Ah the dreaded SEO chat. Rewind a year or so ago and I had no clue what SEO was and everything that comes along with it. But after taking my blog down a more professional route and making an income from it, SEO has become vital for me and my blog.
I'm still no expert and definitely find a lot of the more in depth stuff really confusing, but hopefully this little guide will break down the basics for any new bloggers struggling to get to grasps with SEO.
SEO:
It seems obvious to start with the most basic term, SEO.
SEO literally means 'Search Engine Optimisation'.
Essentially, what that means is trying to increase the chance of your site being ranked higher in search engines. Which in turn, leads to more traffic to your blog.
DOMAIN:
Your domain is where your site can be found, so mine for example is www.territalks.co.uk.
When first creating a blog, most people won't have a custom domain e.g www.territalks.blogspot.com and their domain will be hosted by another site.
A custom domain can be bought later on for a more professional look and feel to your site.
DA SCORE:
DA stands for Domain Authority, which refers to how well your site is ranked in search engines.
Your DA Score can be checked using MOZ, and will be out of 100. The higher your score the better. There are various ways to improve your DA Score, but more on that later.
It's worth noting, that DA Scores only apply to blogs with custom domains. If your domain is 'blogspot.com' for example, your score will not be accurate.
BACKLINKS:
Backlinks (sometimes referred to as Inbound Links), are pretty simple and are essentially a link from one site to another.
Whether it be linking to another bloggers post, linking a product you recently bought, or linking the hotel you stayed at, these sites will now all have backlinks coming from your blog.
DO FOLLOW & NO FOLLOW LINKS:
This is an important one for those of you who work, or are looking to work with brands.
DO FOLLOW: A link that contributes to your DA Score, and improves page ranking in search engines. So, if you link a pair of shoes, the brand will have a credible do follow link, increasing their ranking in search engines. This is the default link option.
NO FOLLOW: A link that doesn't contribute to your DA Score. When linking those shoes, if you choose to use a No Follow Link, it essentially 'doesn't count' towards their ranking and doesn't boost their site it any way.
No Follow Links are often used when working with brands as Google can see this as a non genuine link as you received an incentive to feature the product/brand.
ANCHOR TEXT:
Anchor text is the clickable text used when adding a link.
So for example, if I wrote 'You can find more helpful blogging tips on my blog.' The phrase 'blogging tips' contains the relevant link, and is therefore the Anchor Text.
META DESCRIPTION:
A Meta Description is a short description of your post that appears underneath the title in search engines.
These are important as it is essentially giving a brief idea of what to expect if they click your link.
ALT TAGS:
Alt Tags are tags that describe an image, so it can appear in search engines.
If you think about it, search engines are basically blind. If you post a photo of a lipstick, Google can't see that to categorise it or add a description.
If you add all relevant tags, and someone searches 'Rimmel Lipstick Review' for example, your image may just come up in their search, and essentially gain you more traffic to your site.
Think of it like Instagram, you have to add the relevant tags for your photo's to be seen by other users.
And that wraps up this post! Hopefully this was useful to some of you struggling with SEO and the basics of it. Once you can wrap your head around it all, it's not too scary. It's all just a learning process, like I said previously, there are still a lot of things I don't fully understand. But one day, I'll get there.
If you're unsure of something or have any questions, feel free to comment them below.
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