In our last post, we talked about how to search and install a theme and plugins on your wordpress blog. Therefore today, I will be sharing with you how to make your new blog to be SEO friendly. SEO simply means Search Engine Optimization; this is a very vital part of a blog which every blogger should not ignore. If your blog is well optimized, then you will be getting lots of Search Engine traffic and vice-versa.
However, one major thing I notice a lot of new blogger’s do is not make their website URL’s search engine friendly which is the easiest source of traffic. If you look at your first blog post URL, it will be Domain.com/?p=1 when you really want it to say something like YourDomain.com/how-to-make-your-links-seo-friendly.
You want your URL’s and blog post titles to be what you expect people to be searching in Google, not something that always sounds good; a mix of both usually goes down well!
To make your links search engine friendly like I just said, login to your WordPress Admin area and on the left side, click Settings and then Permalinks. Select Custom Structure and put the code /%postname%/ – This will now make your blog post link’s SEO friendly.
Another essential SEO change is your page title and description, you can use a FREE plugin called All in One SEO Pack to do this but as you guys are just starting, you may just want to edit these details from your WordPress Admin by clicking General under Settings.
It is really important to choose the right page title, if you look at my blog Topbloggingcoach.com, you will notice that the title is “Proven Strategies for running a Successful Internet Business” – it explains what the website is all about and it has my 6 more important keywords and you should do the same.
For example, If your domain is Relationshiptips.com and is about Love and Relationship, then you don’t want your title to be Relationship Tips but rather Learn how to Improve your Relationship.
Furthermore, You also have a Blogroll on your blog, this is a great way to start building links and traffic to your website. Find about 5 to 10 blogs just like yours and ask them to link to your site and you will do the same for them. You can add or edit your blogroll by clicking Links in the sidebar of your WordPress Admin.
It is also important to have a SEO friendly link, so instead of getting them to have the link as “Relationshiptips” ask them to put the text as ” Learn how to Improve your Relationship “.
If you are interested in learning more about Search Engine Optimization, then visit Ana Hoffman’s blog by clicking here. She is very good at that.
RSS Feeds and Building Your List
An RSS Feed is basically a reminder for regular readers to alert them when you have a new blog post, this is one of the most important parts of a blog. I use Feedburner to manage all my feed updates, sign up and create a code and update your RSS link to the feedburner one. Feedburner also has an email update script that you can use, when you are logged in at Feedburner.com click Publicize and then Email Subscriptions, they will give you some code and then you can add it as a widget on your blog.
If you want to edit your RSS widget is really very simple, simply login to your WordPress Admin again and click Appearance and then Widgets, drag and drop the text botten to the right sidebar where you want it to be, then paste your email code in and then save the changes. Your readers will now be able to subscribe for updates whenever you add a new post, they will get an email or RSS message alerting them to check your blog out.
Building a List
Ask any Successful Blogger what their biggest blogging mistake was, they will tell you they wish they started building a list sooner! Creating a list is very important and a great way to make money online. Say you had 100 people visit your site a day, you want to get around 10 of them to sign up for your list, that means you can promote your website and products to them in future.
What I do is create an auto responder series which automatically sends them an email every day to encourage them to work harder and make more money online – then I will promote them a product or two. Don’t be scared to promote products to them from day one, after all you only want people who are willing to spend money on your list. But mind you that the list is not always the main thing, you may wonder what I mean by that.
The main thing is to build a lasting relationship with your list. The importance of this cannot be over emphasized because its only when your customers trust you that they will be able to purchase whatever you recommend. Treat the people in your lists as human being that they are and offer them lots of values and they will in turn reward you by trusting and buying from you.
I have built my lists to some extent now and my number one tip for getting readers to opt-in is to offer them something, for example “Download my free ebook that will teach you how to build a profitable Blog from start to finish” – you will believe me that anyone aspiring to create his own blog but don’t know how and where to start from will certainly want to read that and would happily give you his email address to get it.
My friend has built a list for his blog and every time he needs money he will find a product he likes and send his list an email about it and he will earn thousands of dollars! For those of you who will be using your blog to earn money I recommend you look at getting yourself an auto responder to do this. I personally recommend Aweber which charges you about $19 per month but if you don’t have money for that now, then try Mailchimp or Imnica Mail. They both have a great service.
In my next post, I will share with you how to Create new pages and posts for your blog and how to drive traffic to it.
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