How To Set Up a Blog: Part 5 - Off Line SEO

This article is part 5 in series of how to set up a blog series. In part 1 of the series, we learned how to set up a blog, in part 2 of the series, we looked at how to write to attract readers, in part 3 of the series, we looked at where and how to get ideas for what to write on your blog, part 4 of the series we looked at how to optimize on page SEO to attract traffic to your blog. This part 5 we will look at how to optimized off page (outside your blog SEO for increasing traffic to your blog)

See Previous article in how to set up blog series: How to Set Up Blog:Part 4:On Page SEO

Part 5 – Off Page Search Engine Optimization

We’ve already optimized our blog to rank well for search results of certain keywords that we’re targeting, but here comes the sad news – it affects your ranking in only very minor ways. However, don’t skip this step as every little bit helps when you’re competing for search engine rankings!

Now, we’re moving on to off page search engine optimization. That is, factors that are not on your blog but affect your search engine rankings very greatly. There are a lot of off page factors, but we shall study them one by one. The first and most obvious one is the number of links to your blog.

Off Page SEO Tips:

As a general rule of thumb, the more links to your blog, the more the search engines think you are an authority in that particular niche and hence the higher they rank you. However, take care to observe the quality of the links. For example, a thousand links from totally irrelevant sites like online dating sites would not help at all because your blog is a technological product blog. In contrast, a single link from a highly authoritative site about technological gadgets will get the search engines crawling about your blog like the Feds storming a crack den…

Anyway, the most cost effective way of getting high quality links from authoritative sites is simply guest post for it, if they offer it. If your blog contains high quality content that is original and will provide valuable information to the site’s readers, chances are the webmaster(s) will link to your blog or even write about you! It may not happen right away, when you have 5 blog posts up, but it may happen as you write more and established your self as a blogger in your niche subject area.

Let’s talk about how we should ask these webmasters of authority to offer to write a guest post for them as they may or may not naturally link to your blog when you are still new blogger. We’re discussing this based on the presumption that your blog is really content rich and offer high quality information to anyone in your niche or topic of discussion. The most viable option would be to send an email directly to the webmaster or see if they have set up rules about how to submit a guest post to them. Some bloggers may like first your comment on their blog, so they know of you. Second if they have submit blog rules, follow it. Some may like it you submit post with request, some may want index of content of guest post. Make sure your guest post is original and not posted anywhere to be accepted.

Tips On Finding Right Blogs for Your niche:

We started with “technology gadgets” as our niche in this series for easy to understand how to set up h1 tags and on page SEO, so let’s continue with that subject here as well. First, let’s look for the top sites in your niche. Simply search the major search engines for the term that you’re targetting. In this case, let’s search for “technological gadgets”. The first few results, www.t3.co.uk and www.acarplace.com/brands/gm/gadgets.html are commercial sites, so don’t bother asking. We’re looking for community-based sites and other blogs that are more accessible to a complete newcomer like you. Seems like www.gizmodo.com would be a good option!

So, compose an email to the webmaster of www.gizmodo.com (whose email address you shall find on the site). They even have their AIM contact there, so it’s also a good choice if you use AOL Instant Messenger. Start by stating how you came across their site (i.e. “looking for gadget information”, NOT “looking for link partners!”) and how you think their site provides valuable info. Basically, try to say something really good about their site honestly. Leave comment on their latest posts for sometimes, so they are aware of you and your blog.

You may ask for guest post suggestion and submit the request in timely manner. I personally do not use this technique as I feel odd about it, but one the blogger I know uses often with some success rate, so I want to mention it here. She writes to a web master or admin of the blog and suggest that so-and-so content on her own blog will be a nice complement to their site’s content and vice versa. Put a link on her blog to their site and ask subtly if they might be able to do the same to weld a mutually beneficial relationship between the site and your blog. She says she has about 20% chance of it working.

Along the way, you might find people who won’t even respond to your email, so forget about them and move on and ask others to link to you or write a guest post for them. In blog business, keep writing good content will generally work with time. Keep doing this for the first 30 search results that pop up, and before long you should have quite a few good sites all linking to you. In the next article, we shall explore further the more advanced off page factors, and ways to improve them!

I would also mention that you can link to blogs that you like and are related to your blog. But, link selling is no no according to Google term of services so stay away while you are still establishing your blog. Only a few lucky people like John Chow can get away with it.

Stay Tune for Part 6 of the series: How to Set Up Blog:Part 6- Off Page SEO 2 and Pagerank