Most of us get pretty intimidated with all the “techniques” out there and really end up doing nothing about it.  Yes, there are a ton of things one could do to make their SEO grade 10.  But, we all have to start from somewhere and that is what this article is about.  In fact, if you follow these 4 SEO techniques in every aspect of your website, then you should see a remarkable difference in your search engine traffic without having to do all the heavy lifting, which I will discuss later in another article.

So here are my top 4 SEO techniques that every webmaster should follow:

• Title and Slug attributes

• Every page, or every post (if blogging) must have a title.  How you word your title makes a difference but what’s more important is its keyword selection.  The best kind of title is one with a certain number of actions implied.  For example, create a title with “5 ways” or “17 things to do to…”.  These kinds of titles get a lot more clicks – per se – because you are creating an intriguing claim of some sort.  With more clicks Google or other search engines start to realize that this might be an important piece of content and begin to take it a little bit higher in the results.  Also, if you have an intriguing title, other webmasters will click on it and eventually might end up linking back to that page.  That creates a natural order of backlinking that can push your content further up.

• Meta data

• What goes in the meta data part of your page is also extremely important.  Yes, it is true that just placing a bunch of keywords in the meta data section isn’t going to get you ranked high but what it does do is that it makes search engines better understand what your page is about.  A proper meta description, set of keywords and canonical clarity can make your page appear much more understandable and professional to search engines.

• Keyword density

• Keyword density refers to the ratio of the most important keyword on a page to the rest of the content on that page.  Let’s say you want to write a page about Search Engine Optimization.  If you happen to mention that keyword just once or twice in a 500 word article, then chances are that search engines aren’t going to rank that page high for SEO.  What you need to do is to make sure that there is a proper balance between your keywords and the rest of your content.  I am not in any way suggesting that you should use your keyword(s) every other word.  In fact, from what I understand you can get penalized for that by search engines because they assume that you are trying to rig the results artificially.  Again, moderation is key here but if you are not using your keyword in the right ration then your content will most likely no receive the attention that it deserves.

• Image attributes

• Image attributes are also extremely important.  Search engines do not understand images naturally.  That means that no matter how pretty an image, they have no idea search engines will treated as an object without meaning.  Unless, you give your images proper attributes.  That includes giving your images a title tag that is descriptive.

Again, this is in no way an exhaustive list of SEO techniques one could use.  In this section of Zufzy, I will be discussion a lot more SEO and internet marketing techniques so be sure you stay tuned.

So, here are the top 5 reasons why your blog is probably not doing as well as it could be:

1) Your Niche

Not all blogs are created equal.  There are certain topics that get a ton of traffic but there are also topics that don’t get much traffic at all.  It is important that you blog about topics that people are actually searching for and are interested in reading about.  Blogging about your family or cat, is generally uninteresting to the masses.  Sometimes, blogging about general topics don’t get much traffic either.  Take health and wellness as an example.  Contrary to common belief, this genre does not get as much traffic as say tech news or writing about gadgetry.

2) Your Writing

I once came across the blog that was full of profanities.  Really, every other word was F this and F that.  Now, you might think that level of foul language is a turn off for site visitors but you would be surprised how well that works for certain genres.  I am not saying you should cuss every other word.  What I am saying is that you should adjust your writing to your genre.  If you are talking about technology for example, write in casual, relaxed tone.  If you are talking about politics then you might want to adjust your writing tone to a slightly more formal.  The point is that you need to know your audience and adjust your writing accordingly or else they won’t come back.

3) Your Posting Frequency

Are you posting once in a while?  In order for you to have a decent blog, given the competition now a days, you really aught to be blogging 3-5 a week.  If you can’t do that then maybe you can ask your audience to submit guest posts.  Don’t expect a huge turnout since your blog is not getting a lot of traffic and be sure to lay out some rules and guidelines if you do decide to accept guest blogs.  I will write more about this in a separate post.

4) Your SEO

If you are not search engine friendly then most likely you are not getting a lot of traffic.  Personally, I don’t believe you need to hire a $500/hr SEO specialist for a small blog but you do need to write SEO friendly posts that include targeted keywords and meta descriptions, along with other elements.  If you are on WordPress there is a great plugin called SEO Ultimate which can help you greatly with your SEO.  Again, I will write more about this in a separate post.

5) Your impatience

You are not going to get thousands of visitors the first week you start blogging.  Expect your traffic to grow over a period of months – not days.  If you are doing everything else right but still not getting a lot of traffic then maybe you just haven’t given your blog enough time to become popular.

Did I miss anything?  Are there other important reasons why a blog wouldn’t get a lot of traffic let me know in the comment section below.