Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is something that I only vaguely understand. So when Andrew, an SEO expert, offered to write a guest post on the topic, I was pumped!
If you want to make sure that people searching the internet find your blog post, then read on. Andrew is going to show you exactly how to improve your SEO with just a few simple and quick tweaks.
An Overview of SEO
SEO: What the heck does that even mean? Okay, if you are a blogger, you probably know what that means.
It’s the dreaded three letter acronym that you know you should be paying more attention to.
Honestly, when I first started blogging I was perplexed by the amount of new stuff I had to learn.
Mostly Pinterest. SEO I find okay, Pinterest to this day befuddles my mind even on the best of days. Note from Emily: I got you, Andy, here’s my Pinterest tutorial.
That being said, the reason I find SEO to be simple, is because I do it for a living.
And I want to convince YOU (mostly because I am a total SEO geek) that SEO is important and should be implemented on you blog.
Now, SEO is confusing. It actually really is. There’s rarely a case that I stumble upon when optimizing my clients’ websites that is an exact replica of another site.
That being said, those are competitive, highly lucrative terms. We’re not going to target those. Yet…
I like the saying “learning to walk before you run” when it comes to SEO. There are some specific areas on each blog post that have the highest “SEO real estate” that we can use to our advantage.
Once you learn these, it’s a repeatable task and a very, very good starting point.
Now, please realize that I lied earlier when I said I would avoid technical aspects of SEO. We need to touch on two, but they’re not scary.
They are:
Onpage SEO and Offpage SEO
Onpage SEO is all the tweaks you can do ON your website to help your rankings in the search engines.
Examples: Using a keyword in a URL, Title, H1, etc. This isn’t keyword stuffing. (Keyword stuffing is bad.)
Offpage SEO is all the tweaks you can do OFF your website to help support your rankings in the search engines.
Examples: Getting other websites to link to your website, getting your website shared on social media, etc.
However, the most important and highest leverageable skill in SEO, in my opinion, is learning how to make your website hyper relevant for what you want to rank it for.
Let’s talk about this in terms of a car.
Let’s pretend onpage SEO is a car, and offpage SEO is the fuel.
Having good onpage SEO is like having a super smooth running car. It works well, and is ready to go.
Offpage SEO (think: links) is like the fuel.
You can put the best fuel in a car that doesn’t start – you’re not getting anywhere.
You can put the lowest grade fuel in a working car and go very far.
This is why it is so important – do good onpage SEO and you’ll be able to rank faster and easier down the road once you start getting links to your website.
How to improve your onpage SEO
Your post’s title tag, your H1 tag and URL are the three most important aspects of your on-page SEO.
The H1 tag is your main “header” can be added to a post inside the edit post view.
Your title tag of each page can be changed on the same page at the top of the page.
Lastly, we have the URL which can be edited from your “all posts” page. Click all posts on the WordPress sidebar and then hover your mouse just under the blog title you want to edit the URL of, and then click “quick edit” when it appears.
After clicking “quick edit” you’ll see the following page. Simply plug in your desired phrase into the area labeled “slug.”
The Secret to Good SEO: Be Consistent
Of course, we also want to ensure that the text in the post is consistent with the keywords we’re optimizing for in these areas. Don’t make the title tag about bananas but then talk about apples throughout the entire article and expect to rank for bananas.
You don’t want to over do it, but I’ve had good success in using my main keyword as the URL and the title tag and then using the H1 tag as something similar.
Eg. If you’re trying to rank for “are bananas healthy”
URL: Yourdomain.com/are-bananas-healthy
Title: The Great Banana Debate | Your Brand Name Here
H1: Really… Are Bananas Healthy?
If this was a blog post, that contained hyper-relevant information to the health benefits of bananas, this would be a nicely optimized page for that keyword. It would also rank for a lot of related keywords, due to the obvious connections that Google can assume because it is so focused on one topic.
The best thing you can do for seo
Basically, stay on topic! Easy.
If I’ve convinced you that SEO is important, then take the next step and read my keyword and onpage SEO guide for bloggers here. Good luck on your journey and stay consistent and you’ll see results!
About Andrew
Andrew is the SEO specialist behind many successful local and national SEO campaigns from blogs to local businesses. Through his experience, he has come to appreciate people willing to learn and enjoys sharing information with others on how to get optimal results from their own blog’s performance in the search engines. You can find all of Andrew’s tips on his site: Andy Tells All.
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