2:13 AM
Anonymous
1. You need your own domain and hosting
The first thing that beginners need to know is that you need your own domain and hosting. Those blogspot and wordpress ones just don’t do well on Google’s rankings.
Why is that?
Well many people speculate that if you were really serious about your website you would get your own name and host it yourself. And Google only wants to point to websites that are considered serious and trustworthy.
- The best host
The best host for new bloggers is Blue Host. They have super cheap rates and amazing 24/7 support. Oh, and you can install your blog with one click. - The best domain name registrar
I have used Namecheap.com for a number of years because they are cheap and the support is always fantastic. I also find their interface really easy to navigate unlike some of the more common ones. - How to do it all
Check out my post on building a blog and then selling it as it shows you some general steps for getting started.
2. Solve problems with original content
You have to remember that Google’s whole purpose is to provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Everything they do is built around the premise.
And, to be realistic, the most important thing you can do for your SEO is create massively useful content that solves people’s problems. If you are solving problems that people are searching for then it is likely that you are going to get shared on social media and ranked in Google.
The phrase “original content” means so much more than just blog posts nowadays. You should start expanding into:
- Photography
Get on Flickr or Photobucket and use original images on your blog. - Videos
Make tutorials or do video posts with your webcam. This builds links and traffic from Youtube and does well on mobile devices. - Podcasts
iTunes is growing fast as people get better smart phones and spend more time plugged in. - Tools and plugins
If you can develop an original tool and install it on your website you can be assured of top Google rankings for a long time. Google absolutely loves tools and helpful plugins that people can use in their lives.
3. Build relevant backlinks in a natural way
If you are just getting started with SEO you might know a little about backlinks. A backlink is when another website links back to your site from their site.
Not all backlinks are created equal though. Some things to know:
- Never buy them
I once heard about a guy who was the head SEO guy for an investment company. He bought some cheap backlinks on a domain name with millions of dollars and got the thing banned from Google. Never buy backlinks. Google is on to them. - The source matters
The blog that is giving you the backlinks makes a huge difference. If it is an old domain name with excellent rankings itself then the backlink counts for more. One good link from an authority domain name (.edu and .gov ones are amazing) and your rankings change more than hundreds of little ones. - The anchor text matters
The anchor text is the words that are used as the link. For example, just then I used “anchor text” as the anchor text. You want this to be relevant to your targeted keywords.
Remember, backlinks to your OWN content is also really important. See how many links I have to my own articles in this blog post? Those count too!
4. Make sure your theme is SEO optimized
This is the topic of a whole series of posts so I’ll keep it brief.
Think of SEO as having two components: the off-site stuff like social media and backlinks and the on-site stuff like optimizing your theme.
Optimizing your theme is important because it helps give Google indicators that you are a trustworthy site. It also helps Google find your content. Some of the things you can do include:
- Cleanly coded
Make sure your theme is coded with the latest and greatest techniques so that it is easy to get around. - Fast loading
A fast loading site is good for user experience and thus good for Google. Make sure your theme is pulling its weight and loading quickly. You can check out its speed here. You can use cache plugins to help speed things up. - Original
Some people disagree but I still reckon that my original themes do better than themes that thousands of other people are using. A newly developed and original site also comes with dozens of other benefits. - No broken bits
Make sure you clean up any broken links and make sure your navigation all works smoothly.
Having a well designed theme is also important for your brand. Separating yourself from the competition is a very important thing to do.
5. Fix your permalink structure
Permalinks are how people locate your blog and its internal posts and pages. They are made up of a root and an extension.
For example, on this post we have:
ROOT: blogtyrant.com/
EXTENSION: beginnger-blogging-seo/
Now, it is very important to have a good permalink structure. You can change this in WordPress by going SETTINGS > PERMALINKS and tweaking the options. The best option to have in there, in my opinion, is just the post name. So you should select CUSTOM STRUCTURE and then add /%postname%/
However, even better than that is to research what keywords you are trying to rank for and then shorten your URL to match those keywords. Take a look at this post and have a guess what key words I was trying to rank for.
Be warned! You don’t want to change the old permalinks because then any backlinks you have will be broken. Just new ones.
6. Install a sitemap
One of the easiest things you can do is install a Google Sitemap plugin that gives a full map of all your posts, pages and archives. The most common one that people use is this one and it seems to work quite well.
This automatically generates the sitemap for you at regular intervals and then submits it to Google, Bing, etc. on your behalf. Its literally giving them a map of your site so they can index it better.
7. Comment on other blogs
For a long time my SEO strategy consisted of just commenting on other authority blogs. Not only does it get you more traffic, exposure and new relationships, it also counts as a backlink.
Now, some blogs you can leave target anchor text because they aren’t real worried about user names. But on most blogs you need to use your real name. That’s fine.
Try and use Market Samurai to see where your competitors are getting their backlinks from. You might just find a bunch of them come from comments on well ranked blog posts.
8. Build your social media profiles big time
As I mentioned in my post on SEO secrets you want to now have a big focus on social media for SEO purposes as well as traffic building purposes.
Why?
Well because Google is now looking to social media as a signal of an article’s authority and relevance.
If thousands of people are tweeting about it then chances are you have written something pretty good. And the best way to get tweets is to build a loyal following and write killer content that they just love to promote for you.
Some things you need to start doing:
- Tweeting big players
Get to know the big players in your niche by casually building a rapport with them on Twitter. Down the track you can hit them up for re-tweets. - Add separate value
Tweet and Facebook information and facts that don’t appear on your blog. Think of it as a separate resource for people to tap in to. - Share others
The more content you share from other bloggers the more likely they are to share your stuff. Give and then get later.
9. Use SEO plugins
There are lots of WordPress plugins out there that you can install to get some help with your SEO. One of the best ones to start with is the All in One SEO Pack which does so many of the nasty little things for you.
There are a lot of other good SEO plugins out there so I thought I would open this one up to the audience and see what everyone else is using. Please leave a comment and let me know.
10. Read, study and use SEOmoz
As far as I am concerned the absolute best resource for SEO related material in the world is over at SEOmoz.
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