These are the nine most common mistakes made by newbie bloggers, and quite simple to rectify. But one also need to know how to execute the rectification process by knowing what you’re doing, and more importantly why you’re doing it. Many of these attributes are missing on new Blogs and having them present and optimized may result in a Google Rating above 80%, providing your Blog is compiled professionally.
1 – Blog Title
A Site’s Home Page Title usually appear in the header, but it must also be an H1 header. And this is where your Short tail Keywords will serve you well. Also, your title must not exceed 60 characters including all spaces because that’s the maximum allowed by all Major Search Engines. It is however more advisable to not exceed 55 characters, just to be safe and your site can be indexed by All Major Search Engines. Try to target your Niche and a common need within, then make those keywords your Site Title Baseline.
2 – H2 Header
Your Blog Post Titles should be H2 headers, and again you must target your Niche and Keywords. Only this time you must try to apply your Long Tail Keywords. Never use Unfriendly S.E.O characters in any H1 or H2 Header content. These are any character you enter by using the “Shift” button on your keypad like apostrophes, question marks and even underscores. If you have a good anchor text, then that will also be great for using in the context of your H2 header.
When your S.E.O is done properly by the use of Plugins, then each post will be an individual URL on its own. Which is why it’s so important not to use Unfriendly S.E.O Characters. These characters will amount to a low S.E.O score, because unfriendly URLs will result in your Blog Score dropping quite considerably.
Your Post Title is also not a sales pitch, it should indicate the baseline message of your post. Think of the thought you wish to inspire with your audience, and remember, offering something useful as a solution to a problem always works!
Post Content – Now Domain and Page Authority are other fields that need attention, and that can be boosted by posting content in excess of 1000 – 2000 words. This will boost your Domain Authority, where High Quality Comments will boost your Page Authority. This is also why it is so important to have a Spam Blocking Plugin installed, and always apply the “All comments to be approved first” inside your c-Panel settings.
When you do this manually, simply click on the website provided in the comment (Open in a new window) and see if the site is indeed active. Then check that the site is indeed indexed in Major Search Engines. Same goes for the email used in the comment, test and confirm legitimacy. Should either of these not be active, then rather delete the comment because broken links are damaging to your Blog S.E.O Score.
And just a word of advice on your post content; Never refer to another page or offer on your blog, because you may want to use your High Quality Post and also publish it as an Article. This will make your content useful wherever it is published and will build credibility.
3 – Meta Description
The Meta Description is kind of like a summary of what your visitor can expect, and again you must avoid all unfriendly S.E.O characters. The Meta Description must not exceed 160 characters, but as with the Site Title a lesser count is advisable, like 155 characters maximum.
Throughout these steps, your Short Tail, Long Tail and Anchor Text Keywords must populate your headers and content throughout its entirety. You want to target a specific audience which is the only way to drop your visitor Bounce Rate.
Wait, what is the “Bounce Rate”? – The Bounce Rate is basically a visitor that opens your Blog URL, but almost immediately closes it again. You want visitors that will open your site link and stay because your content inspires interest.
Someone looking for a Dieting Product will have no interest in something like a new Flat Screen TV for instance, and that visitor will simply just leave your site and become another Bounce Statistic. I cannot place enough exclamation on Keywords, because many newbies don’t do this research and is the single most common mistake resulting in a measly 3% success rate.
Generating an income online as an Affiliate Marketer or Blogger is a Science, not a Contest and there is no final destination. Just hard work, a lot of research and constant learning.
4 – Meta Keywords
This almost came as a surprise to me, but Google no longer accept Meta Keywords. On the contrary, the presence of Meta Keywords will drop your site’s S.E.O Score. If you use Meta Keywords on your site, then you may want to remove them and check your site S.E.O Score again.
5 – Image “Alt” Attribute
This was a mistake I made too, because all images should have the required “Alt” attribute present. This is kind of like a phrase that best describes the image. Now to check this, you simply click on your “Media” within your Blog c-Panel and open each image individually from there. Just add the Alt attribute as you browse your images.
With Banners it may tend to get a little more complicated, as you need to edit the image HTML code but don’t panic just yet. It sounds a lot more technical than it really is. Image HTML is simply the code to the banner that you copy into your text widget, and is also provided by some affiliate offers but not all of them.
6 – Having a Favicon
Adding a favicon to your Blog will boost your Google Rating from 15 – 20%, and it’s the simplest thing to do. In fact, most of the optimization steps are quite basic and real easy to do. You may find that certain themes don’t offer the option of adding a favicon, and that only means a little more work. All you need to do is change your theme, and I can name at least 3 themes that do support the addition of the favicon.
You will find the themes (Redwaves by Themient, ColorMag by ThemeGrill, and Spacious by ThemeGrill) to support both Logo and Favicon addition, both of which is very important. Now just some advice on your Logo as an Affiliate marketer. Always brand your own name and not just a particular product, because it widens your options considerably.
But what is a Favicon? – Let’s use WordPress as an example. When you open the WordPress login or home page, at the top of your browser the site title tab will display a little icon. A tiny blue square with the “W” WordPress symbol. That’s a favicon and is also used as the image to create an app, should you so choose. All my personal blogs have a Google Rating of no less than 72%, that means it’s a Grade A Site and get the Gold Standard. Now Any Webmaster or professional Blogger will tell you that any score above 70% will rank in record time. As I mentioned earlier, simple steps for surprising results but even with record time we’re talking around 3 – 6 months.
How to add a favicon – Simply scroll your curser over “Appearance”, and then click on “Header” in the drop down menu. You will now see your blog display with a drop down menu to the left. In the settings you now need to click on “Site Identity” where you will find the option to add a Site Icon, which is the favicon. Preferably images of around 200 x 200 pixels.
If you don’t have your own favicon or Icon, don’t despair because I will quickly show you how to create one at no cost. Simply go to – This Free Logo Design Site – Simply Enter Company name and Category and the rest is autopilot. As I have mentioned earlier, rather brand your name, so enter your own name in the Company Name section. Simply create your favicon, download it and set it as your Site Icon in WordPress.
You can use the same image as your site Logo, but don’t forget to add the “Alt Attribute” to your images in the image settings. The alt attribute in your images is another of many tactics used to boost your Google Rating. But that will be a separate topic for upcoming posts.
7 – Domain Authority and Page Authority
Domain And Page Authority Below 20 – These two combined attributes is a little more difficult to achieve. This is where a little more hard work is required. You can boost your Domain and Page Authority by obtaining legitimate comments, careful for spam comments which in most cases are faceless profiles. A spam comment is also in most cases a “Comment” with a generated email address and website URL normally opening as Page Error 404.
Domain and Page Authority is also boosted by increasing the word count of all your Blog Posts and Pages to over 1000 words. You can go as high as 2000 words, and boost your site’s authority.
When you have completed these few steps, and the S.E.O Score Checker recognize the changes? Yes, you’ve guessed it, your blog will have a Google rating of 80% or higher. 5 Simple steps to having a Grade A rated site on Google, which will soon prove to be a valuable adjustment to your site’s ranking and even Indexing Time.
All this amounts to Search Engines now knowing exactly what your site is about, and will find it easier to categorize your site for Indexing and/or ranking.
Conclusion – There are actually several of these steps that will lead you to a Google Rating of 100%, where Domain and Page Authority is like your final step toward that goal. Once all the other attributes and settings are intact, you’re left with creating interesting and useful content that will inspire your audience to comment.
Which is also how you get recognized as a Professional, and that is one of the key elements to an actual sale online. Because that is how your site gain Authority, through content which is the only “secret” to online success.
Your visitor must want to know more, and even visit your other posts and pages. But how will you know if your audience is really interested in your content, right?
Well, inside the analytics of your Blog you want to pay attention to your visitor/views ratio. Your views must exceed your visitor count, the higher the difference, the more interested your audience will be because they are returning to your Blog.
Returning visitors are also more likely to join your list and comment on your Blog, you do have a Web Form on your Blog sidebar, right? If you don’t, then you really should and it’s actually quite simple but the “rule of content” remains the same. Make your web form catchy and interesting, apply a little color psychology.
A great platform to use for landing pages, web forms and building an email list is Get Response where you also have a 30 free trial. This is also where I build my own list, and they even offer you a free 90 day course on list building and design. You really should have an email list because it sets you apart as a more Professional Marketer and Blogger.
All super successful Affiliate Marketers all have their own email lists, blogs and websites. They also have their own social groups, pages and communities where they share their own products and systems. Remember that the only difference between a Super Successful Affiliate Marketer and the not quite so successful is time.
Time to research and learn because that is the only way to build sufficient knowledge in order to get recognized. A willingness to learn is your greatest asset, because that is where all the great success stories come from.
