1. Blog & Feed
Search SEO
www.seocertification.org.in

2. Optimizing for Blog & Feed Engines
 Yahoo News & Blog Search
– Sorted by relevance. Only top 4 get onto News SERPs
 Google Blog Search
– Sorted by relevance. No way to submit. Only a matter of time before it ends
up in the “One Box”
 Technorati
– Sorted by date. Tagged posts featured in sidebar.
 Feedster
– Sorted by date.
 PubSub
– No immediate SERPs. Delivered only in RSS.
www.seocertification.org.in

11. Optimizing Your Feeds
 Full text, not summaries
 20 or MORE items (not just 10)
 Multiple feeds (by category, latest comments, comments by post)
 Keyword-rich item <title>
 Your brand name in the item <title>
 Your most important keyword in the site <title> container
 Compelling site <description>
 Don’t put tracking codes into the URLs (e.g. &source=rss)
 An RSS feed that contains enclosures (i.e. podcasts) can get into
additional RSS directories & engines
www.seocertification.org.in

14. Slashdot
headlines
syndicated
on
Nanodot.org

19. www.seocertification.org.in

22. Optimizing Your Blog
 Rejig your internal hierarchical linking structure
– Tag clouds & tag pages (e.g. UltimateTagWarrior plugin)
– Related Posts (e.g. Contextual Related Posts plugin)
– Top 10 posts
– Next & Previous posts
 Build inbound links
– Add Technorati tags to your posts (must claim your blog first)
– Get onto bloggers’ blogrolls
– Trackbacks & comments won’t help with link gain
www.seocertification.org.in

25. Tags point
to Technorati
tag pages
Tags point to
internal tag
pages

26. This tag page
contains
post content

29. This tag page
contains no
post content
No tag cloud
on sub pages

33. Optimizing Your Blog
 Title tags
– Blog name at the end of the title, not at the beginning
– Tag name should go in title on a tag page
– Customize with additional keywords for display only on your
home page
– Override title tags w/ custom one (“SEO Title Tag” plugin)
 URLs
– Rewrite to contain keywords, hyphens not underscores
– 301 redirect from yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com
– Maintain legacy URLs even after switching blog platforms
www.seocertification.org.in

35. #8 for “web
marketing
blog” after
creating a
custom title
for the home
page

36. Great name
for the blog!

39. “SEO Title Tag” plugin for WordPress
 Free & open source
 Allows you to override the title tag with a custom one (defined
through a custom field in a post or a page)
 Allows you to define a custom home page title
 Reverses the order of the blog name and the title, or drop the
blog name altogether, or replace it with a shorter nickname
 Puts the tag in the title of (UltimateTagWarrior) tag pages
 Uses category’s description as the title on category pages
 Has an Options page in the admin to change settings
 Download at www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin.htm
www.seocertification.org.in

40. Optimizing Your Blog
 Anchor text
– Make the post’s title a link to the permalink page
– Use Neat-o tool (webuildpages.com/neat-o) to look for opportunities to
request revisions to anchor text on inbound links
– Internally link back to old, relevant posts within the body of a blog post.
Don’t use “here” or “previously” etc. as the anchor text!
 Heading tags
– category name on category page
– Yes for post titles, no for dates!
www.seocertification.org.in

41. Neat-o tool

42. Post title is anchor text

43. Optimizing Your Blog
 “Sticky” posts
– Always appear at the top of the page
– A way to add keyword-rich intro copy to a category page or
tag page
– e.g. Adhesive plugin
 Author profile pages & author links (for group blogs)
www.seocertification.org.in

44. Sticky post

45. Author profile

46. Optimizing Your Blog
 Emphasis tags within posts (bold, strong, etc.)
 Rel=Nofollow
– All links in trackbacks, comments, and in posts where you
don’t vouch for the site
– Where the link would be reciprocal
 Pings
– Lets the feed search engines know you’ve updated
– pingomatic.com, pingoat.com, pings.ws, feedshot.com
www.seocertification.org.in

47. Blog SEO
 It’s child’s play!
My daughter,
SEO-in-training
www.seocertification.org.in

49. #10 for “neopet
cheats” within
2 weeks, and
with only 1 link!

50. More Gritty Details about RSS
 1-click subscribe buttons
 “Add to My Yahoo” link in SERPs
 Tracking
 Customization
 Link gain
www.seocertification.org.in

51. Make It Easy to Subscribe
 1-click add to your favorite aggregator
– “Add to ____” buttons
– Link tags for autodiscovery
• e.g. <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3"
href="http://feeds.stephanspencer.com/scatterings" />
– Make your listings in the Yahoo! SERPs display the “Add to
My Yahoo!” link
www.seocertification.org.in

52. “Add to My Yahoo!” link in SERPs
 Add your feed to your My Yahoo! Page
 Ping Yahoo! with your updates
– e.g. http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping?
u=http://www.whatever.com/rss)
– Or just use Pingomatic
 More info at
– http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers
.html
www.seocertification.org.in

53. Track Subscriber Behavior
 Subscribers from User-Agent field in log files
– e.g. User-Agent: Bloglines 2.0 (182 Subscribers)
 Reads through “web bugs”
– e.g. <img
src="http:www.company.com/cp/.5424Cafaa903cf09ecafb231
662ca053c4c56” border=0 size=1 width=1>
 Clickthroughs through clicktracked URLs
– e.g. http://www.company.com/rss.php?
88288Cafaa903cf09ecafb231662ca053c4c56
www.seocertification.org.in

54. Personalized/Customized Feeds
 Best practice for users
– Subscription form with interests tickboxes
– Allow the user to stay anonymous if they so choose
– Give them the option of subscribing via RSS, or email, or both
 Personalized feeds not ideal from an SEO standpoint
– Because you’re not reinforcing the same items across
multiple sites.
– Offer standardized feeds for your affiliates, other webmasters.
Make keyword-rich as a value-add.
www.seocertification.org.in

55. Subscribe to
a feed
personalized
to you
www.seocertification.org.in

56. Capture the Link Gain
 Encourage links through RSS directories/engines
submission (www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/),
trackbacks, pings (Technorati, Pingomatic,…),
 Clicktrack your links and pass the link gain
– 301 (“permanent”) redirect, not 302, or link gain may not flow
– Most ads and affiliate links suffer this fate
– Warning: Feedburner use 302, not 301
 Pay attention to each item title; it’ll become link text
 Keep your RSS feed URL at your own domain
www.seocertification.org.in

57. Taking It Further
 Great ebook: Unleash the Marketing & Publishing
Power of RSS (Marketingstudies.net)
 MarketingProfs.com’ Thought Leaders Summit on blogs
for marketing
– email me for a free copy of the executive summary, podcast,
and transcript: sspencer@netconcepts.com
 Download the Powerpoint from
– http://www.netconcepts.com/learn/blog-feed-search-seo.ppt
www.seocertification.org.in

58. Thank You!
www.seocertification.org.in