Blog SEO Tips – A Look at Two WordPress Plugins
If there’s one thing as a blogger we are always hearing about, it’s how we need to focus our efforts on learning blog SEO implementation. There are SEO tips available out there but it can be hard to find a place to start and what to do first. I have been reading tons of articles and trying to figure it all out for my own blog SEO and hoped that by sharing what I’ve been able to learn over the past month or so can help you, too, jump in to optimizing your site for hopeful better search rankings. I’ve used two main SEO WordPress plugins to help me learn the basics so I am going to start by sharing the lessons learned from these two plugins.
Blog SEO Using WordPress SEO by Yoast
Whenever blogging and SEO come up in a conversation, I was always told I should be using WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. I have installed this plugin and uninstalled several times over the past two years until just recently when I finally “got” it. The reason this plugin is so powerful is because it lets you customize your information that is displayed in the search results about your post. Instead of the results just showing the first sentence or two from your post, you can specify exactly what it should say with your own short summary. You only have 156 characters to grab someone’s attention – that’s like a tweet – so you have to make it stand out! You also want it to include your keyword to show the search engine it is really what you’re writing about. Here’s a quick summary of what WordPress SEO by Yoast lets you customize.
- Set your Focus Keyword – You can specify your keyword here to help you commit to a word or phrase to use and this lets the plugin analyze your post for the keyword.
- SEO Title – Customize your blog post title as it is displayed for search engines. This gives you the opportunity to remove unimportant words or phrases you might include for other reasons such as “Giveaway” or any hashtags keeping your title just to the important message you’re sharing.
- Meta Description – This field customizes the short snippet of your post that searchers will see. It’s your chance to tell them what your post is about.
SEO Tips Learned from SEO Blog Kahuna
SEO Blog Kahuna was what really got me started getting almost excited about focusing on improving my blog SEO. It’s setup feels almost like a game as you work to improve your score by making sure your post has a lot of the elements for a well optimized post. It does miss the really key important things that you can find from WordPress SEO, though, so once I learned the basic ropes for this plugin I deactivated it and just focus on applying what I have learned from this plugin which was where the keyword needs to be placed in your post. Here’s some of the places that SEO Blog Kahuna will remind you to insert your keyword.
- Post Title
- H1, H2, and H3 formatting tags
- First and last sentence
- Image’s alt attribute
- In Bold
- Link using your keyword to other relevant content
Blog SEO Tips to Remember
When you’re ready to give blog SEO a try, just remember that the most important thing when blogging is always your content. Don’t try to “fake” a post just to make it friendly for search engines as it won’t be what those that are searching are truly looking for and it will lead them quickly away from your page hurting you more than helping you. Instead, just look for a great keyword you can easily implement in your post to make it easy for those that are looking for what you have to say to be able to find it. Once you pick your focus word or phrase you’re going to use in your post, stick with it and include it several times in your content, title, image tags, and wherever else you naturally can include without going over board.
A Walkthrough on Blog SEO and These Plugins
In order to show my review team how to start using these SEO tips in their posts they write for A Mom’s Take, I created a video tutorial. It was geared for them but applies to any blogger. Please excuse my couple of pauses and imperfect video as it wasn’t something I was originally creating in order to publish.
I hope these tips have inspired you to work on your own blog SEO strategy. Let me know what SEO questions you have in the comments and I’ll help where I can.
Disclosure: This post is based on my own experiences and opinions and nothing else. This is just what I have learned while trying to improve my own Blog SEO
Do you know if we are allowed to go back to past posts and change the title. not the permamlink, just the title. I am trying to update my past posts that I wrote before I knew about SEO and Yoast.
Great article Janel!This is a great blueprint on how to get started using WordPress plugins for your SEO campaign. I will save this article and use it as a reference.I can not wait to learn much more from you.
Nice article Janel!Thanks for sharing this.
So I’ve gotten 4 or 5 emails about this post today. After speaking at the SoFabCon conference this weekend, several have wondered if this article conflicts with my message.
The SEO Plug-ins are great AND they are horrible.
I used the analogy that the plugins are like a marathon checklist. A marathon checklist will tell you to bring a towel, oranges, extra water, a bandaid, and a reminder to eat a banana in the morning. BUT the checklist won’t help you finish the race. You still have to run the marathon.
If you think you are doing SEO by fililng in the plugins, you are very wrong. In fact 99 million other people are filling them out the same way. So the plugin isn’t the answer to SEO. It’s just a good checklist to help you complete some tasks. And posts like this make it even easier to understand how to do it.
What you can’t forget is keyword research, internal structure of your site, supporting keywords, custom sidebars, internal and external links, anchor text, comments and social media mentions. Articles like this are great and much needed. But don’t start to think that you’re done when you fill out the plugins successfully.
Great explanations, Janel. 馃檪
Thanks so much for your comment and adding on to what I’ve been learning for those that might read this post. I’m certainly not a SEO expert! I do use Google’s keyword tool! 馃檪
This is awesome, thanks! I have an SEO plug-in installed on my blog, but I rarely ever use it. I will be a lot more mindful of it in the future. Much appreciated 馃檪
Thanks, I did learn a couple of points & will consider Yoast plugin, I like how it gives you a score & you can see exactly where you need to fix or areas to improve on. Visiting from DearCreatives.com
I use the Yoast plugin and it has got me thinking about how I can pop in words without being too obviously SEO about it. I will be trying the other plugin to see how I score 馃檪 Thanks for the info, its been very helpful.
Thank you for sharing your experience for us! It is so kind of you to put this all together. SEO (for me) is truly a hard concept!
This is absolutely helpful. I’ve been doing SEO for other people but these 2 tools really made my job easier. Thank you!
I need to spend more time learning SEO. I get the green light on nearly all my posts when using Yoast but my traffic is still minimal at best. I have a feeling I’m not making it too enticing for readers. SEO baffles me…big time. Haha.
Kim, I have the same problem. So frustrating!
Thanks Janel! I use the Yoast plugin and really like it..I’ve never heard of the other one though..going to have to try it..hopped over from SITS!
Blessings!
Thanks for the great tips. For me SEO is something I know the basics of but it is still good to hear specific reminders like yours to pull that knowledge to the forefront again!
This post is awesome! I currently use WordPress SEO, but I had never heard of SEO Blog Kahuna before. It’s something I’m going to go check out right now! Great post, thanks for sharing these tips. 馃檪
Thank you so much! I learned a lot. Stopping from SITS!
What an encouraging post, I think I’m doing everything right…with this at least! Thanks for sharing!
Wow.. sounds like I need to go take some classes! Seriously- I love the internet, love all things computer and I often thought of starting a blog….But I need some skills and know-how. You bloggers put in some work and thought into your blogs, I can see! And tools like this make the job a bit easier.
i am no a blogger, it sounds complicated, i would have to read it over and over…to really get it, but after you get it, it seems a good way to get all of your info in 1 place
Very interesting~ty!
This was a helpful tutorial! Thanks!