something I do do – basically its about interlinking your posts. While internal links don’t count as much as an external link they can help a little.
  • pitching links to other blogs – if you have a relationship with other blogs in your niche try pitching a link of the page that you’re optimizing to those bloggers.
  • sharing links in social media – most social media sites like Twitter and Facebook put no-follow tags on links so they don’t count directly for SEO but I find that an occasional push of an older post on social media sites can lead to indirect links from other bloggers. I also suspect that search engines are paying more attention to what links are being shared in social media sites so getting your links into them (without spamming) could be useful if you have a network of people who will pass them onto their own networks.

Note: the generation of links can be a fairly ‘black hat’ game at times. It can also be pretty addictive and become an obsession. I personally would prefer to spend my time producing quality content than spending my days asking for links. Do be a little careful with link building – not only can it be a time suck but if you engage in tactics that Google sees as against their Terms of Service (buying links for example) you could also be jeopardizing your sites ranking in their index.

Further Reading on SEO

Do you ever go back and optimize individual posts on your blog for SEO? If so – I’d love to hear your approach to it. This is the way I do it but I’m certain that there will be many other approaches that others take.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. Some good advice here, and Market Samurai looks interesting.

    Just a point to note – image alt properties are very high correlated with high rankings now, so you could always use an image in your post with appropriate keywords in the alt property (again, in a non-spammy way).

  2. I hope to get into some serious blogging soon and want to do things correctly from the start and will be using your book, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog .

    One thing that worries me about blogs are the post archives and whether the search engines still rate those pages as high a website pages. I keep tweaking the pages of my websites and it does make a difference.

    I also use Market Samurai as it really is a great tool to own and it just keeps getting better!

  3. marketsamurai is something new for me.

  4. I have known about SEO for years, but wasn’t really sure how it was working on my site. One thing I did that really helped to open my eyes was to install Feedjit on my site. I didn’t really like the idea of it at first because it takes away some anonymity of my visitors, but I really got a lot of understanding what was going on when I saw my real time visitors coming in using those keywords I saw at Google Analytics. Feedjit shows where the person is coming from, and the keywords they used to find pages on my site. Then I can click on the keywords and find out exactly where I’m at in the ranking. Now I finally could see just how many people were dropping in looking for Fels Naptha soap and L. Frances Caramels, LOL! It really impacted me to try to use good titles of my posts, because those posts I just accidentally HAPPENED to title them with keywords and such a way that they are interesting enough that people are coming daily to see them. I started realizing how sometimes my post titles just don’t have ANYTHING to do with the actual topic, so I have been trying to be mindful of that as I title my posts. I’m just beginning to work through the 31 days, but I hope to optimize those pages to make them more sticky. I really love these extra tips, Darren, and even more I love the podcasts. I have listened to the one from Neil Patel at least four times and learn another tip each time I listen. Very inspirational and I feel like my hour drive to and from work is very productive when I’m learning how to blog better! Thanks!

  5. I’ve often wondered what the key is to getting linked to from a government or education website. That seems like something pretty random for the search engines to put any emphasis on it.

  6. Honestly I never thought about tweaking old post.

    When it comes to SEO I just do a little of it. I think that if you produce quality content the keywords necessary automatically will find their way into it.

    I see that my articles often rank on the first page of the search results and when I investigate further I see that it’s on the keywords that are used to make the content as valuable for the reader as possible.

    I don’t want to say that I’m writing very valuable content all of the time but I definitively see a difference in ranking depending on the effort I’ve put into a post.

  7. I often see something I’ve forgotten to do with a new post. So I put it right then check old posts for the same thing. And yes, I’ve often forgotten it on old posts too, so go through old posts checking that one thing. Sometimes it’s just little things like typing your own excerpt.

    But I haven’t got 10,000 old posts to check – I wish I had though :)

    I find the PR Analysis and Text Analysis parts of Market Samurai incredibly useful when assessing other ranking webpages. Most people don’t know that text like “click here”, “how to order”, “his and hers” and “for all the family” aren’t doing much for their SEO.

    Good to see you using Market Samurai; I love it.

  8. yes, great approach! anything that can improve in the rankings should be improved! I review old posts and articles to do some more manual backlinks, take a look to the promotion module in market samurai and refresh the keyword research.

  9. Some cool description about seo article!

    But i wanna to ask…is SEO optimization for article above same too for seo contest?

  10. Thanks for pointing out this market samurai tool I didn’t yet know. And as always: you waste no words, good post!

  11. I read somewhere that updating an older post could negatively and temporarily affect the rankings, etc? Is there any truth to that? Thanks.

  12. Nice post. People are so interested in throwing up as many pages as they can that they forget to optimize each one.

  13. Market Samurai sound like something to look into, thanks for the advice. As always, I learn new things each time I read our blogs Darren. Seo has so many factors and social bookmarking is a biggie now a days. Seo is also confusing and has to be just right and not be spammy. Have noticed with my blogs that the most recent posts usually show backlinks. Same with Squido Lenses.

  14. I am new to SEO and I have trouble tracking the backlinks of my competitors. I tried yahoo site explorer but it shows so many links from same domain names and its quite difficult to analyze the results. Google’s backlink have the same problem they also show the internal links linking to the page and my competitors have huge sites with hundreds of pages. So what tools you guys use for tracking backlinks effectively.

    Secondly, the bloggers in my niche are also my competitors. So how do I find bloggers who are not my competitors and are genuinely interested in link building relationship?

  15. I went back and filled in the ‘All in One SEO’ boxes after installing the same as a plugin on my newish wordpress blogs.

    Now I always make sure that I fill them in AFTER I have written each post; so it should never become a problem in the future. Unless the ‘rules’ change drastically…….

  16. Great post Darren,

    I completely aggree with you. As for me, every single page is a mini website, which means that every single post must be optimized. Without exception!

    On the other hand, I would like to add just one thing: I thing the meta description tag is still important for SEO but we should take in hand all the meta tags en bloc.

    I mean using the keyword in the description tag isn’t the most important thing by oneself at the optimization process but it increases the page value when using together with the other tags and the headline (including the keyword).

    Furthermore, since the description is seen on the search engine results pages, using the keyword helps strengthen the relevance between the title and the description. If it is attractive and relevant, it compel your readers to click to your post.

    Mert

  17. Unusual with only one post can optimize SEO. This is new for me and I think this is a thing to note by many people to get the SEO rise.

  18. With some little SEO and and a web analytics, you can do triple your traffic less than three days.

  19. I noticed the other day when I posted from my wordpress hosted blog linking to another wordpress hosted blog that I got a ping back. Is this automatic or does it have to be approved still by the blog owner? What I did notice was that that one ping back acted as a link when it appeared on the other owners site, the result was I got a boost for that post in the search rankings. Is this normal, or just a coincidence of events? IF it is what happens, then surely linking out is a great easy way of SEO?

  20. I have used market samurai myself, and its true, it’s very useful, handy and very easy to use. It really helps in your SEO tasks. For those that haven’t tried it yet, you are missing a lot. Honestly, I am not someone who is paid by market samurai though, I am just saying this as what I have experienced.

  21. Hi guys

    im all cross now you have revealed my best seo secret!!!!

    I have spent quite a while now doing this and the results have been amazing. Plus its ten times easier to give someone 100 small keywords to aim for rather 1 big one and it can build your traffic a lot quicker.

    kind regards

    sam
    X

  22. Excellent post. I think it’s good to go back once in a while and look at how you can improve on your old posts. Using competitive analysis is a great way to see where you can make an impact. Any tools you use other than Market Samarui? Thanks.

  23. Opened my eyes to a few new things here.

    Also I have found out that web 2.0 properties (squidoo, hubpages, ning) help very much when your trying to market a certain keyword, especially the “low hanging fruit” per say.

    Thanks

  24. thanks man… it really useful

  25. Wow, 10000 blog posts! I wonder when I can reach the first 1000th blog post, never mind the 10,000th blog post.
    I agree that getting backlinks is very time consuming, especially via blog commenting method

  26. Great post!

    And yes, I do go back and optimize old posts by doing a lot of the things you suggested except the off-page optimization. I’m horrible at that! Must pay more attention to it.

    I rely heavily on Market Samurai to analyze the competition and show me where/how they’re achieving their rank.

  27. Market Samurai is the only tool I will ever use for keyword research, back linking, and finding content. When I first tried Market Samurai I had tested out the unfinished beta version, and even then I was so amazed at how easy it made keyword research for me. Then after it was finished all the features that were added I was blown away. Highly recommended.

  28. Great tip Darren, I like the second point.

  29. Tyler says: 02/26/2010 at 3:10 am

    Thanks for post!
    I saw you mentioned SeoDigger, so what about SEMrush? I think it really worth including the list!

  30. Hi, impressive, inspirational and useful – typical problogger stuff. And, this one reads like an infomercial for MarketSamurai, so I’ll have another look at it.
    Thanks, and wishing yo’all a gr8 day!
    Beat

  31. Excuse me for commenting twice, Darren, but motivated by your post I just took the time to check my blogs statistics.

    On one hand I was a little overwhelmed and don’t really know to improve the rankings for the keywords. This is because they only show me keywords that let my blog rank pretty high.

    On the other hand I found out that in the first one and a half month of 2010 I have already 30% of pageviews, unique and returning visitors that I had in 2009.

    As I can’t say that it’s a result of doing good SEO (I didn’t did any of this) it just can be a result of one single question I ask me recently over and over again before I write and post an article:

    ‘Is there anybody out there who has a little benefit on the information I share?’

    If I can answer this question with a Yes, I think I automatically write in a way that delivers that value to the reader. This on its side generates automatically the SEO.

    As you already suggested, and this stays the most important thing in my opinion: write for the reader, not for the search engines.

    Thank you for letting me dig deeper in this.

  32. Hi Darren,
    Great post. As a newbie to blogging your post was very helpful. Can I ask, are you using Scribe SEO (http://scribeseo.com/) as well?

    Or, would it be better to just pick one and use it?

    Adrian

  33. What a great post!

    I love this kind of stuff because SEO is “the gift that keeps on giving” — residual, organic, free, traffic.

    You’ve intrigued me with your Market Samurai recommendation — I think I’ll test it out.

    Thanks Darren,
    — Derek

  34. I never thought about optimizing a blog post, nice

  35. Thanx Darren for a great post…I have been using Traffic Travis for my optimization but I haven’t gone back thru old post…I will definitely look into this…thanx again…
    http://kenneyyoung.com

  36. Amazing article. We usually use Market Samurai in our keyword research and can confirm is the BEST tool. Traffic Travis also is good. Recommend to use both.

  37. An eye opener for everyone who didn’t optimized their best posts. For almost a week now, I analyzed my best posts in Google Analytics that get most clicks and high payout per click and optimized them using keywords that keep visitors landing on those pages. The best payout I got is $4.32 per click. A good learning experience!

  38. Darren, I’ve just seen some SEO that you missed in this post!

    Mouse-over text for your images!

    :-o

  39. Thanks for the insightful post, Darren. I’ve picked up some finer points and plan on using them in my posts. Thanks again.

  40. Market samurai seems accurate yet looks expensive. Maybe i’ll go with the free trial first. thanks for sharing.

  41. Hi Darren you have mentioned some nice things here, well this strategy I am doing for my blog. Before I try to optimze my blog homepage for all of my keywords, but I think it will not give us good output as our blog homepage just like dynamic as we going to add new content on our blog homepage, so what I do now, I have take different post from my blog and I am going to optimize all those post for different keywords. I think this is one good strategy.

  42. Had never occurred and even wanted to try to optimize a single post. Jim-dandy tips.

  43. when im trying to rank i just make sure i have alot of Social networking links, along with alot of other links from my blogs and stuff. Works out well.

    Once i start making some good money im going to buy market samuri i hear it works wonders.

  44. This is something I have never think in detail.

    I m new to blogging so I have already completed initial seo for whole blog but I have never think of individual blog post also requires to do some seo work.

    But first I think I have to get traffic to my blog and some reach content. Once my blog start rankings I need to do seo for individual post also..

    Thnx for this post.

  45. I love this post, will retweet it, very valuable info, thanks so much for putting great information out there!

    Jan Gordon
    janlgordon twitter

  46. Thanks for these great tips and links to your other SEO articles. Just starting to do these things will improve my rankings, I’m sure, and then I’ll be ready for the next step, Market Samurai. Really appreciate the advice.

  47. I find that my optimized blog posts perform at least 1.5 times as better as regular posts.

  48. I haven’t used market samurai before but will try the free trial.

  49. thank u for ur great post

  50. I am interested in Blogging,Actually iam waiting for this Kind of info On SEO

    Thank u,Keep it up

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