After reading Google’s own search engine optimization (SEO) audit of its own website, I was inspired to evaluate my own Blog and see if I was always following common SEO best practices. I was surprised that as an SEO web consultant I was often giving clients SEO advice that I myself wasn’t always following!
Below are some SEO issues that I have identified and am planning to fix in the next couple of months so read quickly!
Use Keyword Phrases in the Headline of Blog Post – I have my website optimized for the primary keyword “website consulting” along with many secondary keywords (eg. web consultant, SEO consulting, PPC consultant, etc.) but am rarely using these keywords in the actual Blog Headline.
Hyperlink Longtail Keyword Phrase to Webpage – Whenever a keyword phrase is used, adjust it for longtail and hyperlink it to the relevant webpage on the site because that would look more natural than the short-tail keywords. Plus, with voice command getting more and more popular as searchers tend to search more with long-tail keywords. For example, instead of hyperlinking short-tail keyword “Minnesota Web Design” I suggest using “Web Design Company in Minnesota” to link to your target page on the site.
Use the “TITLE” tag in the Hyperlink – You have the ability to add a “title” tag on the hyperlinks. For example, if I use the keyword “PPC consulting” on the Blog and link it to the HTML source code I should add the Title tag as follows: PPC consulting. I can either use the exact keyword being linked or a very similar one.
Category Labels – You should have a Blog Category strategy laid out based on your SEO keyword research and not just create the Category Labels on the fly every time you post a Blog. For example, my categories might be website consulting (which would include general blog posts), SEO consulting, PPC consulting, etc which would include those relevant types of Blog posts. Rotunda’s Blog about scheduling software does this well.
Contact Us – If unique, high quality, optimized Blog copy is being produced and search engines start to rank it highly on certain keyword phrases like “website consulting”, the Blog should start receiving direct traffic from Search Engines. Hence, a Contact Form should be added directly to the page (in the left or right sidebar) instead of just having a “Contact Us” link at the top of the page. Make it easy for potential customers to contact you!
Social – The Blog has the ability to share the content to sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc which is great but it is not receiving many comments directly on the posts. Search Engines like Google have confirmed they have started to use social media signals like comments to rank web pages.
See any other Blog SEO best practices that aren’t being used on this Blog? Drop our web consultants a comment on the Blog below. Thank you!