9 Search Optimization Tips with Benefits for Your Visitors
This is a guest post from Kristi Hines . It is part of The “Bad Ass” SEO Guest Blogging Contest.
There are many SEO tips that are not only good for search engines but they are very helpful for people looking for and perusing through your website. Here are nine SEO tips you can do to help search engines and visitors love your site.
1. Keywords and Research
If you choose the right keywords for your homepage and your internal pages, blog posts, etc., you will be helping visitors find what they are searching for easier. The best way to do this is to think of a keyword that fits your page, then a 2 – 3 word phrase that fits including that keyword. It’s really as simple as that.
Keyword Resources
- Google Adwords Keywords Tool
- Google Insights (plus ideas on how to use Insights)
- Microsoft Advertising Intelligence plugin for Excel (plus how to use it)
- Popular Searches
- Anchor text
2. Titles
The title tag is important because it is the heading for search engine listings and it is usually the anchor text when people bookmark your homepage, blog post, or single page on your website. The easiest way to create a title for your page is to include the keyword phrase you thought of during keyword research and include it in the up to 70 character description of your page.
Title Resources
- Title tag best practices
- Creating Killer headlines
- All in One or Platinum SEO for WordPress
3. Meta Descriptions
The meta description is essentially your sales pitch for your page when it comes up in search engines. It is also usually the description that is picked up when people bookmark your site socially. To create a good meta description, create a short sentence or two under 155 characters that includes the main keyword phrase for your page.
Meta Descriptions Resources
- Ultimate guide to meta descriptions
- Meta description best practices
4. Header Tags
Header tags break up your page into easily digestible sections to help readability. Think of your page’s content in outline form – the header tags break up each main section of your text. Header tags should include keyword phrases you would like your page to rank for.
Also, note that the text right after your header tag can play a significant role. For example, I had an H3 header in one of my recent posts that said Most Valuable Guides (not the best keywords, but bear with me). In search results, without any other optimization, link building, etc., search engines pick up that phrase as follows:
So needless to say, header tags are valuable and need to be optimized as well as careful consideration given to the first sentence after the header tag as well.
5. Images
<img src="seo-optimized-image.jpg" alt="A SEO Optimized Image" title="A SEO Optimized Image" />
To get the most out of your keywords and help break up text for visitors with something eye catching, be sure to include an image in your post with keywords in the filename, alt text, and title.
Where does the alt tag come into play outside of SEO? If you were visually impaired and using a screen reader, the alt text would be read to you by your program.
Image Resources
- SEO optimizing images.
- Creative Commons and Flickr image search
- Image copyright laws
- SEO friendly images WordPress plugin
6. Internal Linking
Once people get on your site, you want them to stick around and find more relevant content. Using internal linking will help them learn more about what your site has to offer, especially if you are using the right anchor text as a guide.
Internal Linking Resources
- Never use nofollow on internal links
- SEO Smart Links WordPress plugin
7. Link Building
So what benefit does link building have to offer potential visitors without mentioning any SEO benefits? When I am seeking out link building opportunities, I find that pages already offering their visitors resources for a particular topic. Link building is simply offering another site’s visitors more resources to choose from for more options.
Link Building Resources
- Top 100+ link building resources.
- Link building for beginners.
8. Social Media
Social networking allows you to really connect with your website’s audience, which helps you learn more about their needs and create content, product, and services that will really appeal to them.
In link building, even though Twitter, for example, only gives you nofollow links, someone who sees your link through Twitter may like it so much that they link to it in their blog or elsewhere on their website, which essentially means that nofollow social media link turned into a dofollow one.
Also, it’s not just the social networking you do – it’s the social sharing you make possible. Installing buttons or widgets to make your site more socially sharable makes it easier for your visitors to tell the world about you!
Social Media Resources
- Top social media blogs
- Social media snapshot series: your hub, content, network, and impact, plus creating a dashboard on a spreadsheet.
- Add This, Add to Any, and WordPress plugins
9. Guest Blogging
Last but not least is the ever popular guest blogging. If you have expertise that others would benefit from, then guest blogging will help you share that knowledge with an even wider audience. If your visitors are also bloggers, you can even help them by guest blogging on their site, sending some of your visitors in their direction. The benefits to doing both of these (the right way) are really exponential in helping establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
Guest Blogging Resources
- My Blog Guest
- How guest blogging gets subscribers, links, and even a better Google ranking
- A comprehensive guest blogging guide
Your Thoughts on Search Optimization for Visitors
What ways do you optimize for SEO with your visitors in mind, and what tools and resources would you suggest to help other website and blog owners to do the same?
Similar Posts:
- How to Optimize 7 Popular Social Media Profiles for SEO
- 6 Tips: Diversifying Anchor Text
- 6 Google Search Query Tips
- Were You Hit by Panda 3.5?
- 5 Houston Search Engine Optimization Tips
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42 Comments
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Very helpful and informative post, kristi. Thanks.
You're welcome!
Hey Kristi,
I recently joined MyBlogGuest and I think it's the best idea ever, to be able to talk to other guest bloggers and get your content out to these other sites..
Thanks for the great SEO tips..
Hector
Yes, you can build some very strong connections in guest blogging. And bloggers are generally very helpful – if you see an opportunity that another blogger has on a major site, just ask how they got it. They might be able to give you some inside tips!
What a wonderful post – like a quick SEO handbook! Great explanations of so many things I had never looked into much but understand very well now from reading this post. I'm bookmarking this one to go through again as a checklist – with each of my sites.
I'm glad you find it that useful. I have been trying to explain SEO methods to people recently, and have found that it makes more sense to some if you tell them how it benefits their visitors vs. just how it might help with search engines. I'm glad you like it!
Great tips, I look deeply to all points. My site seo is really bad hope my site seo is increases.
For keywords, if it is a product-oriented blog, another resources would be Amazon bestsellers and eBay. Not to forget about Google Trends…
Try out some of the stuff above then! I’m sure it will help.
The Popular Searches tool actually pulls in trends from Amazon and Ebay, all on one page. Great suggestion!
Glad to be a part of your comprehensive list, Kristi. The only thing I haven't paid much attention to is link building, and I have to admit that I probably won't for a very long time.
You may not pay attention to it, but blogs have the potential to build links naturally, like me including the link to your post in this one. That's the beauty of creating link-worthy content through informative blog posts!
Thanks! I was hoping it would be a good crossover for beginners to advanced SEOers.
Not only do I like the fact that you tell us what to do but you provides the links to show us where to go as well as how it's done.
Yes, I feel it's a bit silly to suggest something and then not give people the tools to do it. Glad you find this a good resource!
this is a very good article – easy to read and helpful, thanks! another thing that I do for SEO is validating web pages, there are lots of online tools and browser pug ins that you can use, and I think it is worth the time to do since the search engines will most likely (and should!) rank your web pages better if they are error-free and dont have broken links, invalid codes, etc., etc….. so thats my two cents!
You know, I ran into a lot of problems with validator tools in terms of errors in the code that were just not fixable. Broken link checks are definitely worth-while though – good for your search and good for your visitors!
Very well written article. The two I've found that hold the most value for SEO are the Title and backlinked anchor text. Anchor text doesn't play as large of a role in user experience, but it's still helpful to know where you are being sent. The title needs to be informative, optimized, and eye catching all in a 70 character or less package. As always your post was a joy to read!
Thanks Brian!
You know, it may be a SEO person thing, but I know sometimes when I’m scanning an article, the links will jump out at me and the anchor text plays a role in that. So if I’m reading an article that makes me think I want to do some keyword research, and I see anchor text on a link that says keyword research tools, that will make me want to click. Again, maybe just because of the field I’m in, but it’s more attractive to me than “click here” or other generic text.
Thanks Brian!
You know, it may be a SEO person thing, but I know sometimes when I'm scanning an article, the links will jump out at me and the anchor text plays a role in that. So if I'm reading an article that makes me think I want to do some keyword research, and I see anchor text on a link that says keyword research tools, that will make me want to click. Again, maybe just because of the field I'm in, but it's more attractive to me than "click here" or other generic text.
Anchor text definitely plays a role for traffic generation in my opinion in addition to SEO benefits. I say that just from watching my own actions when reading a post. Also, the links tend to stand out on a page which means that people's eyes are more likely to be drawn to them.
Great intro here, I think you hit a good balance between too much info that overwhelms newbies and not enough info that leaves intermediate bloggers disatisfied:) Thank you!
I was working on that. Actually the post was twice as long… I did cut it down to a lot to simplify it. Glad it still carried the right message for everyone!
Exactly! I'm glad it's not just me.
Kristi,
I do believe SEO matters for both search engines + thier human readers. Hereby, bloggers are called to take care of this issue which simply means following the basic SEO tips that you mentioned (from 1 – 6). The other points (7-9) are for exposing or publicizing your blog.
Thanks for the informative article!
Yes, I've suggested some or all of these to numerous bloggers recently. Some don't feel like they can handle the SEO of their own site, but I think that if it's explained simply and shows benefits for their readers, that most would be just fine.
Thanks very much for sharing this post. I am in the first steps to do SEO for my blog so I have many things to learn. This is a good direction for me.
You're welcome. These are great tips to apply to a new blog to get started in the right direction with your visitors and search engines!
very interesting article, especially for a beginner like myself:) Still learning a lot every day
Just be sure to start bookmarking! When you're starting out, it helps to bookmark useful information to come back to, as sometimes you'll run into a little information overload.
Yes, is true, I spend 2 minutes to scroll down to my last bookmark
You should try Delicious. You can tag all of your bookmarks and just scroll through the list of tags on the right hand sidebar to keep everything organized.
This is another learning for me and this would greatly help us in the SEO process. I will follow the tips that you have provided. Thank you for the post!
You're welcome! If you happen to see fast results from applying any of these tips, be sure to come back and share them!
Oh my.. awesome points quoted. Thanks for the great article. expecting more.
I post a lot more on SEO between Search Engine Watch and Journal.
I post a lot more on SEO between Search Engine Watch and Journal.
I am reading everywhere on how to promote your blog and how to get good traffic but this blog post is telling us "how to create a good blog post". Thanks for this post @kristi.
kmadhav
Wow, so many informations on a nice post! I just bookmarked this article! Thanks a lot!!!
Good information, i save this blog in favorites, thanks Kristi Hines.
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Nice – great tips!
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