Google SEO tips for Blogging

PLEASE BE AWARE: This is an old article, and while we think there are still nuggets of good advice included here, it may be out of date. Things move very quickly in the world of Digital Marketing, Lead Generation and Conversion Rate Optimisation - so please see our latest news for the most recent advice on how to get more out of your website and online marketing.

I came across this great video from Matt Cutts at Google. It was filmed earlier this year at WordCamp ’09, and is a 45min presentation by Matt on WordPress, blogging and Search Engine Optimisation.

Even though the video was filmed at WordCamp and was aimed at WordPress users, it still contains some great tips on optimising your blog content for SEO. If you haven’t got time to watch all of it just now then below is a summary of what I think are the 5 key points.

1. Choose your Blogs Niche – Decide what you are going to blog about and become an expert in that niche. It can be a tiny niche to begin with, but over time you can expand that niche grow your audience.
2. Optimise your Title’s for SEO – This is your blog post title. use google’s keyword tools to find out what your audience is looking for and what keywords and phrases they use. Then use your findings in the title.
3. Optimise your URL – Once you have your keywords and title use relevant keywords in the url. They don’t have to be the same, but make them relevant
4. Use Keywords in Categories – Make your categories relevant to your niche and use keywords in your niche in the categories. Cool Stuff or news is too generic, try [your niche] news
5. Relevant and Reputable Links – Links are important to aide search rankings, and 2 important factors to consider on links are relevant and reputable. Are the links from a reputable site with a high page rank? And are they relevant to your niche. Get these 2 right and it can have a much bigger effect than quantity.