Here’s what’s funny: many bloggers don’t do SEO, or if they do, it’s by accident. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) appeals to many as the secret sauce to give your blog articles some weight to get it ranking well on search engines. With Google’s new Penguin 2.0 algorithm, many still wonder how effective SEO is for their articles.

Before I get into that, I’d like to brush you up on what search engine optimization is:

SEO Comes In Two Forms:

On Page SEO

So an On Page SEO is pretty easy to figure out. Essentially, it’s using your targeted keywords throughout your article. What is a targeted keyword? It’s the subject of your article. So if you’re article is “Why I Love Pooper Scoopers” (I don’t know why you would write an article like that, but hey, whatever floats your boat) then your targeted keyword is “Pooper Scoopers”.

Now let’s apply this keyword to your article. When it comes to On Page SEO, your targeted keyword should appear in the following:

• Title 
• First paragraph of your article 
• Heading 1 (Start a paragraph with this heading tag, which you choose from a drop down menu on your text editor)
• Heading 2 (Same)
• Heading 3 (Same)
• Keyword in bold 
• Keyword Italicized 
• Keyword Underlined
• Keyword as a link 
• Keyword in the file name and alternate text of an image
• Keyword Density – use your keyword throughout the article in strategic places (don’t overdo it)

Off Page SEO 

You do not only need to practice On Page SEO tactics, but also Off Page SEO tactics. While this one is a bit more time consuming, it’s just as valid:

• Creating Back links – The more times search engines such as Google see a link of your article on other websites, the more weight your article will have and thus, you will rank higher on search engines which means, you can be found a lot easier. To create back links, you gotta build relationships with other website owners. Websites are ranked based on a series of factors, but one most common factor is known as a Page Rank. What you want to do is target websites with a medium – high page rank. Page ranks are scaled from 0 – 10, with zero being the lowest. You’ll want to target anywhere from a Page Rank of 3 and up. Any website with a lower page rank is not credible according to search engines and thus, if your website appears on low ranking websites, Google and other search engines can actually penalize you  and rank you lower on their listing. So as I said, target a ranking of 3 and up.
• Web 2.0 – This is the era of social networks, so a big way of getting your article ranked is by posting your link to various social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest (those are the big four, by the way). You can also post your article on various other social networks, but of course something like this could take a lot of time to work through. You don’t want to sit at your computer simply posting your article from site to site, so in this case, you can minimize your efforts by using a website such as Onlywire to post once and have the program automatically syndicate it across your other social networks. It’s a HUGE time saver!

What About Black Hat SEO?

STAY-AWAY! This used to work, and basically, black hat SEO are services or techniques that you can use to build a significant amount of back links in a very little amount of time, thus boosting you to the top of search engine results. Sadly, Google’s latest algorithim, Penguin 2.0, penalized anyone using these techniques. Now, if you want to rank well, you gotta publish quality content. Some SEO black hat tactics may still work, but they are all short lived and you will have the door slammed in your face in no time. It’s best not to bother.

This may seem a bit tedious at first, applying all that you learn in this article in your blogs from here on, but it will become natural to you and you’ll speed through it in no time! But if you want your blogs more discoverable on the search engine, you need to have a powerful SEO. You will need the expertise of a credible SEO company.

Like my article? Please like and share my blog!