In class today we will optimize our blogs as well as individual blog posts for search engines. Also see this post on how to optimize your blogs. We will do so by:

identifying keywords & integrating them into:

blog title
blog description
post headlines
post body
post tags

OPTIMIZING YOUR BLOG:

Step 1: Identify potential keywords that describe your blog

What is your blog's specific focus?

What are 3 other blogs that are similar in content to your blog? List them.

What sets your blog apart from these 3 blogs? (In other words, what is your niche?)

Based on this analysis, you should have a number of potential keywords you could use to describe your blog. Now use the following tools to identify additional keywords.

Google Adwords: Ideally you'd use Google's Adwords planner tool and type in a keyword or keyphrase you identified through your previous analysis to see what additional keywords Google is suggesting. But since you don't have an Adwords account, you can try these tools instead.
Google trends: Use Google Trends to identify related & breaking keywords and to compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames. This should tell you how competitive a particular keyword is. Or try Google Correlate - it'll help you find keywords that exhibit similar trend patterns to the phrase you type in.
Google Search: Run a Google Search on each potential keyword to see how many results there are for each

Pick your 2-3 best keywords (should capture the essence of your blog & not be too competitive) and proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Integrate these keywords into your blog

Log into Wordpress and navigate to your general settings (settings => general). Now spend some time rewriting your title (if need be) and your blog's description. The goal here is to incorporate the keyword(s) you identified in step 1 without breaking the flow of the text.

Remember you are writing this for two audiences:

Audience 1: your readers - they want the text to read well
Audience 2: search engines - they are looking for keywords to help them determine how to categorize your blog

Your goal is to make both of them happy!

OPTIMIZING INDIVIDUAL BLOG POSTS:

In order to optimize individual blog posts we will follow a similar procedure. Start with your latest blog post and work your way backwards. You won't have enough time in class to optimize all of your blog posts, but the point of today's class is to learn the process so you can optimize the remainder of your posts on your own outside of class.

Step 1: Identify potential keywords that describe your blog post

What is your blog post's specific focus?

Based on this analysis, you should have a number of potential keywords you could use to describe your post. Now use the following tools to identify additional keywords.

Try tools such as KeywordDiscovery, KW Finder, Ritetag or any other free tool from this list
Google trends: Use Google Trends to identify related & breaking keywords and to compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames. This should tell you how competitive a particular keyword is. Or try Google Correlate - it'll help you find keywords that exhibit similar trend patterns to the phrase you type in.
Google Search: Run a Google Search on each potential keyword to see how many results there are for each

Pick your 2-3 best keywords (should capture the essence of your post & not be too competitive) and proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Integrate these keywords into your posts

Revisit each of your posts and make sure you incorporate your keywords into

the headline of your blog post
the body of your blog post
the tags used to describe your blog post.

As before, remember that you are writing for 2 different audiences here. Your headline should include your keyword(s) but it also still needs to be catchy and read well. The same goes for the body of your post. As for the tags, just add all of the keywords you identified in step 1.

SEO Workshop