Nine SEO mistakes most Bloggers make
1. Permitting Title Tags to be Auto Generated (from the post title, category name, etc.):
Every category page and most permalink pages (i.e. post pages) ought to be hand-crafted. Don't just let the blog software reuse the post title or category name with your blog's name tacked on in the front. Why? Because an idyllic post title is hardly ever have an ideal title tag. Optimizing your post title or category name by working in synonyms, multiple verb tenses, etc. into it can mess up its punchiness and thus its reader impact.
How would you achieve this? If your blog is powered by WordPress, then you can use my WordPress plug-in called SEO Title Tag. It even offers a "mass edit" managerial interface for making immense edits across dozens or hundreds of pages at once. I am not aware of a alike plug-in for Movable Type or other blog platforms, but possibly this article will spur someone on to write it.
If you don't have the time or resources and wish to carry on with auto-generated title tags, you ought to, at an absolute minimum hand code the title tag on the home page, and then on the rest of the blog place the blog name at the end of the title tag rather than at the start (or remove it altogether). This will give you more exclusively focused title tags.
2. Letting Pages Get Indexed That Should Never Be Indexed:
Some pages shouldn't be permissible into the search indices because they are either fundamentally content-less (like the "Email this page" form or "Enlarged photo" pages) or because they are substantively alike to other pages (like the "Printer-friendly" pages). Scrutinize your indexed pages in Google using the site: inquiry operator and look for which pages don't deserve to be there. Then forbid them in your robots.txt file.
3. Having Several Homes For Your Blog:
Does your blog have what search engine geeks refer to as "canonicalization" issue? If you can get to a page by manifold URLs, then the answer is "Yes." For instance, ries.typepad.com and www.originofbrands.com and originofbrands.com all guide to the same page.
4. Not Using Optional Experts to Minimize Duplicate Content:
This may be well-known by other names in other blog platforms, but in WordPress the optional extract on the Write Post form is where you can define alternate copy to exhibit everywhere but on the permalink page. That will make the content of the post distinctive to the permalink page, reducing the potential that you'll lose rankings for duplicate content because the post would otherwise be included in its entirety on several pages, including archives-by-date pages and category pages.
5. Not using rel=nofollow to strategically direct the flow of link gain:
Some internal links aren't very obliging because they have suboptimal anchor text (e.g. "Permalink" and "Comments"). Some external links just leak link put on to nobody's benefit, such as "Digg this" links.
6. Over-reliance on date-based archives:
Most blog’s systematize their archives by month rather than by keyword. That's a shame because the anchor text of links is so imperative to SEO, yet these date-based archives tend to have terrible number-based anchor text. Systemizing your blog into categories is a step in the right direction, but implementing tagging and tag clouds across your blog is a much more search engine most favorable approach. Then you can ditch your date-based hierarchy, or at least rel=nofollow all those date-based archive links.
7. Using suboptimal anchor text when linking internally
It's not unusual for Bloggers to make use of "here" or "previously" or alike suboptimal phrases as anchor text within post copy. Defy the temptation and use relevant keywords instead.
8. Putting your blog's URL or your RSS feed's URL on a domain you don't own:
Does your blog's URL have blogspot.com, typepad.com, wordpress.com, etc.? If so, please replicate after me in a Homer Simpson voice: "Doh!” This is a adversity waiting to happen. What happens if you want to move to another blog platform or service provider? You won't be able to 301 redirect. The finest thing you can do is put up a "We've moved" post then discard the blog.
Another mistake is using Feed burner devoid of using their MyBrand service - which means that all your RSS subscribers are subscribing to a URL you don't control. You'd be in a pickle if you ever wanted to change from Feedburner to another service. After Google attained Feedburner, they made the MyBrand service free. So there's no justification for not using it. I use MyBrand with my blog, so my feed URL is http://feeds.stephanspencer.com/scatterings instead of http://feeds.feedburner.com/scatterings.
9. Offering suboptimal pod casts:
If you are publishing podcasts on your blog, be certain to optimize the ID3 tag, include show notes with each podcast, and create show transcripts (hint: CastingWords offers inexpensive podcast transcription), and make sure you have a presence in podcast directories like iTunes.
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