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Let me tell you something. I didn’t start taking SEO seriously for years. It was only about 4/5 years into my blogging career that I realised heck, maybe I should learn about this stuff. I’m not a very technical person and things like SEO scare me. So for that reason, I was reluctant to delve into it because quite honestly, I was worried I’d get overwhelmed. So for anyone who feels like that, here is a beginners guide to SEO for bloggers.
Photo by Daniel Fazio on Unsplash
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it means the practices you put in place on your blog to increase organic views and visibility on search engines. The better your SEO practices, the higher your blog posts will rank on Google and research shows that blog posts featured on the first page of Google get a whopping 95% of clicks.
With hundreds of thousands of bloggers out there, all trying to achieve something similar, Google are inundated with links and the further up the order the link, logically, the more likely it is to get viewed. There are plenty of posts to help with SEO – this SEO guide can help – but here’s a beginners guide to SEO for bloggers.
Beginners Guide To SEO for Bloggers:
Link back to other content you’ve written
This is a super easy and effective way to help with SEO, simply linking back to your older content, where relevant. It boosts your SEO, boosts your DA score (more on that next) and helps you generate an authority on certain subjects where you can interlink your content together.
Top tip: Don’t interlink using the anchor text “here” or “this post”. Always use keywords or full titles to link your blog posts with. Google and search engines can’t recognize “here” or “this post” as keywords.
Related: Why You Should Be Internally Linking Within Your Blog Posts
Work on your DA score
DA stands for Domain Authority and your DA score means how highly your site is ranked on search engines. It’s common knowledge that brands want to work with bloggers with a higher DA so it’s worth doing some things in order to help yours out. Linking back to old content, as stated above, is one way. You can also up the amount you’re commenting on other blogs, sort out all your broken links and starting your posts with writing, not an image.
Related: DA Score – What Is It? Why Is It Useful? And How Do We Improve It?
Make your post shareable for others
Not only will other people sharing your posts gain you extra views, it also shows Google that your post is relevant. No offence but a lot of us are lazy and we want things as easy as possible, so having clear shareable buttons on your posts will help make it super swift for others to share your work!
Use headings where possible
A bit like I’m doing in this post, using headings makes your posts more digestible and reader friendly. Better formatted and more useful in the eyes of Google. Big chunks of next put people off reading – me included – and also makes your blog content LESS accessible to those with a mental disability that might make digesting text harder for them.
Tip: Make sure you research how to correctly use H-tags. H2 tags should be used as heading titles and H3 tags should be used to break up H2 tags. You shouldn’t be using H1 tags throughout your post.
Related: How To Write an Amazing Blog Post
Write a minimum of 300 words
Google likes posts which are on the longer side, they figure that they’re more useful and professional so blog posts certainly should be more than 300 words long. I mean, we bloggers have got a lot to say, so chances are they will be but if you’re looking to improve your SEO then try and refrain from whacking out a ton of posts which are all short. Quality over quantity. Long form content prevails in this case.
Utilize keyword research
Keyword research is SO important for SEO. So, so, so important. And it can be an absolute game changer for boosting your blog traffic. But it’s not about picking a keyword out of thin air that you think fits your blog. Keywords need to be 2 things:
- Highly searched for
- With low competition
And this balance is really hard to find, unless you have the tools and knowledge of how to do it. The Yoast plug-in is a great place to start with SEO and keywords as it tells you where your keywords should be and if you’re using your keywords too much. But I’d highly recommend grabbing this ebook:
Nele from The Naviagtio is a MASTER at SEO and keyword research. This eBook is perfect for beginners and a great resources to supplement this beginners guide to SEO for bloggers. She teaches you exactly how to search for keywords that work for YOU in a beginner friendly manner. You can grab her Keyword Research eBook here! And if you’re ready to delve deeper into SEO for bloggers, grab her SEO for Bloggers eBook here!
I hope you found this beginners guide to SEO for bloggers helpful. Let me know if you have any of your own tips!
[…] can check out this post which I wrote a while ago, about SEO for Beginners or if you’d rather a little more in depth look then try this FREE SEO for beginners course by […]
[…] A Beginners Guide to SEO for Bloggers Related: Blog DA Score: What Is It, Why Is It Useful & How Can You Improve […]
This was so helpful xx
Literally going through all your tips right now! So helpful!
Glad you think so!
Thank you for this! Most posts aimed at beginners really don’t fully break it down. I appreciate the simplicity of this and the fact I can actually understand what SEO and DA are now. Haha!
I’m so glad! I have a new post up all about DA too!
Amazing post Jenny! Thank you for all the helpful tips
You’re welcome! 😘
These are some great tips. I’m currently working on improving my seo and da ranking so fingers crossed. Question how does page authority come into play? My PA is way higher than my DA.
I’m not too sure about that one! I’ll have to look into it. But I don’t see much in the way of PA so I think it’s your DA that you really need to look at 😌
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[…] 2. A Beginners Guide to SEO for Bloggers […]
Ahh thank you for this! Need to seriously improve my SEO on my site to help traffic so will use some of these tips.
[…] via A beginners guide to SEO for bloggers — […]
Now that I’ve got a new domain I’m back at the bottom of the pile and trying to work my way up, so thank you for this reminder! New bloggers will find this so useful. Also, I’ve recently learned that broken links are a bloody ballache :)(:
Soph xx
– http://www.sophie-elise.co.uk
Haha they sure are! 😂😂
I didn’t know you could shorten the URL – this is helpful! Thanks for sharing all this wonderful information.
[…] A beginners guide to SEO for bloggers […]
Thanks for the tips Jenny. I’ll likely be trying to shorten all of my URLs more and more as I get into the longer posts myself. I also can vouch for the whole “link back to old posts” method – when relevant of course.
Every little bit helps!
It sure does 🙂
Great post, enjoyed it!
Thank you 😌
As a beginner i like this post
I’m glad 🙂
Good info in this post.
Thanks a lot!
•Bree
letsbebreef.com/blog
I’ve taken down my links to my older blogs because I feel like it was all a hot mess. I know a little something about blogging but even just reading this post as if i had never written before is so helpful and encouraging, whilst creating my new site I’ll be sure to follow your tips! Thanks jennyinneverland !
Thank you for this! I’m always wondering how to improve my SEO. I do have a question about DA. How do you find out your rating?
Search for Moz DA Checker on Google 🙂
Thanks!
You are not only a cute girl but also have a good head on your shoulders…LOL. Again a wonderful post!