SEO

Today is our last day of SEO for Everyone, but don’t worry, you are now armed with tons of resources, information, tips, and techniques to help you get started and then continue your learning. I thought I’d end this section of the challenge by giving you a checklist of things you need to do, learn, alter or otherwise apply as a beginner when you start optimizing your site. There are more comprehensive lists out there that will give you a full run-down from start to finish. However, I find that many of the lists out there are meant for people who are more familiar with Search Engine Optimization and have more experience working on optimizing a blog or website.

10 Things Every Beginner Should Do to Optimize Checklist

1. Install Analytics on your site so you can track traffic.
2. Use Google’s Keyword Tool.
3. Tag all your images on pages and posts so they align with the SEO keyword.
4. Use short URLs (no more than 60 characters) for posts and pages.
5. Claim your site or brand name on other platforms and social networks.
6. Pages and posts should contain at least 350 words.
7. Provide a site map.
8. Whenever possible, use text over images but remember your images are important too!
9. Don’t stuff your post or pages with keywords, search engines will see it as spammy.
10. Always publish superb content that people will find useful or helpful.

That concludes SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you next time!

Martiel

Yesterday I gave you 10 resources to continue your learning as a beginner in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). As you progress in your learning it’s my only hope that you’ll want to read more about SEO and thus improve your skills in this area. Today I’ve listed 10 resources for intermediate-advanced SEO.

10 Resources for Intermediate to Advanced Learning

1. The Advanced Guide to SEO
2. 10 Advanced SEO Tactics for Bloggers
3. SEO: Advanced Techniques
4. The Ten Year SEO Plan
5. 55+ SEO Resources
6. Advanced WordPress Optimization
7. Advanced Title Optimization
8. Advanced SEO Tutorial
9. Advanced Techniques to Help Your Site
10. Easy SEO

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 10 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel

I know how many of you are struggling with understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Hopefully by now it’s less so if you’ve been keeping up for the last seven days. As a teacher of SEO I understand how as a student of online learning it can be very frustrating to simply get started. My experience has taught me that you can’t learn SEO overnight but you can make a big difference in your ranking and search results almost instantly if you follow some basic advice found in beginner content. As a big promoter of sharing the wealth, I’ve collected a list of some well-known SEO writers and content producers below; today I will be sharing with you 10 or those website, programs and/or resources that you can utilize to continue your SEO learning.

10 SEO Resources for Beginners

1. The Free Beginners Guide from Moz
2. A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners (KISSmetrics)
3. Buffer’s Complete Guide to SEO for Beginners
4. Google: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
5. SEO for Idiots
6. SEO 101 Resources
7. SEO for Dummies (UK)
8. SEO Tips for Beginners
9. EBuzzNet: Basic SEO
10. WordPress for SEO Beginners

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 9 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel

Let’s talk Meta!

Okay seriously, Meta tags, descriptions, and such are buzzing around the web, but how important are they to your SEO? Today I’m going to share a little bit about tags and descriptions and how they differ. I am also going to give you some information on how to write descriptions (after-all, these are what you’re going to want to pay most attention to).

What is a Meta Keyword Tag? This is used to show what keywords that page is targeting. This tag is not visible to the users but to the search engines who read the code for that page. This tag is just a guide for the search engines (it does not appear anywhere but the source code for each page).

What is a Meta Description? A meta description is an HTML and XHTML element that describes your page to search engines. While the perceived (and real) importance of meta data has depreciated, the attribute still plays a significant role in SEO rankings.

Time to decode!

After reading those definitions above, you are probably starting to realize now that Meta Keyword Tags are just not that important. In fact, if you have drawn this conclusion, you’re right. They were at one time important, but no longer serve any purpose or function with SEO. So, for our purposes here, you can disregard them.

Let’s turn our attention to Meta Descriptions. I’d like to share with you 10 tips and bits to help you make the most of them.

10 Tips and Bits about Meta Descriptions

1. Whatever you do, remember to use them, they are helpful.
2. Never exceed 160 characters in length.
3. Bold your keywords and use these in your meta description – it will increase our click through rate.
4. If you don’t insert a meta description, don’t despair, search engines will create a short snippet from elements in your page. (Not the best way to go, but if you don’t get to update all your pages, not a total loss either).
5. The purpose of your meta description is to draw your readers in, so make sure you use your words wisely. Don’t insert useless extra words that you don’t need.
6. Be unique with your content. This will give you the opportunity to offer unique search options for readers.
7. Speaking of unique… every page and post on your site should have unique keywords and descriptions, don’t reuse unless it is applicable to the content on the page or post.
8. Use keyword tools to find out what people are looking for based on your topics. Once you find keywords, write a post around them and use them throughout, including your meta description.
9. Check out this Keyword and Meta Description Presentation on Slide Share
10. If you have to make a choice to focus on keywords and posting great content over a meta description my advice, hands down, focus on your content and keywords. Forget the meta description because it’s not as important to SEO.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 8 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel

As we continue our learning of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) today I’m going to delve a little more specifically today into Pages and Titles. These aspects of SEO fundamentals will help you overall and in the long run to rank well. If you are interested in other Tagging, I’ll be discussing Meta Tags and Descriptions tomorrow.

For today, I’m going to share with you 10 things you can do to rank better when creating pages or adding titles. Let’s get started!

10 Ways to Increase Your SEO with Pages and Titles

1. When writing I can’t stress enough how important it is to maintain relevancy throughout your post or page. Do not get off topic, stay on  it.
2. When you talk about your topic give people your take on it and explain it how only you can explain it. Coping other people or paraphrasing is good, if you need an example, but the vast majority of the content should be yours and yours alone.
3. Whenever you have the opportunity, make sure you place your page under a relevant category on your blog or site. It will help people find it easier.
4. Keep your URLs short, no more than 60 characters in length – which means, keep your titles short too!
5. Going back to content again… yes I know, I keep beating on this… but you have to have good, quality, well written content. If it isn’t good, if it isn’t relevant to your site and what you do, if it isn’t contributing to what you have to say on a regular basis, move on.
6. Images, let’s talk about these for a moment. Unless they link to something else, do not include a URL and always make sure they have an SEO friendly name.
7. On pages, it’s important to link back to your home page. Backlinks within a site are helpful and build credibility for your page.
8. Include social share buttons. Pages with higher interactions and shares rank higher.
9. Okay, I’m back to content again… but no soapbox this time. When writing a page, keep it relatively short between 400-600 words. More people are likely to read it and more people will likely share something they finish.
10. Use H1 Tags whoever starting a new section.

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 7 of SEO for Everyone. I’d like to Thank Thaleia Maher of Something 2 Offer for hosting this challenge as well as the other challenge hostesses who are helping to make this event possible. If you are interested in learning more about blogging, boosting your SEO or simply just want to say hi, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

See you tomorrow,

Martiel