subject: 5 Quick SEO Fixes You Can Use Right Now [print this page] 5 Quick SEO Fixes You Can Use Right Now 5 Quick SEO Fixes You Can Use Right Now
Let's face it, most people hate SEO and even more prefer to avoid it at all costs. That being said, SEO does help, and ranking better can help you get more traffic, more leads, and more sales.
I know SEO sucks, but I want to give you 5 quick fixes you can implement right now that will immediately bolster your SEO without you having to think about it.
1. Keywords in Titles
The title is the most important part of your post, and if you aren't using at least a few keywords in your title, then you are missing a huge opportunity for SERP rankings.
If your blog is about organic food, then try to use the phrase organic food in as many posts as you can. Also, rotate secondary keywords like organic foods, natural food/s, and organic produce, etc.
2. Keywords in bold
You might not know this, but placing more emphasis on keywords by putting them in bold will help your SEO. Don't overdo it, but find some of the most important words you'd like to rank for and place them in bold. See what happens.
3. Anchor Links
Please stop linking the phrase "click here" unless you are using a direct link to a sales page. If you're linking to your own blog, use a keyword rich phrase to link to it with. You don't want to rank for "click here", but you do want to rank for "meditation guide", so use this:
To learn more about meditation techniques, grab our meditation guide for free!
instead of this:
Click here to grab our free meditation guide.
4. URL Slugs
A URL slug is the way a CMS, such as WordPress, creates dynamic URL's for your blog posts. Typically, you'll get a URL with a post number or date, which is a no-go. Enable custom permalinks using this code:
/%postname%/
This will turn "10 Ways to become a Better Blogger" into:
http://myblog.com/10-ways-to-become-a-better-blogger, which is much more SEO friendly. Of course, the issue here occurs when you have obscure titles, like:
"5 Reasons why I think you should stop blogging"
In this case, consider building a better URL by changing the default permalink to something like:
/5-reasons-stop-blogging
It's much easier to remember for one, and it's more powerful for SEO.
5. Change Uncategorized
I can't believe how many bloggers I see that forget to change the default WordPress category from Uncategorized to something more valuable. If your blog is about travel tips, change the default category to travel, and then add more relevant categories.
Though the categories aren't crucial for page 1 rankings, they do help, and having an uncategorized category does much more harm than good. It's a simple fix, make it happen ASAP.
Yeah, SEO isn't any fun unless you work for an SEO firm, but that doesn't mean you should ignore it. Using these 5 tips, you can dramatically increase your SEO ability, and once you get good with this, you'll do it 2nd nature, which is when you can pick up a few more SEO techniques.
Remember, the key to being a good blogger is to always be learning.
