In my last post ‘Blogging: Common Search Engine Optimization Mistakes‘ I mentioned a couple of common mistakes by bloggers and web developers when it comes to achieving a nice ranking on the search engines.

I now want to share with you how to achieve the results to get you to the top of the search engines, and it is much simplier than you imagine!

When creating your blog, whether through WordPress or as an addition on your own website, make sure you carefully choose the main directory name of your blog wisely.
If you simply call the blog ‘blog’, or ‘wp’, this will reduce your search engine optimization results.
Try and call the main directory or entry page to your blog something that related to what your website is about.
For instance, if your blog is about home hard ware, then call it ‘maintenance’, or ‘hardware-products’, ‘tools’, or something similar.

So your blog will now appear something like this: http://www.hardwarestorename.com/hardware-products

This instantly tells the search engines that your website is about hard ware products!

Now, as you add categories, make sure you name the categories to again relate to your services or products, for instance;

/tools
/hammers
/chemicals
/tool-reviews

So now your pages are starting to appear something like the following:

http://www.hardwarestorename.com/hardware-products/tools

For a search engine’s point of view this makes listing your website a piece of cake, as they can see exactly who you are and what you do!

Now that you have the initial structure in place, it’s time to move on to the actual posts to really work their magic!

As I mentioned in my last post, adding posts with poor title headers in misleading categories will only send your blog or website plummeting to the depths of Google’s bottomless pit of web pages.

If you follow a couple of simple rules and steps, you can do quite the opposite and achieve amazing results and watch your target visitors flow in to your website.

Ok, so if you want to post details of a new hammer you might have in stock, firstly I’d advice to download a copy of Web CEO (it’s free!), and check out all the keywords relating to hammers and see what people are searching for. Write down these main keywords. These will be added when you write your blog post to gain the keyword density you need to get your post to the top of the search engines. We will get to that shortly.

Now, Again using these keywords, find the best ones that suit your post about hammers, which people might most likely be searching for.

For example ‘Hardware Hammer Reviews | Hammers for Tradesmen’

Now you will see rather than being a long sentence I have placed a ‘|’ between in the sentence. This keeps the title of your blog simple and loaded with keyword goodness. We have the word ‘Hammer’ twice in the title, the word ‘tradesmen’ and ‘reviews’. People love to search for product reviews online before buying. If they can review and buy in the one spot, you are making their life easier, and making a quick sale in the process!

Now write your blog using the main keywords you found in Web CEO and lightly sprinkle these keywords throughout your post without it sounding like Hammer is used in ever sentence! People don’t like this and neither do the search engines! using the same keywords too much in any webpage or blog and get you ignored by the search engines.

Now make sure you have set up your blog to be SEo/URL friendly so that the category names and titles appear when posted, rather than just a bunch of numbers. If you are not sure how to do this ask your web developer to turn this function on. It is already part of every blog, it just needs to be activated.

So now your post’s URL will look something like this:

http://www.hardwarestorename.com/hardware-products/tools/Hardware-Hammer-Reviews-|-Hammers-for-Tradesmen

The title alone will almost be enough to get you a great listing, but combined with a well written post containing the keywords will really make it sizzle on the search results.

Also, make sure you ‘tag’ or keyword your post as well with the same related keywords, including the ones in your title (eg, hammer reviews, tradesmen tools, tool reviews, etc)

And that’s it!

Also make sure your future posts all remain focused on what your blog is about and that all posts relate to the categories they are posted under.

As mentioned in my last post on accommodation, if your website is based on the Gold Coast, don’t add posts about Port Douglas Accommodation, unless you are a directory for all accommodation in Australia. This just annoys visitors for being led to your site under false pretences and also confuses the search engines and will most likely see your website slide into a black void.

If you sell hardware, don’t blog about party tricks. It’s not relevant. I think you get the idea!

Until next time bloggers!

Article by Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia and Web SEO Coach.
Chris is a senior web developer and manager of Devision Design Australia, and also owner of the Web SEO Coach website, which educates people on the art of DIY search engine optimization and online profit.