BlogWorld and New Media Expo NYC:
KMP Blog Review Series 1 of 5
In this BlogWorld panel Rich Brooks of Flyte.biz talks about ways we can dominate Google and Bing with our blogs and using SEO. Follow Rich on Twitter @therichbrooks
Rich talked about 3 things you need to be a successful blogger:
1) Platform – WordPress (you hear it all the time, but just because Blogger is owned by Google it doesn’t mean it’s better for you. Make that switch).
2) Own your domain name – be the master of your domain. You should be blogging for yourself, not for myself.blogspot.com or myself.Wordpress.com.
3) Commitment – Blog often.
Rich also talked about some SEO basics:
• On page – linking to other posts in your website.
• Off page – linking to other blogs in your niche.
Something to remember: Every time you blog you create a new webpage.
5 perspective when brainstorming for a blog idea/post:
1) product and services.
2) problems or needs – does your post solve a problem or help someone that needs something.
3) real or perceived benefits.
4) features – a feature search means they are very closed to buying that product.
5) competition
The following tools can help you when searching for keywords to use for your post:
– Raventools.com – Raven SEO
– Keyworddiscovery.com
– Bit.ly/betterkeywords
• Your goal when searching for keywords is to search for words with a high search volume.
• Another excellent tool to use when brainstorming for ideas is the Google Insights tool.
On page optimization was another important point Rich talked about:
– title tab
– header
– body content
– link to other posts or pages.
– yaarp (yet another related post)
These five bullet points can help improve your on page optimization.
You can input keywords almost everywhere, below are a few places to place them:
– meta description
– alt-tags (images)
– categories
– tags
– domain names (please note: don’t change your domain name just to make it more SEO friendly, this should be done before you purchase your domain, make sure to think about the name you want for your URL)
Other places to put keywords includes:
– Better blog titles
Maximize your results by:
– leading with your best keywords (3 keywords max)
– Don’t be afraid to use the colon: the colon is ur friend. (i.e.: Jalapeño Recipes: How to cook with hot pepper)
– Titles must still read well, do not make a title with only keywords and makes no sense.
Better blog content tips:
– use keywords at the beginning, and sprinkle throughout the post.
– use keywords to emphasize
– use in headers, subheaders, alt-tags, tags
– Make sure to link appropriately – link to a page on your website as long as is relatable.
If you reach a point where you no longer know what to write about, or as some of us call it: Blogger’s Block.
There’s a tool called Wordtracker/ Keyword questions.
It allows you to search for a keyword and it’ll give you questions people searched for, use those questions to create a blog post and also use the questions as a blog titles.
Some SEO WordPress Plugins discussed were:
– All in one SEO – when using this tool try to fill in as much information as possible about your blog post, also make sure to check off “no index for categories” and “no index for archives”. An example for the meta description could be: “if you’re looking for a weekend getaway in NYC we give you the top ten”. The description depends on your blog post.
– For meta keywords and tags you can use the same keywords for both.
Another useful WordPress plugin is the Scribe SEO plugin – it’s like an SEO checker, when you click the analyze button, it shows you how SEO friendly your post is.
Got Links?
– links are votes of confidence
– not all links are created equal
– the linking site plays a major role, try to link to major websites
– number of links – link juice.
– context – burrito blog, more valuable to get a link from a taco blog than a bicycle blog
How to get inbound links?
– create valuable content
Create Link Bait
– numbered lists
– how to articles
– embedded videos
– best industry blogs – best of the best. i.e.: best small business blogs out there. And link to them.
– You can get inbound links from directories such as Technorati & Alltop
– Comments Create Links – Contribute to comments on a regular basis.
– Guest blogging
Last but not least:
– Make sure your blog is shareable. Have RT button, Facebook like, Stumble, etc…
– Manage your own links – blog about your product/services.
