How to Optimize a Blog for Search Engines

Having a blog these days is easier than ever, making it simple to share your thoughts, ideas, photos, stories and much more with friends and family. However, what if you want to gain new readers to your blog, one of the best ways to do that — besides posting engaging content, of course — is organic search engine optimization, or SEO. Organic SEO helps your blog rise in the rankings in order to rank well for your specific key term, and while it takes time and hard work, the results are worth the effort.

First, you need to figure out which keywords or phrases you wish to rank for. Using a tool such as Google's AdWords Keyword

tool is a fantastic place to do keyword research, and take the time to find a good mix of competitive (i.e. keywords with a lot of results, say in the tens of millions) and non-competitive (keywords with ten million results or less) so that you can have a mix of short-term and long-term results.

Secondly, you want to integrate your keywords into your blog's title, article titles and copy whenever possible, but not too much. Search engines love to see the keywords in strategic places like title tags and article titles, but you want to use keywords sparingly in your copy, so as to avoid keyword stuffing, which can get your site banned from search engines entirely.

Thirdly, if you use a lot of images, you want to make sure your image titles and alt tags — many of which are changeable from a blog's interface — also contain keywords. Image titles should be just that, a short, concise title, while an alt tag can contain up to one short, descriptive sentence. This helps search engines fill in the blanks left by images, since they can't read the content of images.

Finally, have realistic expectations. Sadly, SEO, Services, takes a lot of time, and much of it is implementing changes and writing content, and then waiting to see if your site rises in the ranks for your keywords. This can take weeks or months, depending on the keyword and its competitiveness, so patience is involved. Part of SEO is a waiting game, much like the old saying, "hurry up and wait". If you have realistic expectations, you'll have a much better time of things.

hese tips should help you get your blog off the ground and into the higher echelons of the search engine results and ultimately get your blog new fans and supporters. If you need help optimizing your blog, contact 180Fusion, as we have trained specialists who are ready to help you and your blog achieve the success you deserve.

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