Is Your Business Blog Platform Search Engine Optimized?

By Chris Frerecks • March 19th, 2009

Do we want better search engine placement? Do we want targeted content distribution & consumption? Do we want more leads & new business?

 If so, we must be committed to publishing with the right solutions & techniques! Current coverage of our various trades including how we add value for our target marketplaces has become a strategic requirement in this modern day and age. 

Being current demonstrates the authority modern consumers respect in an environment where they have power. You see, there is a fundamental change in the environment we sell in. On one side, consumers have immediate access to a depth of information via search & subscribe. On the other, we [business people] can have the means for advertorial content creation and [direct to the consumer] distribution. In the past, consumers had no immediate source for information, so we hunted for their attention. Now, consumers research with an ease never before possible. It means the value of traditional advertising has diminished in their eyes. Now, we have got to be there when consumers search… showing we’re committed, trustworthy, knowledgeable, appealing and current!

In order to meet the challenge we’ll need advanced blog configurations & ongoing tech’ management, as well as a mastery of current better blogging techniques. That is, if we wish to make it easy for search engines to crawl and to index our content favorably. We’ll also want to be as appealing to [search engine] machines as we are to humans.

For better competitive search placement, let’s look at some blog platform search optimization standards.

Blog Platform Search Optimization Standards

  • General Site Management & Architecture – Your blog should be configured to maximize the dynamic nature of the web. It should be set for proper search spider cooperation and continuously monitored for adequate load times with each new feature addition or update. It should also have security against attacks that can slow loads, or worse bring our sites down.
  • Site Title Tag – Our site’s primary meta tag [or coded description] is designed to distinguish the top level business blogging goal for search spiders. Our title tag is the first thing a visiting spider will recognize, so it should tell what the topic of our site is. We need to be sure our platform has its’ tag coded accurately!
  • Page Title Tags – Each page or post we create should be set up to auto tag, based upon the unique title we use to describe that page. Consistency between titles and those auto-coded page tags is noticed by search spiders and can lead to deeper crawling, which [in theory] means more topic indexing. This tag will also appear as the title in search results pages so we need to title carefully, with one eye toward human and the other toward spider attention!
  • URL Structure – Good blog platforms may add a pages title to it’s URL string to make it friendlier. As opposed to cryptic URLs like long numbers, this offers information about the page’s purpose. Again, consistency between titles, tags and [now including] URLs is noticed by search spiders. It can support more and deeper crawling!
  • Categories – Categories are pretty standard, but the the addition of good categorization can only help to add emphasis for targeted subject areas when spiders crawl. Categories also support humans, who may want to drill down into those subject areas! They make it as easy as possible for users to go from general content to the more specific content they want on our site. Good blog platforms may add the category a page is placed into it’s URL string.
  • Pinging Engine – Blogs should be set to notify search engines each time we post to our blogs. While not all search engines listen, several do so it should happen automatically!
  • Sitemaps – Our blogs sitemap displays the structure of our site, and usually has a hierarchical list of all pages on your site including all new. Sitemaps make it easier for a search engine to discover all pages on a site and they should be re-created automatically with each new post/ page. One should be able to find a copy at the following addresses: YourBlogURL/sitemap.xml
  • Tag Cloud – Your blogs tag cloud can create an additional content mapping to help search spiders identify & index content by topic. A key phrase word family emanating from our content organizes our pages by those phrases or tags.
  • Content & Links – Obviously, having a strong knowledge of what works with search engines and with people when blogging is crucial. We write often on the subject of better blogging practices for business blogs here. While the above is all very advantageous, creating useful content will always attract the most people. If so, it’s likely some of them will direct others to us via links from their own blogs, social media or forums. Their organic links to our content can also be an important factor in gaining a competitive search placement advantage. Our own use of anchor text linking is also an important competitive criteria, both deep internal and incoming.

Beyond these, there are also several other techniques and features you can consider. We’re working with lots of clients on extensive SEO, Design, Social Networking & Lead Capture Packages all of which can help to improve visibility:

Blog Platform Search Optimization Advancements

  • RSS Engine: Insert RSS into Post/Page + Education – This is another very unique tool. Similar to the RSS listings page described above, this tool gives you the ability to create pages or posts that contain partial RSS results [depends what the RSS feed contains.] You can bring in 3, 5, 7 or more articles from an RSS feed and insert them directly into a post or page. So long as you have permission, of course. The possibilities to create more search spider superfood are endless!
  • Page Title Tag Overrides – Our Page Title Tag override fields offer an ability to change how titles,
    keywords and description fields for each blog post or page appears to a search engine. At times a title may be appropriately long to capture more human attention, but a shortened version for spiders might also be smart.
  • Google Custom Search/ Priority Indexing Status – Google Custom Search Engine is a search mechanism we can place on our blogs. For visitors it will not only offer search of our blogs content, but any sites we add to its’ parameters. It also adds some priority, immediately pushing our blog posts to Google for indexing. This, rather than waiting for spider visits.
  • Google Webmaster Tools - Installing Google Webmaster Tools can tell us a lot about what the spiders see on our sites. How often spiders actually visit, any errors they encounter, anchor text information and much more. Webmaster tools also helps to prioritize the push of our new posts into the Google index.
  • RSS Directory Submit – Directory Submission registers our RSS feed with lots of directories and search engines. Not only will our blogs get listed, but depending on the property we may also gain valuable back links.
  • Share This or Bookmark It – This social bookmarking tool attaches a “Share This” link on every blog post making it it easier for readers to share them with any of of their favorite social networks. It also gives them an easy interface to email the blog post to friends.
  • And lots and lots more.

It’s a competitive environment for targeted content placement & distribution; it’s also an environment that is in a constant state of change. By imposing the discipline on ourselves to publish we will improve our search marketing much more easily and much more affordably. A business has core responsibilities, so it’s unrealistic to know it all. Help with a reduction in month over month learning curve, including what’s working for others, matters!

Get in touch, we’re committed to helping folks become better online marketers/ advertisers. We’re committed to helping folks build better and more sustainable online brands! 

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