From the June 2013 Astek Academy Think-n-Drink, our Sr. Community Manager John Armstrong's (@johnequatro) handout to attendees that tells bloggers how to use SEO to help readers find their work online. Use this easy To-Do list to rank higher in search results and create better content.

1. The Science of Blogging SEO
An Astek Academy To-Do List
Keywords
• Use the Bing/Google Adwords Keyword Tools to find keyword (KW) phrases for your post. Use those
with high volume, low competition that your target audience will use to find you.
• Know that different topics will attract a different audience.
• Use KWs in H1 and H2 tags (headline fonts) for increased SEO.
• Place KW phrases in the URL and Page Title.
• Use KW phrases in the first paragraph and throughout your post that feel natural for the reader.
• Make sure that when you use a KW phrase it never seems forced or arbitrary. Search engines will
penalize you for “over-optimizing” or “keyword-stuffing.” Besides, it can be alienating to readers.
• The “keyword” field in older Wordpress versions is useless.
• Use KWs in the Alt-image Tag when inserting images.
• When inserting links, put the hyperlink on the keywords (that’s called the anchor text).
Formatting
• Style choices can help readability (bullets, sub-headings) - Search engines need help to scan faster.
• Avoid large images. Use JPGs for smaller sizes. Search engines dislike long load-times.
• Link to relevant blog posts. Google gives a small SEO boost to linked content, even if done internally.
• Length does NOT matter to SEO. Quality content matters. Substantial posts that are valuable to a
reader will be read, referenced, linked to and shared. That is the whole point of your blog.
Title and Meta Description
• Make sure your page title is:
o Direct, succinct and attention-getting
o Descriptive of the content
o KW-rich. It’s slightly more effective for SEO to place the KWs earlier in the title
o Avoid generic phrases or titles, e.g. “A Word to the Wise”
• Write a unique meta description for the post to promote content sharing. Otherwise, social platforms
and Google will pull the content from elsewhere on the site when users share your content.
• Note that meta descriptions are NOT used for Search SEO.
• Use the page title (and thus relevant KWs) in the URL. Remove articles and prepositions to decrease
length and increase search-ability.
Categories and Tags
• What’s the difference?
o Categories are broad groupings within your site, whereas tags denote specific content. For
example, a food blogger may post a recipe for cake with the categories “dessert” and “baking”
and the tags might be “cake,” “frosting,” and “chocolate”
• Use categories/tags to make your blog more organized and easier for users to navigate between posts.
• Avoid having too many categories/tags. Less is better and makes for easier site searching.
• Note that if your category is in the post URL, a KW category name is ideal.
• Tags are not used for search engine SEO, but help with the reader experience.
Google Authorship
• Sign up for Authorship and link your blog to your G+ profile page and vice-versa.
Backlinks
• Promote your post! search engines place more relevance on posts that are linked to from other sites.
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