Blog Search

Last month, you explored whether starting a blog would be a good idea for your organization. Blogs have their own special search engines Technorati, BlogPulse, and Google Blog Search are the biggest players. Today, you’ll learn how to plan and optimize your blog for success on these specialized sites.

Basics of Blog Optimization

The on-page optimization you’ve already implemented provides a strong start to your search engine presence. But your blog optimization needs to go a few steps further to take advantage of the increased opportunities in search that blogs offer. Since every one of your blog postings can be considered an equally important landing page, optimization rules are best thought of as best practices that apply to every post. Here are a few touch-points. Try to follow as many of them as you can, as often as you can:

• Include keywords in your blog name. Many of your inbound links will use the name of your blog within the linking text, so this will provide a rankings boost.

• On your home page, include a tagline or other permanent text describing the blog. Since blog home page content is always changing, a basic description of your blog will provide consistent text for search engine robots to find.

• Write posting titles that describe the content of the post and form a complete thought. Often, these titles (rather than HTML titles) will be displayed on blog search engines as the clickable text.

• Include keywords in your posting title.

• Include a compelling teaser or summary of the post in the first line of each posting (100–200 characters). Often, this text will be used as the descriptive text in blog search engines or feed readers.

Plug-in Power

Your blog post pages probably have a default HTML title and description built in. But you shouldn’t settle for “default” optimization. We want you to dig deeper into SEO options.

If your authoring tool doesn’t allow you to edit individual HTML titles, get a plug-in that makes it possible. In WordPress, a plug-in called “All-In-One SEO Pack” does the trick. Word on the street is that your HTML title should follow this pattern: {Post Title}:{Blog Title}. But we think it works just as well the other way around. Better yet, take the time to individually write titles and descriptions for each post. This applies to you especially if you tend to give your postings nondescriptive titles like “wow!” (But you should really stop doing that if you’re going for high-quality search listings.)

With title tags squared away, explore more customization options. For example, if you use WordPress to write your blog, here is a sampling of what you can accomplish with free plug-ins:

• Edit each post’s meta description.

• Automatically update your XML Sitemap and ping Google when you write a new post.

• Apply permalink redirection to give your posts search engine–friendly URLs.

• Add a tagging system to your posts. Tags are a snazzy spot for keywords!

• Display content related to the search queries that brought your audience to the blog. (For example, “Searching for ‘wholesale green clay’? You might like this related post…”)

Here are a few places to read up on available options for your blog:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

• http://plugins.movabletype.org/

• http://community.livejournal.com/lj_design/

Blog Promotion

Your blog promotion efforts can range far beyond on-page optimization. If you’re ready to get even more bloggerific, here are a few promotion directions you should explore:

Reach Out. Like any site, your blog needs inbound links. Unlike other types of sites, blogs exist in the midst of a wildly link-happy environment. Last month You know about getting social in your online marketing efforts. For bloggers, this social element is mandatory.

Today, we want you to set a blog outreach goal that feels realistically within your capabilities. Can you join one conversation outside your own blog per week? How about writing one pithy comment a month? If even that sounds too hard, here’s an easier assignment: Once a week, make a point of linking to another blog from one of your posts. Bloggers notice those links and are likely to reciprocate once in a while.

Submit. On yourseoplan.com, you’ll find links to blog and podcast search engines to which you should submit your site. Luckily, these submittals are generally quick and easy. There are no titles and descriptions to craft, just a URL to submit. Pay special attention to specialty lists. Your weekly sermons should be listed at Godcast.com, and your deep-sea fishing advice will fit right in at codcast.net. Just kidding…better try sportsblogs.org.

Make some news. If your blog contains regularly updated, unique, original content, it may qualify to be included on a news search engine such as Google News. Your site will be reviewed by an editor before inclusion, so don’t waste your time or theirs with a submittal unless your content truly is news!

Blog your ’cast. Some podcasting tools include creation of a blog that goes along with your podcast. This is a great opportunity for you to write accompanying text for your podcast or videoblog files.

Account for yourself. We think all bloggers should set up accounts on major social media sites (del.icio.us, digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and so on), as well as any blog search engines that will let you. Take advantage of the opportunity to brand your profile with details about your blog and links to your blog posts. Technorati will even allow you to officially “claim” your blog and take some control over how your blog listings look in search results on the site.

Feeding a Hungry Web

Most blogging tools will automatically create a feed, which is simply a text file listing information (title, description, permalink, and so on) about each of your posts. Originally developed for syndicating content, feeds are now a major distribution venue for all web content, with some savvy consumers ditching the surfing part of their web experience altogether and opting to let content come directly to them via a feed.

There are zillions of ways to optimize and promote your feed. Lucky for you, one website ties them all together: Google-owned FeedBurner.com. If you have a feed, set up an account at FeedBurner and follow their advice to the T.