Blogger’s Guide to SEO
Do you really need to know SEO?
If you do any sort of commerce over the web, from heading up a full-scale international corporation to running an eBay store in your free time, you probably have a blog (or are thinking about it). But what good is a blog that no one can find, or that scores poorly in the search engines? Not much, beyond any cathartic relief you get from writing it.
SEO (search engine optimization - the art and science of making your site easy to find and creating good search engine mojo) is a basic skill that everyone who has a web presence of any kind needs to have under their belt. Even if you’re not the one managing your site, you should at least understand what’s going on so you can tell if your webmaster is getting it right or screwing things up royally.
But for bloggers, who are almost exclusively one-(wo)man-bands when it comes to creating and managing the content and structure of their site, not knowing about and understanding how to use SEO is like being a race car driver who doesn’t know how to drive a stick-shift - you’re won’t get very far without a great deal of luck, and even then it’s going to be a hell of a bumpy ride.
The Blogger’s Guide to SEO
In The Blogger’s Guide to SEO, Aaron and Giovanna Wall have created a great e-reference for beginners and old hands alike who want to learn more about the basics of SEO and how to apply these concepts to their blog. By understanding and implementing these ideas, you can learn to maximize the searchability, ranking and exposure of your work, and avoid some of the most obvious pitfalls.
This quick read is a great primer on blog SEO for newbies - it offers a deep enough overview to provide real, useful value without getting bogged down in unnecessary detail or confusing hardcore methodology. The writing is concise, easy to read and informative without being dry or overly academic (and, more importantly, without dumbing down the topic into trite, superficial fluff), and the content is broad enough to cover all the bases without chasing after all the shiny bits of esoteric SEO foil that often attract enraptured geeks, but that are meaningless to average readers.
Time to play with my new toys!
In fact, I like this little guide so much that, since I’m pretty much at the stage where I need to start implementing SEO techniques here anyway, I’m going to use it as a template for doing so. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to go through the tips and ideas they outline and either apply them (and blog the process) or write about why I’m not going to, both as a way to get this thing off the ground but also to test out their information for ease of use and effectiveness (when possible).
Of course, that means things like link structure, categories, page titles and the like may get changed around. Luckily, this blog is so new that I don’t have too many readers to worry about discombobulating; this is a good reason why it’s important to implement this stuff early in the process. But if you are visiting on a regular basis (God bless you), keep an eye out for housekeeping posts that will point out any changes that could affect your viewing pleasure.
Consider it a slow-motion review by way of a live field test. It’ll be fun! Plus it means I have a valid excuse for monkeying around with the site. (Not that that’s ever stopped me before, mind you.)
BTW, if you use any of these tips and ideas for your own site, drop me a comment or email to let me know how it went and what your thoughts were on the process. I’ll put any such submission up on the blog so that everyone can benefit from your experiences.
Photo credit: Scyza
blog, blogging, search engine optimization, searchability, SEO, web marketing
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