10 SEO Tips for Beginners to Make Your Blog #1 In Search Results

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Looking for the best SEO tips for beginners to get #1 results on Google?

Question 1:  Have you tried everything you can to get traffic to your blog, but not getting much results?

Question 2: Do you ever wonder why your blog is not getting much traffic, while others seem to get hundreds or even thousands of unique visits every month?

Question 3: What makes your blog shrinking and how to get more traffic and #1 place in Google search results.

Curious to know?

You can’t do anything without having huge traffic, can you? Then what’s the best way to bring massive traffic to your blog?

Surely with the help of search engines via organic or natural traffic. It’s the easy and smart way to get free traffic to your blog.

Did you notice that only few blogs get #1 search results in the search engine results almost every time?

How to get it done for your blog too then?

You can do this with the help of quality backlinks and better search engine optimization techniques.

First things first, let’s begin from the bottom.

What Is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality of web traffic to your blog or website from search engines through “Organic/natural” way for targeted keywords.

What are targeted keywords?

Targeted keywords are the “Specific Keywords” which you use to expose your blog content i.e to give more importance to few keywords which people may search most often on Google to reach your blog.

Now coming to the main part..

SEO Tips for beginners to Make Your Blog No.1 In Search Results

1. Getting high quality inbound links

Inbound links or incoming links play a major role in making your blog search engine friendly and giving top search results to your blog.

Let’s assume, if a PR 6 blog linked one of your posts, then the chances of getting exposure will be really high.

It will increase your organic traffic, better search results and gives quality backlinks to your blog. Moreover it increases your PR too. One shot, two birds.

That’s why writing high quality content is more important than any other for a blog to get #1 search results.

2. Keep your URL’s short and sweet

Why you need to make your URL structure short?

Smart question..

I will show you in a pictorial way to better understand this, before that you need to know the difference between better URL structure and bad URL structure..

Worst URL structure:

http://www.yourURLsucks.com/20012/04/10/about/p=?5874

Directory URLOptimized (better) URL:

http://www.yourURLrocks.com/post-title/

Best URL structure

If you use the worst URL which is lengthy (in general) then the search engine crawlers find it difficult to find them. It takes extra time to find your content and chances of getting your #1 page search results will be less.

OK then..

How to optimize your URL’s?

Go to:

WP-admin >> Settings >> Permalinks

Now click on, “Custom structure”

and type or paste this:

/%postname%/

You are done! It’s the most optimized URL structure for your blog which gets crawled easily.

3. Always interlink to your old blog posts

Interlinking your new blog posts with the old blog posts is an effective way to reduce the bounce rate. It also increases the chances of getting #1 place in search results.

Don’t use irrelevant links to your blog. Make them relevant and use them effectively.

You may interlink 1 to 3 in least case (for every blog post you write)

Even you can use more than 3 (if your content is too lengthy and where it’s appropriate to interlink with your previous posts)

4. Don’t be selfish, include at least one outbound link to the authority blog in your niche:

Outbound linking means “giving links to other blog(s) from your blog posts”.

This can actually help your blog’s performance in the search engines!! But, how?

Whenever you provide a link to authority blogs or other blogs,  you will get a trackback and in some cases, your search engine ranking and visibility may increase due to that particular post. But, you should consider few things while doing outbound linking.

Precautions while doing outbound linking –

Try to make it “nofollow”

Don’t over link to the external sites/blogs. Even if you want to link, simple include their link without giving the “link address”.

Ex: If you want to link to seomoz.org. Instead of giving a link to it, try to write seomoz.org/5-tips-to-die ;) Just remove the link and everything else will be fine.

Benefits of doing outbound linking is, you can have a healthy relationship with whom you are linking to and there may be a chance of getting links from them in return (if they are from authority blogs, then your blog ranking, visibility will be up in the sky :) but the chances are less though). But, you should have some respect on the authority blogs and be generous to linking them when ever it’s needed.

It will surely help your business in long run.

5. Build quality backlinks

The more quality backlinks you have the more authority it is. Backlinks are  just like ‘votes’. Most bloggers believe that, backlinks from low rated PR blogs is not good – it’s a myth actually.

It’s like ‘voting system’. No matter from where you are getting, but they worth. But, not in the case of buying the backlinks  :P(never buy the backlinks from anywhere – Google penalizes for sure and Google is smarter than us)

How you can get quality backlinks to your blog then?

Few ways are(I will make this as brief as possible)

  • Blog commenting: Comment on top blogs in your niche. Try to make useful and insightful comments.
  • Guest blogging: Guest blog on other blogs in your niche. Try to start from the small blogs like PR1 or PR2 and slowly increase the pace. I would suggest you to guest blog at least on 3 or more blogs in a month.
  • Participating in forums: This is another way to build quality backlinks. Try to find out the forums which are related to your blog’s topic and participate there actively and submit your blog posts regularly.
  • Article marketing: Submit your best content to article directories like;
      • www.GoArticles.com
      • www.Article99.com
      • www.ValuableContent.com
      • www.EzineArticles.com
      • www.eHow.com
      • www.ArticleDashBoard.com

6. Search engine friendly design

Try to use search engine friendly design. A Better search engine optimized blog design always makes the search results better and effective. The major point here is, you can get better search results if you have search engine friendly design even if you don’t know much about SEO!! That’s the key-point here.

If possible, try to purchase Thesis or Genesis as soon as possible (I will be purchasing Thesis next month – I will tell you why I am going for Thesis instead of Genesis in my next article – hopefully)

Customize yourself(if you know coding) or hire a professional(this is better) or buy a SEO friendly theme skins :)

7. Keywords play essential role

Keywords should be used in a smart way. No over usage or less usage!

Title tags are really important. Use Keyword tool to analyze the competitive keywords in your blogging niche. If you find it bit tough to use, then use “Google insights tool”. Here is a screen shot for the keyword “seo tips”..

Google insights tool

 

At the end of the above image, you will see “top searches” which will be useful for your blog article keywords, quite easy isn’t it?

8. Getting unique visitors through quality content

What if your blog is perfectly optimized and has everything except the quality content?

Your blog sucks…

So, try to create quality content. Here are few tips on creating it..

Quality content means, it should be

  • Valuable: Your content must be valuable, it should add value to your blog.
  • Unique: Your content should not be copied from any other source and it should have compelling content writing skills.
  • Fresh content: Most of the times, search engines prefer fresh content rather than the old or repeated content. Try to update your blog often if you can. If not, update it ‘regularly’ (not daily) with engaging content..

9. Make your blog loading time faster

Do you know Google considers blog’s loading time to give higher rankings for specific keywords?

Yes, it does..

It will help to boost organic traffic from search engines for specific keywords which you use for your blog posts. So, try to make your blog loading time faster using the following methods.

    • Optimize your images before you use: Many expert bloggers have suggested to optimize the images to make your blog loads faster. What I say  is to optimize them before you use them. Use image compressors to do this.  Instead of uploading your images and compressing them using post editors, this is the best way to go.
    • Cut the clutter: Don’t make your blog an ad agency and never use useless widgets and plugins. Use the best plugins, try to clear the clutter in your blog as much as possible.
    • Use better hosting: Instead of using free or nonsense hosting providers. Use the top class hosting providers like HostGator. Better hosting ultimately makes your blog’s loading time better.
    • W3 Cache: This is the best WP plugin to clear the cache in your blog. This is the gift to WP power users like you and me :)

10. Use the following methods effectively

Submit your sitemap: Submit your blog sitemap to search engines.

Use the ALT tag always: Search engines like Google, Yahoo! uses separate bots to find the images! But these bots don’t crawl as often they crawl your content. What you need to keep in mind is, they will crawl even the images. So, it’s really a bad idea if you use weird names for your images like “0000155.jpg” or “asdaegljadfg.png” etc. Instead of this, name your images corresponding to your blog posts.

Always use alt tags: Here is an excellent WP plugin on this which I came across:

SEO Friendly Images automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images improving traffic from search engines.

Download

Search engines are blind and deaf – So, use them “smart”: Search engines can’t see your videos as we see, they can’t listen to the podcasts as we do. What they only do is – they perform their crawling in text format.

If you have any doubt – once view “page source” does it include videos or only text?

So, create great and in-depth content for your blog along with the ‘regular’ creation of your videos or podcasts.

 

Bonus tips:

Use XML sitemap, add rel=”nofollow” to the external links, never buy links to increase your PR, use images to get traffic.

Note: If you are a newbie blogger who have just started, just concentrate on creating the content which is interesting, unique and useful rather than worrying about SEO and search results.

In summary, write quality, unique and authoritative content, try to increase quality backlinks to your blog because Google loves authority blogs.

Small Note: Most of my blogging buddies asking me that why are you not posting daily and you are not even coming to online on facebook, twitter or chat. What the hell are you doing then?

Here’s the answer..

I am working on creating useful content and I believe that great content always takes time to produce, and one shouldn’t get distracted while creating the ‘master piece’. Another major reason is, I have my B.Tech final semester exams this month(I am currently pursuing computer science engineering), and they will be finished on 4th May. So, till then I can’t produce much content. After finishing my exams, I promise, I will be a full time blogger and can produce more useful content every month(professional bloggers, beware of Rahul :P)

I don’t know whether I am doing right or wrong(not posting daily – publishing only when I think it’s a better content). But I am pretty sure that Rahul(hey that’s me) is happy. I don’t worry about the results.

“Just do your work and don’t worry about the results” – this is my philosophy, quite good, isn’t it? :D

OK I should be thankful for you to reading my stuff and YOU are the ultimate judge to tell me whether this content is useful or not.

Do you have any more SEO tips for beginners in 2018? Do share them below. I’ll respond to most of the comments, because I love them

85 thoughts on “10 SEO Tips for Beginners to Make Your Blog #1 In Search Results”

  1. I have a lot to say. You talked a lot about getting links, As far as I know and what experts suggest is, to get links from blogs of the same niche. Cutts says that getting or giving links to blogs of any niche is not suggested, it may be deemed as SPAM! Another fact that you mentioned here is about PR, which I think is not useful at all. This site itself has no PR and yet is scoring well! But please don’t be expecting three-fold traffic when it increases. Another point is the enormously growing importance of plus. We may ignore it, but Google has something different on the cards, after all it also has to stay in the competitive arena and prove itself efficient. Anyway, I liked your honest approach and as you plan to become a full-timer, may luck be with you :)

    • Welcome to my blog

      Hmm I like your insightful comment Sam. I am not a SEO expert and I really have a lot to learn about SEO, I’ll consider your suggestions.
      Yeah I am hearing a lot of buzz about Google+ these days, it’s really essential to grow.
      And thanks for your comment, I want to see more comments from you. BTW I don’t believe in luck, it’s just a fuck :)

  3. well done, Rahul, now you’re really doing a great job with your blog, I’m sure this post will help a lot of new bloggers learning about SEO.

    Thanks so much :)

  4. Really great effort Rahul. I have chosen many points like inter linking, Don’t over link and image seo. Surly this post will change my seo strategy.

  5. Kudos . . . Awesome Writing Rahul… Nice tips for newbie Bloggers. I will share it with my frnds who just started his Blogging Career and i think they need it . . .
    Thanks for sharing it Bob.

  6. Hey, I dint get you buddy. Do you mean getting a link from PR 7?
    Is it so.. then there are many ways as I said above to get organic traffic. One can’t stupidly depend on high PR blogs to get traffic right? Let me clear if I’m wrong..

  7. My Two cents, never over optimize the keywords in your blog posts always maintain a healthy ratio of less than 3% for stuffing keywords.. It helps a lot..

  8. Kudos for this post Rahul. Just wanted to add to number 3. Many people remember to link back to older blog posts when creating a new one. It is also good practice to link to your new post from older related articles also. If the link comes from an indexed and well ranked post the benefits are good for SEO.

  11. Great tips Rahul but now a days it’s very hard to make number #1.I agree blog commenting and forum was helpful before last updates but I don’t think it now helpful.I really found helpful specially Pinterest because now Google give more importance to images.

    • That’s new problem now, Rizwan, I’m feeling bad after Google panda update for April 2012, too many things have changed :(

    • I do agree that any article from newbie blogs is really tough to maintain #1 place in search engines. But, one need to try to sustain their blogs at least one year, then Google will take care of the rankings :)

  12. Complete SEO guide. Very nice. No words! I liked inserting your Note at the last. Its right that to creat master piece it takes time.

  14. You have almost cover all the essential things of seo in these 10 tips, nice post:)
    I must say you have great writing skills, its difficult to manage the length of post by keeping the relevancy with topic.

  15. I’m using the permalink structure with category, do you think it is good for SEO?
    I’m trying to optimize some keywords for better ranks as well but it is really not easy. Maybe my niche is too competitive.

    • Yeah, it’s a better way for your “Tech” blog. Because, you need regular updates with your blog. So, it’s a better choice to put, permalink structure with “category”. I just saw it, it’s looking good and good for SEO too.

  16. Hi Rahul,

    You have an excellent voice, however I have one thing to say is that submitting one article to many article marketing sites placing a huge impact on pagerank.

    Thanks – Ferb

  17. Hi Rahul,

    Here I am like I said I would be. Your articles are well-written and you show a lot of talent and good information in what you write.
    Of course, there are mistakes, but these are typical of someone whose first language isn’t English. I’m an experienced editor, so if you need some of your main pages edited let me know.

    Your comment love isn’t working for me. Is this because my linked blog is on Blogger?

  18. hi Rahul, i think this is the best tips for any blogger. url make short and sweet is the important and make them creative it’s like a good attraction for people.

  20. Hey Rahul,

    Great article and very well written. I appreciate your writing.

    Buckets of useful information.

  22. This is one of the most helpful article of your blog Rahul, Really amazing SEO article. You are doing great job Rahul
    Happy Blogging.

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  24. Hi guys, am a newbie blogger.. You have explained how to optimize url’s for WP.. but i’m using Blogger.. can you please tell me how to do that in blogger? Any help will be very much appreciated.

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  29. Well its clear that Seo is the main thing from which we get free traffic and following white hat seo tips will gain more traffic from google. The main point i love in your posts is unique content which is very important to easy traffic.

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  33. I have read some good stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how so much effort you place to create one of these excellent informative website.

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  36. really like your tip about making url short and sweet. first the time stamp url is the best url configuration according wordpress.org website. second what for blogspot and tumblr users, there is no such option for them. third, the permalink %postname% setting makes the wordpress site go slow and not advisable for large sites to use it because of data redundancy. though the setting is being best suited for small sites.

  37. I think today there are lots of seo experts who knows the basic SEO and they just keep building links. But now situation has changed. Only those websites will get top ranking in search engine who pass the search engine filter. So try to build quality backlinks with a good speed (like 10-15 backlinks daily) from high pr website. And keep use more keywords as anchor text.

  38. please am a beginner in blogging and i really love your blog and most of it’s contents. I wish to learn more on blogging from you all. I will be glad if you help check my blog and identify errors i need to improve on. The blog is http:www.etechvilla.blogspot.com

  39. Preparing your blog for authorship (via the rich snippets tool) for a Google+ account and verifying it with a contributor link can do wonders for a blogger. Use inviting post titles and link to your content at every opportunity using Twitter and Facebook. Look out for people asking questions and see if you have a relevant blogpost that might help, or create a post if you can see the potential. Hope this helps.

  40. Rahul,

    Thanks for the share. Your statement for SEO is very clear for me now. these day I lost totally for this kind of link building stuff. I’m a beginner, so that’s why…

    Anyway I very your blog.. is like a library for me to find my answer here.
    Thanks
    B.R
    Sean

  41. hi admin, according to this post i have worst URL structure and after reading this post, i want to change my url to better, i just want to ask , did this shifting affect my old posts???

  42. I totally agree with you. Especially with #4 (Don’t be selfish…). Some people tend to ignore this. But in building outbound links, these websites should be relevant to your topic. Otherwise, they would appear spammy. :( Another thing, these outbound links should have good domain authorities. Try posting outbound links to relevant .edu and .gov blogs .:)

  43. Yes, but I want to ask , Is Timestamp removed in blog post is good for SEO? because I have met many blogs that timestamp is removed. I am still confused about timestamp.

  44. Nice Post,
    But one thing I want to say is – Some times I saw some blog links appears in google results just after it posted on blog, result contains the term “2 hour ago”.
    I want to know the secret behind it. Can my post also get listed just after I publish them ?

    Please help me on this issue.

    • Google always love FRESH contents. That’s why they might give sometimes those results. But ultimately the pages with QUALITY backlinks will get the top results

  46. hey rahul really great post ………. i want to share my experience with you …..
    when i started my first blog then i was facing much traffic issue then someone of my friends told me that start creating backlinks it would increase your traffic. i started to create backlinks and reached above 100 backlinks only in 20 days.
    after doing this great effort google banned my blog.
    that was the reward i got :(

  47. sometimes i see that my website is getting about 800 hits per day for approx 10 days and suddenly hits decreased to 200 per day. what reason can be behind it?

  49. Thanks for tips. So happy to be catching up with all of your exploits! Always looking for these kinds of great content and information over the internet. Really very appreciating. Keep it up Thanks!!

  52. Hi there, Nice tips.
    One thing to add to internal links. I am doing it as recommended by Brian Dean (backlinko). On every 1000 words of post, 4 internal links to previous posts and 2 outbound links to relevant and authority sites.
    Lately I am practicing even more internal links – as they come naturraly to my context.
    Regards, Matija

  53. Amazing tips provided by you that will be useful for new blogger. I will follow these tips whenever I will make my next blog. But I want to ask one thing that How many older blogs’s link should use in new blog?
    And thanks for post…….

  54. HI, such a nice post. It shows how much you have knowledge on SEO, but you have a reply for one blogger that you are not an SEO expert. Yes, of course! SEO is an ocean we have to be on the update, but this guide was very excellent. I study your guide the way you explained with URL structure, you applied on it was simple to mind blowing. It easy to understand and convey those 10 SEO tips in a superb way. Really I’m struggling to do SEO in the best way but now I find a really useful post to do better SEO.

    Once again thank you so much for shared this Post.

  55. Thank you for sharing knowledge with us . I also think that the content is very important because the content will attract people when the website offers a good knowledge or a required service . Also , the good layout of the content will make people trust of the website .

  56. Once again, got to see a good post by your side. I get to learn a lot from reading your posts. I correct mostly mistakes after reading your posts. I hope one day my blog will got rich traffic.
    Thanks again

  57. Amazing, detailed and useful. Thx for that. As Slovenian blogger on furniture SEO slovenian market, I think the first point if probably the most important. I have lost so much time in writing articles on keywords, nobody is searching for. In the past, I wrote 86 articles on furniture, and got traffic not even to 10 per day. Afterwards I started to study SEO and realized that one of most important thing in truly proper keyword research. With it: I am ranking third with my site, here in Slovenia. This is my site: http://serplifypro.com/

  59. Good article. I liked it. Blogging is a rapidly growing business domain as many people entering it on daily basis. I personally felt that this business requires a lot of patience to succeed. I suggest writing meaning article and building link carefully else google is there to penalize your website.

    Thanks for sharing

  61. Thank you for this post – it provides ongoing value and resources for getting SEO right! What are your thoughts on the role of Video for SEO? Video SEO optimization as well as video content marketing seems to play more and more of a role on page one visibility. Would you agree?

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