Optimise your Blog for SERPS in Google’s Blog Search with SEO Must Haves for Blogs
Search engine optimisation consultants always advise a website owner to have at least one keyword optimised blog to optimise a website for competition in the top search engine result pages (SERPS). But a blog doesn’t always have to play second fiddle. Search engine optimisation must prepare a blog for blog search engines so the blog can thrive on its own when it enters domains where blogless pages are exiled from search results.
SEO consultants will always tell you that you need a blog for search engine optimisation. The 2008 State of the Blogosphere study reported eMarketer statistics that half the Internet users read blogs, and although numbers vary, there are at minimum 70 million blogs on the Internet in the US alone. As long as Internet users like blogs, Google will like blogs. Google has even created a search engine and search engine patents for blogs alone. Search engine optimisation for blogs should not be an afterthought.
Google search engine patents provide guidance on search engine optimisation for blogs. The 2007 Google patent number 20070061297, which holds the unassuming title of “Ranking Blog Documents, lists positive and negative blog quality indicators. Popularity, links, pagerank, and frequency of updates are included, as they are in Google’s algorithms for their primary search engine. But blogs also needed to be optimised for their unique attributes in order to rate in blog search results.
Blogrolls “associated with other blog documents” are specifically mentioned separately from “links from other documents” as a positive quality indicator, although both of these mannerisms of linking are listed as positive indicators. It is possible that an incoming link from a blogroll may have more weight in a blog-only search engine. Whether it does or not, search engine optimisation for blogs should always include a link analysis of the blog’s blogroll. Google will be looking for inbound links from quality blogrolls, and from trusted bloggers as positive indicators. Google also mentions that references to the blog from emails and chat transcripts are a positive indicator of quality content.
Google will also be looking at blog feeds. Blogs with high blog feed subscription rates are more likely to show up higher in the SERPS, however Google will also look at unique visitors and IP addresses to weed out scammers and spammers. Google frowns on advertising. The quantity and location of ads in a blog are evaluated. Too many ads and ads posted inside a blog post is seen as a negative quality indicator.
Another search engine optimisation feature that should not be overlooked is the use of tagging. Tagging is popularly used in social bookmarking. A keyword tagging strategy that crosses social bookmarking websites and blogs can be used for search engine optimisation. Linking strategies that tie high PR websites with your blog will also significantly increase the chances of your blog showing up in the top SERPS.
Search engine optimisation for blogs must also take into consideration the frequency of posts and the size of posts. A burst of several short posts will be seen negatively, as will a steady flow of posts that are identical in size. These negative indicators were expressly added to reduce the chance of spam showing up in the blog search SERPS.
Search engine optimisation for blogs can effectively place a supportive blog into top search engine result pages from a blog search, potentially increasing website viewership by millions. To fully optimise your website, optimise your blogs for blog search engines.