How to Optimize your blog from A to Z

Here i will give to you a complette tutorial on how optimize your blog from A - Z

Just follow some of these tips and see the results by yourself

Don't believe what I say... just check

Sorry for my english

This is a simple but efective way to get your new and old post and pages reindexed.

Starting from your oldest post you need to check and update the info on all your posts.
Examples:

If you display prices, address or things that can change with the time, just check that everiting is ok. If something is out of date just update your post (don't write a new post unless is really necesary). If nothing change just write at the end of your post something like - Last Update 30-May-2010 - or Updated by... ( be creative )

Check all your external links and see if they work or not. Remember to use target="_blank" on all your external links
example: <a href="http://forum.bloggertricks.com/" target="_blank">How to optimize your blog</a>

If the topic of a post can't be updated because the topic will never change (example: a post about how to create a google account -that is allway the same-) just go to the end of your post and write something new like on the example sited above just write something like "How to create a Google Account" at the very end of your post (be creative and follow the line of your topic or post)

Lets say you have a lot of post like a 100, 800, maybe 2000 ok I will recomend to do this anyway. Why... nothing is more annoying that be loking for something on the web and finally -after a wile- you find it but the info is wrong (wrong address, time, link, price, etc etc) that talks bad of your post and your blog.

You can update your post as one per day two per day tree or four per day, depending on the number of post that you have, Don't update all your post in a day Why?... because this is a easy way to keep your blog alive and fresh... Google will see that changes are made frequently on your blog, that changes are constant, so the blog need to be cheked by googlebot more frequently and there is were your blog start to get indexed, reindexed, moving on the SERPs etc etc


Check back tomorrow for a new tip.

By default your template show a series of links at the end, these links are
Next Post, Home, and Oldest Post or Previous Post

These links don't ad any value to your blog simply because the anchor text don't represent the content or topic of your blog...
Example: if you have a blog about Seo Tools it will be better to have a link called "Previous Seo Tools" instead of "Oldest post"

Go to Layout > Edit HTML > click on expand widget templates > and find the code below :

  Code:

<b:includable id='nextprev'>
  <div class='blog-pager' id='blog-pager'>
    <b:if cond='data:newerPageUrl'>
      <span id='blog-pager-newer-link'>
      <a class='blog-pager-newer-link' expr:href='data:newerPageUrl' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-newer-link&quot;' expr:title='data:newerPageTitle'><data:newerPageTitle/></a>
      </span>
    </b:if>

    <b:if cond='data:olderPageUrl'>
      <span id='blog-pager-older-link'>
      <a class='blog-pager-older-link' expr:href='data:olderPageUrl' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-older-link&quot;' expr:title='data:olderPageTitle'><data:olderPageTitle/></a>
      </span>
    </b:if>

    <a class='home-link' expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'><data:homeMsg/></a>

  </div>
  <div class='clear'/>
</b:includable>

Now replace the code with this new code

  Code:

<b:includable id='nextprev'>
  <div class='blog-pager' id='blog-pager'>
    <b:if cond='data:newerPageUrl'>
      <span id='blog-pager-newer-link'>
      <a class='blog-pager-newer-link' expr:href='data:newerPageUrl' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-newer-link&quot;' title='Next Gym in Wicklow'>Next Gym in Wicklow</a>
      </span>
    </b:if>

    <b:if cond='data:olderPageUrl'>
      <span id='blog-pager-older-link'>
      <a class='blog-pager-older-link' expr:href='data:olderPageUrl' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-older-link&quot;' title='Previous Gym in Wicklow'>Previous Gym in Wicklow</a>
      </span>
    </b:if>

    <b:if cond='data:blog.homepageUrl != data:blog.url'>
      <a class='home-link' expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl' title='Gyms in Wicklow'>Gyms in Wicklow</a>
      <b:else/>
      <b:if cond='data:newerPageUrl'>
        <a class='home-link' expr:href='data:blog.homepageUrl'>Next Gym in Wicklow</a>
      </b:if>
    </b:if>

  </div>

Now you can replace all text that say "Gym in Wicklow" with something that represent the content of your blog.
I get this example from one of my blogs called "Gyms in Wicklow" so remember change "Gyms in Wicklow" with something related to the main topic of your blog. Remember be creative.

How this work

The idea behind this litle change is that your links will be:

1- seo friendly - the anchor text and the title tag of the links (title="") represent the content of the blog.
2 - user Friendly - All users can have a better idea of what is behind these links (if the link is called Next SEO tip - What do you think it will open ?)
3 - a better and more professional look to your blog.

Parts of the code

If you are familiar with the code used on blogger templates it's ok but if you don't just take a new look to undertend a bit more how it works:

<a class='blog-pager-newer-link' expr:href='data:newerPageUrl' expr:id='data:widget.instanceId + &quot;_blog-pager-newer-link&quot;' title='Next Gym in Wicklow'>Next Gym in Wicklow</a>

expr:href='data:newerPageUrl' - this piece is the one that include a link to your latest post

title='Next Gym in Wicklow' - this give to the link the title tag - if you move the mouse over the link, you will see the text included on the tag - on this example it will show "Next Gym in Wicklow"

Next Gym in Wicklow - anchor text of your link

You can see a live example on one of my blogs called Gyms in Wicklow where my links change from:
Oldest Post to Previous Gym in Wicklow
New Post to Next Gym in Wicklow
Home to Gyms in Wicklow

Check back tomorrow for a new tip.

Before reading – This tip is about how to keep low the Bounce Rate that your blog gets from visitors that arrive to your blog from a Search Engines as a traffic source. Other Traffic sources to your blog like referral sites will be explained in a future tip.

Keeping a low Bounce Rate

What is “Bounce Rate” and why should you worry about it?

Bounce Rate is all about user’s behavior; how they get into your blog, what they do on it, and when and how they get out of your blog.
A low or high Bounce Rate will determine along with other factors how well or badly your site will show up on SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages), especially on Google SERP’s.

In plain numbers
Your blog gets 10 visits for an “X” Keyword and your Bounce Rate is equal to 100%
This high Bounce Rate will tell Googlebot that your blog isn’t relevant to that “X” keyword and shouldn’t be on any SERP’s related to that “X” Keyword.

The Problems

1- Your blog ranks for some Keywords that give your blog a high Bounce Rate
The blog is ranked for those keywords for a number of reasons, which I won’t explain on this post, but if you don’t want to rank for those keywords, you can login on your Google Analytics and look for a Keyword with a high Bounce Rate, copy the keyword and then search on Google for that Keyword, try to find your blog, and check the description that Google shows of your blog, the Keyword will be highlighted, after that, try to find out from where on your blog that Keyword comes and delete it or change it.
You may think Why delete these keywords, after all they bring visits to my blog
If you take out of the equation the visits with 100% Bounce Rate your total Bounce Rate will start to decrease. Seen from another angle you may lose a few visits but you bring down your Bounce Rate and with that your blog will improve on the SERP’s meaning more visits in the long term.

2- The blog should rank well for that “X” keyword but it gets a high Bounce Rate.
Here is where the real SEO starts. A bounce occurs when a visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages. .

A visitor can bounce by:
• Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
• Closing an open window or tab
• Typing a new URL
• Clicking the "Back" button to leave the site
• Session timeout

Knowing what you now know you must check to see that all the information on your landing page for the Keyword that gives to your blog a high Bounce Rate is correct. Search on Google for that keyword until you find your blog, take a note of the description that Google gives of your blog, and then open your site, see if you really find what is described by Google on that page.
Check from the user’s point of view, not from a blogger point of view. Or bring a friend that doesn’t know your blog, or somebody to interact with your blog to see what they see that you may not.

Remember the 5 points for which a user can bounce

Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site:
Show your links to internal pages on your blog, and after that decide where to put things that will open a link on a different site like: Friend Links, Ads, Widgets etc.

Closing an open window or tab:
In the worst scenario this means that the user didn’t find what they were looking for, so review your content, or the content of that post that gives to your blog a high Bounce Rate

Typing a new URL:
Sometimes the name of your url is similar to another website, for that reason you must always try to come up with something new or creative.
Check on Google to see how many sites contain the word “SEO” on the url name, then, check how few of the well ranked sites for SEO don’t have the word SEO on their url’s (sites like http://www.vastvision.com, http://www.crearecommunications.co.uk, http://www.smart-traffic.co.uk/, http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin, ) Some times to have a Keyword used on the url name can be god, and other times a problem.

Clicking the "Back" button to leave the site:
Check how easy it is to browse your site; you must always have a really visible link to return back to the previous post. Sometimes the users of your blog might not mean to leave your blog, they just want to return to the previous post but they fail to find a link to go back, or you may have forgotten to put one in.

Session timeout:
Session timeout is if the user leaves your site open on one page for around 30 minutes. You can’t do anything about this.

The real tips.

Content Review - Review the content of your blog, especially the content of those pages that bring a high Bounce Rate, check that everything is correct like links, information, images, etc. Ensure your pages are correctly described on the search engines and that you’re giving to your blog users what you promise in the search query on the landing page they arrive on.

Browser Compatibility - Check that your blog works well on IE and Firefox, remember that IE and Firefox handle the CSS of your blog differently, sometimes that can cause problems that can give to your users a bad experience on your blog.

Internal Links - Check your internal links; see if they all work, and if you have enough links to make your blog easy to browse by everybody from the most experienced internet user to someone that just started today. If you don’t know how to do this don’t worry in the next tip I will show you how.

Blog Design – It takes an average internet user less than two seconds to decide whether to leave the site or not after clicking on a link. Try to make your design friendly to the eye. An easy way to make some changes is through your CSS like changing the colors of your blog; create two or three options to test which one gives your blog the best results.
In a future topic I will show you how to do this in a really easy way, but for now make your own experiments and see what results you get.

Search Box – Some users may like your blog, but if they don’t find a link give to them the option to search on your blog by using a search box. Today this is a simple task, just search on Google and you will find more info on how to install a search box on Blogspot using Adsense.

Related links – Create manually a series of links at the bottom of your post with links that may be related to the actual post, include between 3 to 5 links to different sections or posts of your blog that may contain some related information to the post which the user is reading.

One final note
Remember that all these tasks may not be simple or may be time consuming to but to achieve optimum results should not be ignored. If you still think that SEO is all about getting links pointing to your site, or installing the meta tags on your blog then my future tips may not be for you as so far we have just touched the basic steps and dedication is needed to proceed.

Free SEO for Blogspot

On this SEO Tip I will show you the easiest way to find all the external links that your blog has that you may not have even known about until now…

How to detect external links on your Blog

To find out how many external links your blog has you will need a Free SEO Tool called A1 Sitemap Generator, this software is free and fully operative for 30 days, after that you will need to purchase the software, or delete it. To download This SEO tool go paste this url on your browser http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/

After you install the software and open it, you will go to Scan Website > Path > enter the entire name of your blog with the http:// and click Start Scan. The whole scan of your blog can take from one to ten minutes, depending on the size of your blog.

Once the scan of your blog is finished the software will show you two well defined sections; on the left you will see the whole structure of your site, and a tab that will show you all your external links. On the right the software will display different options and information about the pages that you select on the left side.

On the left side you will click on a tab called external, this will show you the external links that your blog may have. Click on one of them. At the bottom of the right section of the software you will have different options like: Page Data, Linked by, Used by …with these options you can now see where the link is on your blog , or where that link is being used on your blog.

As you may notice you will find a lot of links to blogger links that look like:

http://www.blogger.com/comment-iframe.g?blogID=
http://img1.blogblog.com/img/icon18_wrench_allbkg.png
http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=

Don’t worry about these links for now, in the next SEO Tip I will show you where these links come from and how to remove them, for the moment just concentrate on the other hidden links that maybe you didn’t know that your blog had.

For the moment just use the tool, have fun and see the possibilities and applications that this free SEO tool offers you.

If you miss something, or you didn’t understand something you can see the full post with images of how to find external links on my blog at http://free-seo-for.blogspot.com and learn Why is it important to know about your external links?

The syntax of a link

On this Tip you will see how to create well structured links on your blogs that will in turn help to increase your average time on site, fix some indexation problems and improve your rank on Search Engines

How to build a link

Assumption is an error, but in this case I will assume that if you have a blog you know how to create a link, for that reason I will just concentrate on what a link must have from an SEO point of view and why a link must be built.
First of all you need to clarify some factors that will determine the shape and content of a link; namely where and for what the link is used:

- Is it a link to an external site?
- Do you trust that site?
- Is it a link to one of your posts on your blog?
- Is it a link to a non important section on your blog?


Before looking at what is considered a correct link we shall look at two of the worst examples of an internal link.

These examples are:
<a href="http://www.yourblog.blogspot.com/">CLICK HERE</a>
AND
<a href=http://www.yourblog.blogspot.com/">READ MORE</a>

Both links are the simplest types of links to create on a blog, and at the same time they are the worst links to have. Suppose that these links are internal links from one post to another on the same blog, The “anchor text” of the links (“CLICK HERE” or “READ MORE”) will add no value to the page/post where that link is placed and no value to the page where the link is pointing; unless of course the topic of the post is READ MORE or CLICK HERE.

The anchor text can give to your blog users an idea of where the link is pointing, but for a Search Engine it is different, While a user may understand where the link is pointing by reading the text around the link and the anchor text of the link, a Search Engine will be unable to associate the content of the link until the link is followed - in fact the search engine will associate the content of the link with its anchor text, in this case ‘Click here’ or ‘Read more’. Search on Google for ‘Read more’ or ‘Click here’ and see how alot of sites are listed just because they have a lot of internal links called “read more” or “click here”

Search Read more on Google.com
( Only the first two sites are about the topic "Read more" the rest of the sites are there because they have a lot of internal links called "read more" )

Syntaxes of a Link

<a href="http://yourblog.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" title="Visit My Blog" target="_blank">My Blog</a>

The Anchor Text - My Blog - The anchor text must be related to the topic of a post, category, or related to the whole content of your blog. Remember that the link must have sense for the search engines and for your blog visitors.
The anchor text will inform the search engines about what that link is and about what is the content to which the link is pointing. The search engine will use that information (later on) for categorization and classification purposes.

The Target of a Link - target="_blank" - The target will be used by the users browser to decide where the link must be open, the link will be open by default on the same window or tab. If you have an external link in your blog you must use target=”_blank” for the simple reason that the user may not necessarily know where this link opens. After clicking on a link the user realizes that the link opens a new site on the same window, the user then uses the forward button on the browser to return to your blog. In this case both blogs or sites get a bad bounce rate and a low average time on the site or blog. If the user clicks on a link in your blog that opens a new site but in a different tab or window, the user can return to your blog at any time by clicking on the tab of the browser, at the same time while a user keeps your site open but is browsing the other site (open in a new tab or window), your average time on site is still running.

The Title Tag of a Link - title="Visit My Blog" - The title tag is used to quickly inform your users what the link is about. It is an extended version of the anchor text. While you can use the word “My Blog” as a anchor text you can use the words “Visit My Blog” or why not “Click Here to Visit My Blog” in the title tag. This text will be displayed to your blog users when they pass the mouse over a link. The title tag of a link must be clear, and related with the link and the content to where that link is pointing. You can use the same words that you use as the anchor text, or you can choose others, be creative, but keep it simple and related to your content.

Relation Tag - rel="nofollow" - Used only for external links. The use of (rel=”nofollow”) will be explained in more detail later on in this series of SEO tips. Don’t worry about this right now.

What now?
You can start to check all your internal links and see they have the points sited above. Remember that all your internal links are important, as well as all your pages; so all your links must follow the right syntax.

What next?
You can check my blog and browse more free SEO tips for bloggers

A bounce occurs when a visitor only views a single page on an online site, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages. Search on Google for that keyword until you find your weblog, take a note of the description that Google gives of your weblog, and then open your site, see in case you find what is described by Google on that page.