Blog Optimization: Auditing my own Blog for SEO Best Practices

After reading Google’s own search engine optimization (SEO) audit of its own web site, I was inspired to evaluate my own Blog and see if I was always following common SEO best practices. I was surprised that as a SEO web consultant I was often giving clients SEO advice that I myself wasn’t always following!

Below are some SEO issues that I have identified and am planning to fix in the next couple of months so read quickly!

Use Keyword Phrases in the Headline of Blog Post - I have my website optimized for the primary keyword “website consulting” along with many secondary keywords (eg. web consultant, seo consulting, ppc consultant, etc) but am rarely using these keywords in the actual Blog Headline.

Hyperlink Keyword Phrase to Webpage– Whenever a keyword phrase is used, it should be hyperlinked to the relevant webpage on the site. For example, if I mention a keyword related to ”ppc consulting” I should link it to that page on the site (like I just did here now : )

Use the “TITLE” tag in the Hyperlink – You have the ability to add a “title” tag on the hyperlinks. For example, if I use the keyword “ppc consulting” in the Blog and link it in the HTML source code I should add the Title tag as follows: ppc consulting. I can either use the exact keyword being linked or a very similar one.

Category Labels – You should have a Blog Category strategy laid out based on your SEO keyword research and not just create the Category Labels on the fly every time you post a Blog. For example, my categories might be website consulting (which would include general blog posts), seo consulting, ppc consulting, etc which would include those relevant types of Blog posts. Rotunda’s Blog about scheduling software does this well.

Contact Us - If unique, high quality, optimized Blog copy is being produced and search engines start to rank it highly on certain keyword phrases like “website consulting”, the Blog should start receiving direct traffic from Search Engines. Hence, a Contact Form should be added directly to the page (in the left or right side bar) instead of just having a “Contact Us” link at the top of the page. Make it easy for potential customers to contact you!


Social – The Blog has the ability to share the content to sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc which is great but it is not receiving many comments directly on the posts. Search Engines like Google have confirmed they have started to use social media signals like comments to rank webpages.
See any other Blog SEO best practices that aren’t being used on this Blog? Drop our web consultants a comment on the Blog below. Thank you!

Related Links:

• Google SEO Audit

Internal Linking your Blog - Website Best Practices

Website blogs can be used to generate traffic to your site by having individual blogs rank directly in the search engine results pages and/or by increasing the rankings of your main website.

Many blogs have great, unique, keyword rich content but search engines are still not ranking the webpages high for those keywords. This blog is meant to provide you some tips on how to internally link your Blog to your other website pages so search engine "spiders" rank your Blog and website higher for the keyword phrases you are targeting.

Let's assume you have done your keyword research and identified high volume keywords with relative low competition which you want to rank on. If you haven’t done this yet then please subscribe to this Blog since we will discuss "keyword research" in our next blog posting. Note: RWeb Consulting does not receive your email address nor is it used for any other purpose than to delivery monthly Blog updates).

First, all Blog titles should contain a keyword phrase. You'll notice on Rotunda Software the Blog titles contain keywords like "ministry scheduling software", "ministry software" and "volunteer software".

Second, internally link the keyword to the appropriate page on your website within the first paragraph. This will confirm to search engines spiders that the page is highly relevant for that keyword phrase.

Third, use "long tail" keyword phrases related to the primary blog post keyword to link to relevant pages on your website. This will continue to send signals to the search engines that both the blog post and webpage that is being linked to is highly relevant to the keyword phrase.

Lastly, use the title tag in the hyperlink of the keyword. It's not necessarily to use the same primary keyword phrase in each hyperlink's title tag but at least use secondary keyword phrases that you might not be able to naturally incorporate into the copy of the blog.

Additionally, don't forget to use the keyword phrase in the title tag of the webpage you are linking to. For example, in the "Why Invest in Ministry Software" Blog the keyword phrase "ministry software" appears in the title of the blog and several times in the blog copy with the "ministry software" title tag.

Wherever relevant (in this example the first 2 links in the Blog), the primary keyword should link to another page on the website that is optimized the keyword phrase "ministry software".

For additional information on website consulting services contact us or if you have any of your own internal linking blog strategies let us know in the comments below.



Related Links:

• 10 Ways to Improve Internal Linking on your Blog (Google)
• Blog's Internal Linking Structure