Blog & Feed Search SEO

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]

Blog & Feed Search SEO

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]

Optimizing for Blog & Feed Engines Yahoo News & Blog Search

– Sorted by relevance. Only top 4 get onto News SERPs Google Blog Search

– Sorted by relevance. No way to submit. Only a matter of time before it ends up in the “One Box”

Technorati– Sorted by date. Tagged posts featured in sidebar.

Feedster– Sorted by date.

PubSub– No immediate SERPs. Delivered only in RSS.


Optimizing Your Feeds Full text, not summaries 20 or MORE items (not just 10) Multiple feeds (by category, latest comments, comments by post) Keyword-rich item <title> Your brand name in the item <title> Your most important keyword in the site <title> container Compelling site <description> Don’t put tracking codes into the URLs (e.g. &source=rss) An RSS feed that contains enclosures (i.e. podcasts) can get into

additional RSS directories & engines


SlashdotheadlinessyndicatedonNanodot.org


Optimizing Your Blog Rejig your internal hierarchical linking structure

– Tag clouds & tag pages (e.g. UltimateTagWarrior plugin)– Related Posts (e.g. Contextual Related Posts plugin)– Top 10 posts– Next & Previous posts

Build inbound links– Add Technorati tags to your posts (must claim your blog first)– Get onto bloggers’ blogrolls– Trackbacks & comments won’t help with link gain


Tags pointto Technoratitag pages

Tags point tointernal tagpages


This tag pagecontainspost content


No tag cloudon sub pages

This tag pagecontains nopost content


Optimizing Your Blog Title tags

– Blog name at the end of the title, not at the beginning– Tag name should go in title on a tag page– Customize with additional keywords for display only on your

home page– Override title tags w/ custom one (“SEO Title Tag” plugin)

URLs– Rewrite to contain keywords, hyphens not underscores– 301 redirect from yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com– Maintain legacy URLs even after switching blog platforms


#8 for “webmarketingblog” aftercreating acustom titlefor the homepage


Great namefor the blog!


“SEO Title Tag” plugin for WordPress Free & open source Allows you to override the title tag with a custom one (defined

through a custom field in a post or a page) Allows you to define a custom home page title Reverses the order of the blog name and the title, or drop the

blog name altogether, or replace it with a shorter nickname Puts the tag in the title of (UltimateTagWarrior) tag pages Uses category’s description as the title on category pages Has an Options page in the admin to change settings Download at www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin.htm


Optimizing Your Blog Anchor text

– Make the post’s title a link to the permalink page– Use Neat-o tool (webuildpages.com/neat-o) to look for opportunities to

request revisions to anchor text on inbound links– Internally link back to old, relevant posts within the body of a blog post.

Don’t use “here” or “previously” etc. as the anchor text! Heading tags

– category name on category page– Yes for post titles, no for dates!


Neat-o tool


Post title is anchor text


Optimizing Your Blog

“Sticky” posts– Always appear at the top of the page– A way to add keyword-rich intro copy to a category page or

tag page– e.g. Adhesive plugin

Author profile pages & author links (for group blogs)


Sticky post


Author profile


Optimizing Your Blog

Emphasis tags within posts (bold, strong, etc.) Rel=Nofollow

– All links in trackbacks, comments, and in posts where you don’t vouch for the site

– Where the link would be reciprocal Pings

– Lets the feed search engines know you’ve updated– pingomatic.com, pingoat.com, pings.ws, feedshot.com


Blog SEO

It’s child’s play!

My daughter,SEO-in-training


#10 for “neopetcheats” within2 weeks, andwith only 1 link!


More Gritty Details about RSS

1-click subscribe buttons “Add to My Yahoo” link in SERPs Tracking Customization Link gain


Make It Easy to Subscribe

1-click add to your favorite aggregator– “Add to ____” buttons– Link tags for autodiscovery

• e.g. <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://feeds.stephanspencer.com/scatterings" />

– Make your listings in the Yahoo! SERPs display the “Add to My Yahoo!” link


“Add to My Yahoo!” link in SERPs

Add your feed to your My Yahoo! Page Ping Yahoo! with your updates

– e.g. http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping?u=http://www.whatever.com/rss)

– Or just use Pingomatic More info at

– http://my.yahoo.com/s/publishers.html


Track Subscriber Behavior

Subscribers from User-Agent field in log files– e.g. User-Agent: Bloglines 2.0 (182 Subscribers)

Reads through “web bugs”– e.g. <img

src="http:www.company.com/cp/.5424Cafaa903cf09ecafb231662ca053c4c56” border=0 size=1 width=1>

Clickthroughs through clicktracked URLs– e.g. http://www.company.com/rss.php?

88288Cafaa903cf09ecafb231662ca053c4c56


Personalized/Customized Feeds

Best practice for users– Subscription form with interests tickboxes– Allow the user to stay anonymous if they so choose– Give them the option of subscribing via RSS, or email, or both

Personalized feeds not ideal from an SEO standpoint– Because you’re not reinforcing the same items across

multiple sites.– Offer standardized feeds for your affiliates, other webmasters.

Make keyword-rich as a value-add.


Subscribe toa feedpersonalizedto you


Capture the Link Gain Encourage links through RSS directories/engines

submission (www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/), trackbacks, pings (Technorati, Pingomatic,…),

Clicktrack your links and pass the link gain– 301 (“permanent”) redirect, not 302, or link gain may not flow– Most ads and affiliate links suffer this fate– Warning: Feedburner use 302, not 301

Pay attention to each item title; it’ll become link text Keep your RSS feed URL at your own domain


Taking It Further

Great ebook: Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS (Marketingstudies.net)

MarketingProfs.com’ Thought Leaders Summit on blogs for marketing– email me for a free copy of the executive summary, podcast,

and transcript: [email protected] Download the Powerpoint from

– http://www.netconcepts.com/learn/blog-feed-search-seo.ppt

Blog & Feed Search SEO

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Transcript of Blog & Feed Search SEO