If you are an avid blogger with dreams of dominating the blog sphere in 2012, while making a list of resolutions to better your health, happiness and prosperity…why not also resolve to improve the SEO for your blog?
One of the most important keys in achieving such a resolution is to gain a firm grasp on your blog’s SEO. There are many great blogs across the web but due to common SEO missteps by their owners, these blogs aren’t able to live up to their greatness. To ensure that your blog doesn’t suffer the same fate and to make 2012 your best blogging year yet, check out the following SEO mistakes to dodge throughout a brand new 365 days:
Mistake #1: Misusing keywords. Because keywords are crucial ingredients of a successful SEO plan,if you’re using them incorrectly you could be setting your blog up for failure. Keep the tips below in mind when taking advantage of keywords:
- Select competitive keywords. Often bloggers will avoid tough competition for rankings for popular keywords, instead targeting ones that are less competitive and aren’t searched at all—don’t do this. Be sure to research what keywords people are actually typing into their search engines and stick to those.
- Include keywords in titles.Not only is it important to craft a post title that encourages visitors to read further, but because the search engines give high importance to the words in the titles of your posts, always use your keywords in your titles to satisfy the search engines as well.
- Use keywords throughout body. Use keywords several times throughout the body of your post (and definitely once in the first paragraph) while making sure that you are building your entire post around your target phrase.
Mistake #2: Writing short posts. Like most people in today’s hectic world, you probably lead a busy life and don’t have a wide open schedule with time to dedicate only to your blog. However, if you are skimping on length and writing posts that are less than 500 words, you aren’t setting yourself on track for SEO success. Aiming for above 500 words is a good rule of thumb and will help you increase the amount of keywords throughout your post. But don’t just focus throwing together a bunch of words merely for a high word count—meaningful content is essential to maintaining and gaining followers. Always make it a priority to write posts filled with valuable, accurate and current information that your audience will be able to apply to their own lives.
Mistake #3: Posting inconsistently. If you expect people to follow your blog on a regular basis, don’t expect to have any followers if you aren’t posting on a regular basis. If your readers are visiting your blog and are disappointed that the last time you posted was two months prior, the chance is likely that they won’t be returning. People want consistency—make a commitment to your blog as well as to your readers and try your best to post every day or every other day.
Mistake #4: Being anti-social. With the popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter taking the world by storm and changing the way we share and communicate, there is no reason not to be actively taking advantage of social media in the SEO plan for your blog. Use social networking to connect with your readers and inform them about new posts by including on your blog buttons for RSS feeds and links to your social media pages. Great content should be spread and social media allows you to spread the word to your friends, and for your friends to spread it to theirs.