This will be the continuation of the “Blog Essentials: SEO Tips- Part One”. I already have discussed in part one how important is SEO in your blog. I am trying to layout a foundation of basic SEO guidelines that will help to make your blog much more search engine friendly. So let’s continue from where we left in part one.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization Guidelines)

6. Increase in-bound link (The links that point towards your blog, from other sites) as much as you can. There are many blog listing sites/directories where you can link your blog, but choose mostly the one doesn’t require reciprocal link (A link of their site in your blog in exchange for listing). When you are commenting someone else blog put your blog location at the end, the best methods to circulate your link. There are some free blog review sites, where you can apply for reviewing your blog (must be at least 3-6 months old and properly constructed). You should know by now the more in-bound link you have pointed towards your blog, the better SEO you get. But don’t get carried away, keep it simple.
7. This one is very much important, if you wish to get into search pages. After you write a blog choose few keywords (not more than five) from your content which you think mostly searched, you can get a list in Google keywords tools(sorted by month/week/year). Try to follow this- increase number of times those keywords occurrence. At least one time the keyword appeared in bold, in a link(outbound), in title/ sub-title, in quote(if there is any), in tag cloud (if you are using any). Surprisingly these SEO techniques were followed by lots of blog tips sites, but very few bloggers try to adopt it. But no need to destroy your content by overdoing it, keep keyword density bellow 15%, that’s should do the tricks.
8. Link swapping, is a better techniques to boost up SEO. But several things you need to keep in mind, better to swap link with non-commercial blog sites rather than with a directories. Try to swap your link to other similar type of bloggers. Remember bad neighborhoods will make your blog marked bad, so before adding someone’s blog try to do some research if they were ever been listed for splog.
9. List your blog(s) in pinging services. Which allow your subscribers know, if any new contents or updated contents added to your blog(s). Which allow search engine robots to crawl your blog every time the ping gets changes in your blog(s).
10. If you are using your own domain to host your blog, this tip is for you. Before picking up a domain name first do a research if that domain was used by someone else previously, if used than if it was blacklisted. You can find a lot of organization you provide these services for free. Since if the domain(s) you will going to use, have been blacklisted before, it will take a lot of time to get out of that mess hole. Better if the domain name is related to the subject matter you will use in your blog, which you can use as a keyword. Not necessarily but try to enlist your domain for longer time, because usually spam sites use shorter duration of domain(s). Google ranks higher the longer registered domain(s).

These are the basic for starting with SEO in your blog. There are many other factors which can not be controlled by bloggers-such as inbound link(s), popularity, ranking position etc. A blogger can always follow these simple steps to get indexed higher, but popularity of your blog always depends on your quality of contents. Getting traffic is one thing, and keeping it is totally different. Do not throw away your contents quality/ originality to boost your SEO, that won’t do any good.