Tips for the Blogger

The challenge for the blogger is to receive traffic and turn that traffic into ad revenue.  Bloggers do this by using search engine optimization to have the website appear in the top search engine results.  In order to get revenue from the blog, the design should be easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye.

There are common mistakes that bloggers make which limit the website’s potential.  By fixing these mistakes, bloggers may see an increase in both website traffic and ad revenue.  The blogging mistakes are common and not difficult to fix.

One common mistake is to have website content that is on a very broad or general subject rather than a niche.  Websites compete for search engine result placement based on the keywords that are used.  When a blog has articles that use keywords on a broad subject, the blog is not going to be able to get a higher placement in the search engine results than websites that are already established and receive traffic from those keywords.

To compete effectively, a blog needs to identify niche keywords about very specific topics.  For example, instead of using “baby”, the blogger would look for longer keyword phrases that include the word “baby”, like “home remedies for baby rashes” or “homemade baby food recipes.”  By choosing longer, more specific topics, the blog has a chance at securing a top spot in the search engine results for that keyword.

Another common mistake is to have a design that is difficult to read or navigate.  Using colors that are too bright, text that is too small or light text on a dark background makes the blog difficult to read for many people.  Color schemes that are loud with combinations of bright colors are more likely to make the viewer click right back to the search engine results than to stay and read the content of the website.

Search engine optimization overkill is another way to make visitors rush away from the website.  Before Google’s spiders, that index the websites and assign value and meaning to them, were sophisticated enough to identify a subject based on combinations of keywords, people used to get top search engine placement by using the same word many, many times on the webpage.  This is not only unnecessary, but it looks like spam which repulses the blog viewers.

Bloggers should try to keep up-to-date with news about how Google assigns priority to websites and identifies the keywords.  The Google algorithms change, so the blogger should periodically check for these changes in order to avoid using outdated methods.

By using a professional-looking design that is easy to read and supplying valuable content on niche subjects, the blog has the best chance of attracting traffic and turning the traffic into ad revenue.  Bloggers should employ the latest search engine optimization methods to increase the blog’s chance of appearing in the top search engine results, because being at the top of the search results is how blogs tend to get the most traffic.