I never thought I could improve the search engine ranking of my own blog.  Simply put: I am a SEO idiot!  I don’t know the first thing about building websites or blogs, and I sure as heck don’t know anything about search engines or SEO.

But . . . I didn’t let that stop me. 

I did some reading about SEO, and I discovered some tips and tricks that all newbies can use to improve the search engine ranking of their blog posts.  I tried these simple tricks on one of my own posts, and, within 24 hours, my blog post ranked #2 in Google search results. 

I picked my post about 8 Ways To Make Passive Income, and my goal was to get it on the first page of Google.  You should pick a post of your own and shoot for the same goal.  (Remember: Don’t set your goals too low.  Aim for the fences.)

The Problem: No Traffic

Now, if you read this blog consistently, you will have noticed that the title for the blog post I picked above used to be ”8 Sources of Passive Income.”  The problem with that title and that post is that, while it was interesting and informative, it did not attract any search engine traffic. 

I knew the information in that post was something a lot of people would want to read.  But I could not get any traffic to it unless I used it as a link in my comments on other blogs, or if I tried Digging the post, etc.

What I Did To Improve Search Engine Ranking

Here are the steps I took to improve the search engine ranking for my post about passive income. 

(Note: The following steps focus on on-page optimization.  These techniques alone will help you jump several hundred spots in Google, but you need to focus on off-page optimization as well–i.e., links from high PR websites and blogs–in order to get to the top of Google.  I focus consistently on getting quality blogs and websites to link to this blog.  If you focus on the techniques below AND off-page optimization, you WILL get to the top of Google.)

1) Pick one competitive keyword. 

This step involves two sub-steps.  First, you need to pick a keyword that attracts at least 300 to 400 searches per day.  Second, that keyword must generate less than 1 million search results on Google.  You want enough demand for your keyword, but you don’t want too much competition.

The problem with my post was that the only searchable keyword in the title “8 Sources of Passive Income” was the phrase “passive income.”  Now, that’s a great keyword.  People search for it several hundred times per day, so there is–in economic terms–good demand for that keyword.  However, a Google search for “passive income” generates 1,740,000 results! 

That’s way too much competition to deal with.

A.  Your keyword must attract enough searches per day. 

I wanted to keep my focus on “passive income,” so I looked at other phrases that would include the words “passive income” but that wouldn’t generate so many search results on Google.  Using Wordtracker’s free keyword suggestion tool, I settled on the phrase “ways to make passive income.”  

Wordtracker shows 10 searches for the phrase “ways to make passive income.”

 

Wordtracker represents about 1% of all searches done on the Internet.  Its database maintains logs containing 300 to 340 million keywords covering periods of 60 to 100 days.  Thus, we have to multiply the number of searches above by 100 to get an estimate of total searches per month.  In this case, 10 x 100 = 1,000 searches per month for the phrase “ways to make passive income.”  Per day, that comes out to 1,000/30 = 33.33 searches.

So about 33 people run searches for the phrase ”ways to make passive income” each day.  It isn’t exactly what we want in terms of demand.  For any niche website, you want at least 300 searches per day.  However, this was just an experiment, and my goal was just to get on the first page of Google.  So, for purposes of this exercise, 33 searches per day will do.

B.  Your keyword must generate less than 1 million search results on Google. 

You want enough demand for your keyword, but you don’t want too much competition.  When you settle on your keyword, go to Google and type the phrase in the search box in quotes.  I went and did that, and here is the number of results that Google returned for a search for the keyword “ways to make passive income”:

The search returned 7,240 results.  That’s obviously well below 1 million.  And it means that you have very little competition for this keyword. 

Now that I had my keyword, I embarked on the next steps to get my blog post on the first page of Google.

2) Optimize your blog post with your keyword.

The hardest part was finding the keyword.  Now that you have it, the rest is easy.

You want to take your keyword and place it in the following areas of your blog post:

  • Title of your post.
  • First paragraph of your post, preferably towards the left.
  • Title of an image you embed in your post.
  • Somewhere else within your post, preferably around the middle.
  • End of your post.
  • Bold, italicize, or underline it either at the beginning of your post or at some other point within your post.
  • Using Wordpress’s All-In-One SEO plugin (highly recommended), place the keyword in the description of the post.

That’s it.  I did most of these things with my post: 

The Title

Placing the keyword in the title had two profound effects.  First, it appears in the header bar at the top of the web page:

Second, it appears in the URL (assuming you have pretty permalinks):

These areas are two of the first things a search engine looks at.  By placing your keyword in these areas, you’re way ahead of the game.

First Paragraph/Bolding

I placed the keyword in the very first paragraph and bolded it:

Additional Placement

I placed the keyword further down after the first paragraph:

I also placed it in the last sentence:

Description

Using the All-In-One SEO plugin, I made sure to include the keyword in the description of my post:

Flimjo Rises To The Top Of Google

The result of these minor tweaks?  My blog post 8 Ways To Make Passive Income now ranks #2 in the search results for the phrase “ways to make passive income”:

Anyone can perform these minor tweaks on their blog posts to improve their search engine ranking.  You can get each of your blog posts to rank not only competitively in Google, but right near the top.  Obviously, you need to focus also on off-page optimization, but SEO starts with these on-page techniques.

If you look at the search results again, you’ll see that the only person ahead of me for that keyword is Shoemoney.   

OK.  I can live with that. 

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