Simple SEO Advice

We get asked “The million dollar question” all the time:
Can someone tell me the best way to help my posts move up the ranks on google?

Here are a few basic concepts to consider

1. Keyword rich and natural site content is the number one way to get your site to rank as well as possible.
2. Tags are meant as a method of cross-posting and linking like content together. If you have 1000 tags with 1 post each then it’s not going to do it’s job. Clicking on a tag should bring you to other relevant content.
3. Avoid having the same content appear in different ways on your site. An example of this would be a category (or tag) archive, if it’s being indexed, with only 1 post will look like duplicate content to the search engines.
4. If WebDog built your site, use the SEO features built into your site. This includes the set it and forget it SEO Settings and the per post/page settings.
5. Always use unique page titles that include key words, but aren’t key wordy
6. Always fill in the image title with a relevant image title and accurate but brief description in the alt field.
7. Always use the SEO settings to give a description and keywords

Some tips on keywords

1. A million other sites are going for the easy, generic key words. This means you are a very small fish in a very big pond
2. The more specific your key word target is, the smaller the pond becomes
3. If you are most interested in traffic from your region, or city then use that in your keywords for an instant boost in the standings.
4. Use Google Adwords to analyze your site to get suggestions on more complex and specific key words. This is free.
5. Don’t use the same keywords on every page/post. The crawlers at Google prefer unique content.
6. Keep a list of the keywords you are using to build on with new pages/posts.

Some tips on building backlinks

1. The more links going to your site the more engines like Google will like you and rank you higher.
2. Building links is best done the hard way, through dedicated service and building relationships with other bloggers/people in your industry.
3. There are many services that will do this for you and you will get a quick boost, but the long term ranking is still going to be based on building relationships.
4. Comment on other blogs with thoughtful and useful comments
5. Use comment love or other services to promote your readers.
6. Spend time in twitter and other social media.
7. Participate in follow Friday, retweet others, and build community, don’t just share your own links.
8. Participate in Stumble, Digg, and similar services.
9. Promote others before yourself and people will see you as an authority. This will eventually cause you to get promoted.
10. Remember that this is usually a long process unless you happen to go viral.
11. There is no good way to force your site to go viral.