Google Blogger is a free and easy-to-use web publishing tool. Many bloggers initially use Blogger and then Migrate to WordPress complaining about the lack of official templates, post SEO friendliness, plugins, etc. In this new Blogger SEO guide, you will learn how to optimize your Blogspot blog for search engines. Search engine optimization, or SEO tips, is incredibly important for marketers. When you optimize your web pages including your blog posts you’re making your website more visible to people who are using search engines (like Google) to find your product or service but does your blog content help your business organically rank on search engines?
Factors of Blogger SEO
In this article, you’ll find the answer to this question and more. Get ready for an in-depth exploration into the world of blog SEO, the factors that affect it, and tips to start optimizing your blog site for search engines.
Since you are a Google Blogger user, you don’t have to worry about Bandwidth limits, hacking vulnerabilities, etc. Google covers everything for you. You just need to worry about Improving the traffic to your site and how to make it better and, ultimately, serve better for your readers. Below are other factors that affect Blogger SEO tips.
1. Reading Time
Although dwell time is an indirect ranking factor for Google, it’s a critical factor in the user experience and we know that user experience is paramount when it comes to SEO. In the article, time is the length of time a reader spends on a page on your blog site. From the moment a visitor clicks on your site in the SERP, to the moment they leave the page is considered on screen. This metric indirectly tells search engines like Google how valuable your content is to the reader. It makes sense that the longer they spend on the page, the more relevant it is to them.
However, there’s a reason this metric is an indirect indicator for SEO. The search engine algorithms don’t know your content strategy. Your blog should be focused on short-form content that takes just a minute or two to read. You might also include pertinent information at the beginning of your blog posts to give the best reader experience, which means less time spent on the page. So yes, dwell time can affect SEO, but don’t manipulate your content to change this metric if it doesn’t make sense for your content strategy.
2. Page Load Speed
We mentioned earlier that visual elements on your blog can affect page speed, but that isn’t the only thing that can move this needle. Unnecessary code and overuse of plugins can also contribute to a sluggish blog site. Removing junk code can help your pages load faster, thus improving page speed. If you’re not sure how to find and remove junk code, check out HTML-Cleaner. It’s an easy-to-use tool that doesn’t require coding knowledge. It simply shows you the unnecessary code and lets you remove it with the click of a button. Remember to optimize any graphic content in your articles
I also recommend taking an inventory of your blog site plugins. Decide which ones you need to keep your blog running day-to-day and which ones were installed as a fix for a temporary issue. Plugins that affect the front end of your site are a threat to page speed, and odds are, you can uninstall more of these plugins than you think to increase your overall site speed.
3. Mobile Responsiveness
More than half of Google’s search traffic in the United States comes from mobile devices. On an individual level, your blog site might follow that same trend. There’s no way around it — optimizing your blog site for mobile is a factor that will affect your SEO metrics. But what exactly does it mean to optimize a website for mobile? The industry rule of thumb is to keep things simple. Most pre-made site themes these days are already mobile-friendly, so all you’ll need to do is tweak a CTA button here and enlarge a font size there. Then, keep an eye on how your site is performing on mobile by taking a look at your Google Analytics dashboard and running a mobile site speed test regularly.
4. Post Indexed Date
Search engines aim to provide the most relevant and accurate information available. A factor search engines use when determining what’s relevant and accurate is the date a search engine indexes the content. Indexing means a search engine finds content and adds it to its index. Later, the page can be retrieved and displayed in the SERP when a user searches for keywords related to the indexed page. You might be wondering: Is the date the content was indexed the same as the date it was published?
The answer: yes and no. If a blog post is published for the first time, it’s likely that say, a Google crawler will index that post the same day you publish it. But content can be backdated for several legitimate reasons, too, like archiving information or updating a sentence or two.
One way to positively affect this SEO tips factor is to implement a historical optimization strategy. This strategy works well on blogs that have been established for a few years. Updating these older posts with new perspectives and data will significantly impact your blog SEO. Site crawlers will reindex the page — taking into account the updated content — and give it another opportunity to compete in the SERP. It’s truly a win-win.
5. Recent Data
Recent data, another indirect ranking factor of SEO, should be included in blog posts. Visitors relevant and accurate information which makes for a positive reader experience. When you include a link to a credible site that has original, up-to-date data, you’re telling the search engine that this site is helpful and relevant to your readers (which is a plus for that other site). You’re also telling the search engine that this type of data is in some way related to the content you publish. Over time, your readers will come to appreciate the content which can be confirmed using other metrics like increased time on page or lower bounce rate.
How to Optimize Blogger Content for Search Engines
For many content creators, blog SEO tips sound incredibly complex. It’s easy to think no list of blog SEO strategies could ever make a meaningful difference. Others make Google out to be a grim reaper that hand-picks which blogs to let live, and which ones to deprive of precious organic search traffic. Below are the key optimizing blogger SEO content ideas to help you rank more
1. Blog Branding
No matter what industry your blog targets, you’ll want to identify and speak to the primarily related audience reading your content. Understanding who your website audience is and what you want in your article will help guide your blog strategy.
Buyer personas are an effective way to target readers using their buying behaviors, demographics, and psychographics. Without this insight, you could be producing grammatically correct and accurate content that few people will click on because it doesn’t speak to them on a personal level.
2. Perform keyword research
Now that you’ve selected your target audience and prepared a buyer persona, it’s time to find out what content your readers want to consume. Keyword research can be a heavy task to take on if you don’t begin with a Blogger SEO tips strategy. Therefore, I recommend starting with the topics your blog will cover, and then expanding or contracting your scope from there. For an in-depth tutorial, check out our how-to guide on keyword research.
3. Use visuals
Search engines like Google value visuals for certain keywords. Images and videos are among the most common visual elements that appear on the search engine results page. To achieve a coveted spot in an image pack or a video snippet, you’ll want to design creative graphics, use original photos and videos, and add descriptive alt text to every visual element within your blog post.
Alt text is a major factor that determines whether or not your image or video appears in the SERP and how highly it appears. Alt text is also important for screen readers so that visually impaired individuals have a positive experience consuming content on your blog site.
4. Optimize Titles
The title of your blog post is the first element a reader will see when they come across your article, and it heavily influences whether they’ll click or keep scrolling. A catchy title uses data, asks a question, or leads with curiosity to pique the reader’s interest.
According to MOZ Headline Analyzer, the elements of a catchy title include power, emotion, and uncommon, and common words. In the right proportions, these types of words in a blog title will grab your readers’ attention and keep them on the page.
