10 SEO Tips For New Blogger

n this post I want to share my experience about SEO. Some of you maybe already know very well about SEO technique but let me (the newbie) share my experience about SEO. Hopefully this post can be useful and give you additional information to improve your site rank.

According to Wikipedia, SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Hmm.. I can say SEO like an art to improve our site recognition on search engine, gaining more traffic and to get listed in top ten (or at least in the first page of search engine result's search) in most popular search engine (especially Yahoo and Google). As you can see in the figure below, Yahoo and Google dominate all major search engine on the internet world.

*Note* The picture above taken from www.seomoz.com *Note*

Based on my experience, here are the necessary step / SEO effort that can be usefull for new blogger :

1. Choose Your Template
Not a joke, choose the best template (it depends on blogger's objectives). Some of you might be want to be adsense publisher, so choose the best templates that has good structure for placing your adsense ads. Some of templates are designed and / or already modified by SEO experts, I think it's better to choose SEO friendly templates.
However you can get a good template from Hakimtea

2. Customize Your Templates
Editing your meta tags (usually title, description, keyword and robot) is important before submitting your blog to search engine. It can help search engines to list your sites in their indexes more faster and accurate. I already discuss about meta tags in the previous post. For further explanations about meta tags click here.
Other modifications, for example: adding social bookmark toolbar.. How? Go to addthis.com, get addthis toolbar script and implement the script on your blog.
Changing nofollow attributes to dofollow on comment section can be considered to increase your page impression -> dofollow blog can attract your reader to comment on your blog, because they'll get a free backlink.

3. Getting Indexed
Submit your site link to major search engine. Based on the picture above thus we can say it is very important to submit our site to the leading search engine (that is Google, Yahoo and MSN)
- To submit your site on google, go to : http://google.com/addurl/
- To submit your site on Yahoo, go to : https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
- To submit your site on MSN, go to :
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2
There are several free submit service to submit your site to major search engines. O-OM recommended this site: MyPagerank.net
Other free submit service : http://www.submitexpress.com/
*Note* Use one of them to submit your site, after submit you can resubmit your blog at least in one month *Note*

4. Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories
Recommended directories :
http://www.technorati.com
http://www.blogexplosion.com
http://blog-indonesia.com --> for Indonesian blogger
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.bloghop.com
http://www.blogarama.com/
http://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp
http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
http://www.blog-directory.org/add-blog.php
http://delicious.com/ --> formerly http://www.del.icio.us/

5. Install Alexa Widget & Toolbar
Alexa is a site who give rank for all websites based on the visitors traffic from that's blog or site. This is one of the most accurate freely available tools to find out how well your site ranks up against millions of other sites on the Web.
- Install alexa widget on your blog / website
- Install alexa toolbar on your browser. Download alexa toolbar here
- Write an article about alexa traffic rank and post it in your web site. It will make your web page more SEO friendly for alexa.

6. Keep Update Your Blog
.... hmm can't say anymore just keep your blog up to date.

7. Blogwalking & Exchange link
No doubt that blogwalking is very important to get more traffic. Don't forget to comment on every blog that you've visited. Use url input to submit your blog. Better if you comment on blog that doesn't have nofollow attribute so your blog will be indexed by Google. Exchange link and get backlink with blogs especially the blog that has a high pagerank is very important. You will get a quality backlink if your blog have a backlink from high pagerank blog and have the relevant or same topic with your blog.

8. Social Bookmarking Submissions
You can use free social bookmarking service like www.socialmarker.com
Get a socialbookmarker toolbar from socialmarker.com or addthis.com
It can help you spread a link on the best social bookmarking sites, you'll get a lot of backlinks and it can help you to increase your site's traffic. Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.

9. Create signature on forums / Mailing list
This way suitable for you whom like post on forum / mailing list. Use signature facility to promote your blog. Create brief description to explain your blog so people will interest to click your signature.

10. Ping your blog
Ping services allow you to automatically notify blog directories and search engines that your blog has been updated. There are many free ping service on the net. You can choose one to ping your blog. Here are the list of recommended ping service (according to O-Om):
- http://mypagerank.net/service_pingservice_index
- http://pingomatic.com/
- http://www.pingoat.com/
Note : "Ping your blog only if your blog has been updated"


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
source :http://angga-weblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/10-seo-tips-for-new-blogger.html

SEO Off Page Optimization

s I promised before in the previous post, Now I’ll discuss about SEO Off Page Optimization. When we talk about Off-Page factors we talk about Backlinks (links that point to your website), these include the quantity, quality and strength of links that point to your website. One site that link to your website will consider as "a vote" for your website. The more websites link to your website will be "more votes" which in turn helps to increase "the value or page importance" of your page / homepage, means the more important Google thinks your site is. We can say that off page optimization can increase your PageRank (also your rank position).... it is not easy to get a high PageRank, it takes times... different from SEO On Page, such as content building, keywords, title tag, edit meta tags ...etc, that can perform it in minutes/hours. The key to Off Page SEO is patience – it is about how to build your website’s reputation.

Things you should know to optimize the SEO Off Page

One way, two way and three way backlink
# One way backlink means links on other website pointing at your blog, but there is no link on your blog pointing at that website, for instance, A link to B (one way) then B has a backlink from A and A don’t have any backlink.
# Two way backlink means links from other website/blogs pointing at your blog, but there is link on your blog pointing at that website (reciprocal).
# Three way backlink??... for example A link to B, B link to C and C link to A, each websites (A,B and C) get a one way backlink.
As far as I know, one way backlinks are the best as quality and efficacy to increase your pagerank, though that it is difficult to get one way link. I think the best and easy way to get one way link is through social bookmark sites, just register and bookmark our blog on its social bookmarking site. The other way is give comments on do follow blog.

Quality Content On Your Site
This is the most important... If you have quality content on your website, people will quote your website in their blog as his/her reference article. If they like to read your article they will share your article, bookmark and tell to others about your websites. Use Ping Service after you have updated your content to get fast indexed by search engine.

Anchor Text
Use your keyword as "anchor text" on your link, for example if your blog is about "fresh water fish" and have keywords such as fish, fresh water, aquarium, tropical fish, beautiful fish, then it is better to use anchor text "fresh water fish" or "freshwater aquarium" or "tropical fish". Different anchor text as long as it’s related to your blog content / keyword is very good to build natural backlinks.

Natural Backlink VS Non Natural Backlink
# Non Natural Backlink use 1 (one) anchor text on all backlinks, for example, total backlink = 100, all backlink use "fresh water fish" (100% use the same anchor).
# Natural backlink use different anchor text with different portions also from different IP address, for example, total backlink = 100, 30% use anchor text "fresh water fish", 25% use "tropical fish", 25% use "www.freshwaterfish.com" and 20% use "tropical fish aquarium"... all backlinks are from unique IP address.
Which one is the best? Natural backlink is the best! Use different anchor text for your link and get link from different IP address.

Deep Linking / Natural Inbound Linking
Deep linking is making a hyperlink that points to a specific page on another website, instead of that website's main or home page. It is good to get a deep linking from another websites (not only on the home page). To get a deep linking from another website / blog, I usually give comments on dofollow blog.

Use free directory submission and article submission
This is also still good and effective way to get more backlink.

Build your social reputation
Join and participate in forums, get more backlink by putting your website link on signature.
Join social network, photo / video sharing sites (ex: Facebook, Friendster, Youtube, Twitter, Digg, Flickr, MyBlogLog... etc.) and spread your content / link.
Blogwalking and link exchange with your friends, build your reputations among bloggers and webmasters.
Give a comment on dofollow blog, use different anchor (keyword) for your link... your link will be on specific page, not in the homepage (remember about natural backlink and deep linking!)


from http://angga-weblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/seo-off-page-optimization.html