Setting Up Your Blog With SEO

I’ve been asked countless times about Blogs… from the basics about what they are through to how to set them up, and most recently – how to generate scalable traffic and build a loyal following.

This post will start with some key decisions you will need to make and an emphasis on what not to do.

First off – you need a bit of time on your computer, some web-based software, a registered domain name, and that inner creativity. There are a few FREE online web-based software options that you can choose from. My suggestion, given lots of factors, is to go with Wordpress. Yes, I know I have my Blog on Blogger, yet given what I know today (this may change over time) Wordpress is the best choice. Wordpress has a FREE software solution that provides Bloggers with everything they need to start a blog and create an audience. Yes, there are some bells and whistles you can purchase over time if your Blog becomes popular and you want to start generating actual income from that. However, it does take some time to build credibility with search engines and that can only happen with a true commitment to frequent postings with your opinion on topics that you believe are unique and appealing to a specific audience. So go to Wordpress, sign-up, and get writing.

As part of the sign-up process you will need to decide where you want to keep your blog (the destination URL or website.) This is a critical decision and one I have strong opinions about. To oversimplify, there are two basic options:

1) Use a free URL (such as http://joeberkowitz.wordpress.com ) Do NOT do this, period. This only builds SEO credibility and asset value for Wordpress (or other service.) The domain does not belong to you and there is no way for you to move or change the URL.

2) Use your own domain (http://joeberkowitz.com,) a subdomain (http://blog.joeberkowitz.com,) or a suffix domain (http://joeberkowitz.com.previewdns.com/blog) All reasonable and good options depending on your current situation. Please note – Wordpress will charge you a small fee (now $15/yr.) to use your own domain. Do it – you will not regret spending that cash.

One BIG note is especially not to use a Blogger domain (like http://joeberkowitz.blogspot.com.) Thanks to key insights from the great folks at Hubspot, they’ve uncovered some interesting data about why…

Aside from the obvious lack of SEO benefit (mentioned above) mediocre feature set, Google DOES NOT allow you to 301 (technical term describing how you permanently redirect/move from one web site location to another) and preserve your credibility (PageRank, SEO, etc.) from their Blogger domains. Even more unfortunate is how unreasonably difficult they make it for you to transfer your content from their platform. Not good!

My suggestion is to spend some time finding an appropriate name (with a corresponding URL of your choosing) to be the home of your blog. There are many good domain registration services (even Wordpress can do that for you.) I have several domains at Godaddy as they provide a good service at a reasonable price and their support (online and phone) is helpful.

Once you’ve registered your domain name and followed the simple Wordpress setup procedure, you can then customize your desired look and feel for the site, specify links, etc. Now you can begin to make posts to your Blog… exciting.

As it relates to SEO and traffic building activities – don’t sweat it in the beginning. The most important thing is that you are doing a few key tasks so Google and others find you:

1) Write great 200-800 word posts. Focus on communicating your unique point of view or knowledge of a topic (definitely something you are passionate about) in an authoritative manner. These posts should emphasize (not overemphasize) keywords that you envision folks entering into Google to find you. Test different ways to solicit feedback in the form of comments.

2) In addition to metadata (keywords, etc.) you will enter when making new posts, make sure you think carefully about the titles of your posts. Titles are the most important items for search engines. Choose the words carefully (not too many.) All of them should be descriptive to the content of your post.

3) Make posts frequently and consistently – I suggest at least one to two new posts per week. In the beginning, you will need to train Google and other spiders to come back to your site frequently as there is new content. You will likely go through many emotions in the early months as it will feel lonely. Stay focused as it will gain momentum if you stay at it and the content is unique and enjoyable to read.

That’s it for now. I will follow-up with other posts focusing on more advanced topics for blogging (Link submission services, RSS feeds, interacting with social networking services, blog analytics, keyword research, etc.)