A step by step approach to SEO Proof your Blog-Part 1

This is a Guest post by Mani from DailySEOBlog, where he gives search engine optimization tips for Blogger and WordPress.  Don’t forget to visit his blog for more news and Subscribe to his blog for regular updates.

When Nirmal asked me to write an article for him, I asked myself what coud be the best offering to his readers I can make? Nirmal has a bunch of loyal readers who are from all over the world (I made hat out from the flag thing near the comments.) and are basically bloggers. So I thought, a blogging tip would suffice. But on second thoughts, I thought, hey is that really value for money? (No he is not paying me still 🙂 ) Let me write something that neither me nor he have written earlier. Exclusive and original.

So here I am with an SEO checklist. No this is not the normal SEO checklist that you can get easily on googling, this is the practical one. Just like how I explain SEO on Daily SEO blog, this one is a step by step, “You do this – You get that” kind of SEO checklist in layman’s language (Second language during my degree days 🙂 ).

So I’m assuming that you have a non-seo blog now/ or is planning to start a blog, let’s start off.

• Before picking a domain
  – Pick a domain which includes the keyword you are targeting.
  Ex: If you are targeting the keyword “hindi blog”, then pick a URL where these words nicely incorporate.
  like http://hindi-blog4u.blogspot.com OR www.hindiblog4u.com
  If the keyword combination is not available, try putting in hyphens or numbers in between. After setting up the domain and the URL,
• Meta tags
  If you are on blogspot, go to the template, and search for meta tags, add the following.
  – Meta Title – Give a neat and attractive title text here. This would be the title for your blog. Instead of giving catchy titles like “Welcome to my site”, give a SEO friendly one, with your keyword in it like “Welcome to the hindi blog”.
  – Meta Description – Give a neat and attractive description here. This is the text that would appear right beneath your URL in a google search. So this is what attracts someone to click on your site, so make it descriptive and attractive. Keep it within 160 characters.
  Ex:- This blog is about short stories and peoms in hindi.
  – Meta keywords – This is the rather easier part. This of as many keywords as possible and include it here.
  Ex:- Like hindi blog, hindi poems, hindi short stories and the like.
• Footer Text
  As the third step, go to your template file and change the footer text if at all you have any.
  Footer text carries much importance. Edit the footer text by adding rich information including your keywords. Normally footer text contains template designers info and copyright info. You can very well keep this, but add more info on your blog. Ex:- The hindi blog – Keeping you entertained with hindi poems and short stories.
• Images
  Find all the images in your template. This means even the smallest bullet images. Find them and add the TITLE and ALT attributes to it. Make sure that all the attributes carry your keyword. Please do not spam it by repeating the keyword, but write meaningful sentences containing the keyword.
• Site links /Navigation structure
  Now, check if your template has all the links to your pages on the left or top area of your template. Make sure that these links appear in either of these areas so that crawlers find it easier to spot them. Keeping them to he right menu may not be a good idea though some templates can carry it off. The basic idea is that crawlers must be able to find the links as easily as possible. And yes, please do not go for navigation links with javascript and flash in it.
• Now, go for content.
  When you write content, make sure that a minimum keyword density of 5% is maintained in your posts. Let this not be deliberate but if you can make it – great!
  When you write content, make sure you link to resources which are similar to your topic.This will give you more weight regarding the topic.
• Anchor text – Make sure that the anchor text that you use to link to other websites are related to your keyword. Ex:- Here using the keyword “hindi”, like hindi language, hindi ghazals etc

Continued in Part two.