I think it’s fair to say that for anyone starting their own blog who doesn’t have previous experience within SEO, would believe it’s a case of setting the website up and then simply uploading content as and when you like. Great content is obviously one of the main factors which help towards creating a successful blog, but what most people aren’t aware of is that most of the hard work is done behind the scenes.
For any bloggers reading this post, we’ve all been in the same boat where the thought of search engine optimisation (SEO) can be extremely daunting. Like with anything you experience for the first time, it can be hard to get your head around at first but once you’ve experimented and practised the processes over and over again, it becomes second nature. I can totally sympathise with anyone who’s being put off the idea of creating a blog solely because the SEO side of blogging is too overwhelming.
If you’re a first time blogger and asking yourself what is SEO? Or even if you’ve been blogging for a while now and you’re not the most confident person when it comes to using certain processes for your blog, I thought I’d share some of the simple ways in which you can help increase your blog’s domain authority and improve its online visibility.
Internal linking
If you’re using a platform like WordPress for your blog, then you’ll know that you can view how many people have viewed your blog posts. It’s great to know how many people are viewing your posts but ideally, you want your readers to view a range of your content. The best way to do this is to include internal links within your posts. Whenever you write a new piece of content, add one or two links to previous blog posts you’ve published, but make sure they’re relevant to the content you’re sharing now.
Using internal links means your readers are clicking through different pieces of content on your site and it allows them to view previous blog posts which they may not have seen.
Broken links
Whether you’re including internal or external links within your posts, sometimes they can turn into broken links and redirect your readers to an error page. If your blog contain broken links then ideally you need to correct them as it can potentially harm your sites search visibility. There are a number of free broken link checkers online, which allow you to insert your domain and it will complete a search to find any broken links your blog may have. Once it has picked them up, all you need to do is change where the link is directing your reader to.
By doing this your readers will be taken to a live external or internal site, instead of an error page. It’s worth completing a broken link check every couple of weeks or so, to allow you to keep on top of any that may be within your site and before any future updates.
Image alt text
If you’re sharing content on your blog then it’s more than likely you’ll include images to accompany it. When search engines crawl your site, they can’t pick up images along, so it’s best to add alt text to any images you have included. If you add an image into a post without alt text and hover over it, you’ll find something like “IMG25640” appear or something similar. By adding alt text to the image, it means you can change its description so that when you or your readers hover over it, more relevant text will be displayed. For example, if the image was of a meal you’ve had at a restaurant, you could change the alt text to say the name of the meal as it’s shown on the menu.
If this sounds a bit too technical for you then don’t worry. There are a number of step by step guides online, which are really useful and can take you through adding alt text to an image.
Don’t let SEO put you off!
Here I’ve outlined 3 of the many simple processes that can help your blogs SEO to begin with. I hope this post has been of some help to you and it’s important to remember that all bloggers were in the same boat to start with, so don’t be put off. There are an endless number of resources online for first time bloggers or for anyone who wants to brush up on their SEO knowledge, so make good use of them.
It would be great to hear if this post has helped you in anyway or if you have any SEO tips you’d like to share.
This is really helpful; I naively thought writing would just be writing when I started out, starting to realize how getting the post done is only the beginning and often the quicker part!
I also naively thought I could just write and that would be it.
I’m probably not great at SEO yet but I’m working on it, posts like this really help. Thank you for sharing x
I had no idea about some of this when I first started blogging. I now have loads of posts to go back and update.
I recently did a broken link check for the first time. Now I’ve sorted them out in going to do it once a month so hopefully I won’t get a big build up again.
Thank you so much for sharing this post. It’s always a good idea to get as much information as you can to try and succeed in blogging.
Great tips for beginners, I wish I’d done my ALT tags from the beginning. I have so many images now and it’s a pain trying to update them all!
These are brilliant tips for new bloggers and some not so new ones. So kind of you to put this together x
Thanks for this! I am still relatively new and am realising that the world of blogging can be a very long winded process! But I’m still enjoying it and learning a lot too.
Internal and external linking is so important – I once got advice from an SEO agency that you should aim to add three internal and three external quality links. I often add more internal links if I can!
Looks like you found a great spot to enjoy with your family! I haven’t been to the Smoky Mountains but interesting destinations like this are definitely on our list!