5 SEO Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process of getting a website (or blog) to show up higher in search engine rankings.  The higher your site shows up when someone searches online by specific keywords, the more visitors your site will have.  As an author, your website or blog is promoting your book, so you want to attract as many visitors as possible which will increase the exposure for your book and, as a result, increase your book sales.

If you find the idea of search engine optimization a bit overwhelming, relax.  You don’t need to be an SEO PRO to drive traffic to your blog.  You just need to know a few things about SEO and practice them with your blog.  Here are 5 SEO tips to keep in mind while blogging:

1. Title – Your post title should include the keyword(s) you are writing about and should give potential readers a general idea of what the post is about.  This may seem obvious, but I’ve seen a lot of bad titles out there.  If I’m writing a book review, I include in the post title the words “book review,” the title of the book and the author’s name.  These are all things potential readers might search by.
2. Content – The content in the post itself should be keyword-rich.  Think about the terms readers might search by if they are looking for the information you are providing in your post.  Make sure those words appear within the content of your post.  For example, if I were to write about promoting a book with a Kindle book, in addition to mentioning Kindle and book marketing, I would also want to include words like “Amazon,” “DTP” (Digital Text Platform), “KDP” (Kindle Direct Publishing), “ebook,” etc.
3. Links – Link to your own posts when you have a good opportunity.  If an old post contains further information on something you’re mentioning in a current post, link to the old one.  This will help increase traffic to older posts to keep them from being buried in your blog history. You can also add a widget on your sidebar with your most popular or most recent posts.  This will help readers find other posts they might want to read.
4. Tags – Keep in mind that readers may click on tags within your blog to find other posts with the same tag(s).  Tag your posts with good keywords to help readers find posts on similar topics.
5. Analytics – Pay attention to your blog stats.  Which posts are more/less popular?  Think about what you did that worked well and do it more.  What search terms are bringing readers to your site?  Try to incorporate these popular search terms into your posts and write more on these topics.

Tell me your SEO tip.  What have you found that has worked well to increase your blog traffic?