Some people think that SEO is something that can just be ‘done later’ but SEO goes into the way your blog is setup and into everything that you write so it’s a good idea to get an idea about it right at the very beginning so that you don’t have to go back and correct mistakes later on which can be very difficult if not impossible in some cases.

Does SEO Even Matter?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Search engines are an excellent source of completely free traffic that continues to pour in for years to come but it usually takes a long time for a brand new site to begin getting traction in the search engines which is another reason why it makes sense to consider it from day 1.

SEO is all about ranking content in the search engines so of course you need content and this is why blogs can do so well with SEO because they are full of content! However SEO is about keywords and its quite easy to write a blog post that doesn’t rank for any useful keywords and the traffic potential is never reached.

Getting On-Page SEO Correct

The first step in optimising your posts is knowing what keyword phrase you want to target. It is possible to target more than one but much more difficult. Now one thing that I would emphasise here is that as a blogger, particularly if you are starting out, if you have no idea about what keywords you want to target then just don’t worry about it as its best to concentrate on writing good content than thinking about search engines.

But if you’re writing a blog about digital camera’s for example and writing a post about a particular model then it makes sense to optimise that post to the model of the camera as that is something that would be searched on in Google. There are several places where you need to insert your keyword:

1) The title - as near to the beginning as you can. This is the most important keyword placement.

2) The post content - mention your keyword (and variations on it) throughout the post itself. Don’t go overboard though - keep it natural.

3) Tags - Most blogging software such as WordPress allow you to add tags to your posts. Make sure your keyword is one of them.

4) The URL - it is preferable for your keywords to be embedded in the actual URL rather than having something like www.myblog.com/?p=123

What If You Have An Established Blog?

If you already have a blog and this is the first time you have thought about SEO there are some things that you can do to tweak things. One thing that you should NOT do is change your post URL’s because Google will still be indexing the old ones and if you change them you will have broken links.

One thing that you can change quite safely is the text within your post though. You can tweak titles, body copy and add tags to make it more keyword friendly. For example one tweak you might want to make it putting your keywords earlier in the title. For example if you wanted to rank for “make money blogging”, which of these two titles is best? :

- 10 Great Ways to Make Money Blogging Today! - Make Money Blogging - 10 Killer Ideas!

The second title would be preferable because the keyword is the very first part of the title. You will also want to make sure your keyword appears liberally sprinkled throughout the body text.

Once you make changes it can take a while for Google to pick it up and act on it so don’t expect results overnight!


About the Author:
Caroline Middlebrook has been blogging in the Internet marketing niche since 2007 and her popular blog generates a 4-figure income every month. She teaches you how to make money blogging and offers downloads of her free guides & courses from her website.