How Important is the Page Title and Description? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Okay, here's the deal – I suck at SEO.  I don't write to key words (I will try more often but that's not how my post ideas pop into my head) and I just recently started to make sure I link internally as much as possible.  BUT, I also don't want to be overwhelmed by trying to attack everything at the same time, so here's the list of things I would like to attack next.  Can you please let me know which ones are the most important for SEO purposes?  I rather hit the big things than spend a whole week on something minor…

1)  Page Title field in Wordpress.

2)  Page Description field in Wordpress.

3)  Excerpts

4)  Add the main point of my post to the first paragraph.

5)  ???  Something I haven't thought of that I'm completely missing…

I already categorize and tag my posts.  I also link internally a bit (I will be going back and increasing this in time).  What is the next big thing I could do to help my SEO (without annoying my daily readers of course)?  I just can't seem to prioritize and I don't have enough time to do it all right now…

Thank you all in advance!!!

Hey Crytsal!

I try to balance writing for human beings with getting noticed by the search engines.  I wrote up an article on SEO basics for my "make a website" blog if you want to check it out… http://howtomakeawebsite101.ne…..cs-of-seo/

I would focus on your title first and thentry to mix the keyword in to your post, and in subtitles (H1, H2, etc).  But don't go crazy…remember in the end you're writing for people, not Google.  And don't forget backlinks…try to get links to your posts using your keyword phrase as the anchor text.

But keyword research is really important too.  If you're going after the wrong keywords it won't matter what you do in terms of SEO.  You don't have to write solely for the keywords…what I do is I get a post idea in mind and then I do some research to find the best keywords to target.  You'd be surprised how often swapping out one word can have a dramatic effect.  Personally I use Market Samurai which is a paid tool (I'm going to write up a review of it because I think a lot of bloggers could benefit from it).  But you could also use Google's keyword tool to find your keywords and then use the free SEO Quake plugin to scout out the competition.  It's a lot more legwork than Market Samurai but it's free.

Mike – Saving Money Today said:

Hey Crytsal!

I try to balance writing for human beings with getting noticed by the search engines.  I wrote up an article on SEO basics for my "make a website" blog if you want to check it out… http://howtomakeawebsite101.ne…..cs-of-seo/

I would focus on your title first and thentry to mix the keyword in to your post, and in subtitles (H1, H2, etc).  But don't go crazy…remember in the end you're writing for people, not Google.  And don't forget backlinks…try to get links to your posts using your keyword phrase as the anchor text.

But keyword research is really important too.  If you're going after the wrong keywords it won't matter what you do in terms of SEO.  You don't have to write solely for the keywords…what I do is I get a post idea in mind and then I do some research to find the best keywords to target.  You'd be surprised how often swapping out one word can have a dramatic effect.  Personally I use Market Samurai which is a paid tool (I'm going to write up a review of it because I think a lot of bloggers could benefit from it).  But you could also use Google's keyword tool to find your keywords and then use the free SEO Quake plugin to scout out the competition.  It's a lot more legwork than Market Samurai but it's free.

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Thanks so much!  Okay, I am totally adding titles and descriptions for all my posts over the next week.  Check.

I will also go back and find the correct keywords to include in my old posts too.  I'm going to use the Google keyword tool and the SEO Quake plugin for right now since I'd feel silly paying for a tool like Market Samurai that I really don't know how to use properly yet…

Do they make it super easy to understand?  Like if I was writing a post on my budget or a different post on the books I've been reading and I typed that into Market Samurai, would they be very specific on what keyword I should use the most?  I saw that they cost quite a bit when I checked them out yesterday (like $150 or so if I was reading that correctly)…

Thanks again!!!

Jason@LiveRealNow said:

I'm not sure what benefits Market Samurai has over Traffic Travis, which has a free option.

Another thing to do is bold or italicize keywords and phrases. 

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I didn't know bolding would help!  Thanks!!!  Once I look up specific keywords, I'll definitely keep that in mind!!!  I'll also take a look at Traffic Travis tonight.  Thank you!!!  Maybe I can get my search engine traffic above 7-8%…

Oh yea, and if you really need help with SEo there's a pugin called SEO Scribe that will analyze your posts and offer tips for optimizing them.  If you print out their checklist and refer to it when writing new posts you'd be pretty much set.  The plugin costs like 20 bucks/month. I quit after one month because I didn't really need it, but if you are struggling to get SE traffic it might be worth signing up for a month and then quitting once you're comfortable with what you're doing.

Titles are extremely important!  Also important, that you didn't mention but maybe you are already doing it, is to make sure the URL of the article has relelvent words in them.

 

Oh, and I heard linking to Free From Broke does wonders for your SEO

 

And you can probably get Market Samurai for $97 (that's what I got it for).  There's a trial period too to try it out.  Reminds me that I have to set up my affiliate link…

Post edited 2:14 pm – January 19, 2011 by Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

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Don't mind me.  :-)  I just can't delete this post…

The most important thing to know about SEO is that what you do on the page doesn't matter as much as what happens off site.   On-site optimization accounts for about 25% or less of your search engine rankings.   The thing that matters most is other sites linking to you, preferably using the link text you are trying to rank for.

Good point.  If I change my titles now though, won't that lose me any links I had already?  Is there a plugin for that?

Mike – Saving Money Today said:

You can change the titles without changing the url.  Just make sure not to change that if you edit the post, that would likely create a lot more trouble than it's worth

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Thank you so much for all of your help.  I truly appreciate it.  I'll leave my url's alone…

@Jason, I'm using Traffic Travis (the free version right now) and am saddened by how sucky I rank on pretty much everything I've tried so far.  But thank you for the suggestion.  I have ONE HELL of a rank with "Pineapple Stuffing" for some reason…