Practice the very basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is always a buzz word. As millions of people clamour for pole position in that elusive key word search there are just as many looking to convince you of their search engine prowess and sell you their services. However, unless you are looking to compete against key market players in any field, the basics of SEO really can be kept simple.

 8 Easy Steps to SEO friendly Content;

1. Your domain - Use a domain which reflects your website content to help position your site in search engines. In the world of blogging especially when we are blogging about life topics we are more likely to choose quirky domain names, use your site 'tag line ' to indicate what your blog is about. 
2. Give your content Titles and Headers - Ensuring that the title of your post reflects the aim and direction of your content is key to helping search engines define your content type. This is equally true of sub-headers throughout your post, use them as landmarks in your content to identify subject. 
3. Keywords - There is always a lot of talk about 'keywords' and 'longtail phrases'. In short the difference is that the former is a single word, the latter a phrase which you think is 'likely' to be searched for online relating to your topic. Ensuring that your keywords feature in titles/header and content helps build the catalogue of knowledge for search engines when deciding what your subject is... but don't overdo it, else not only will you penalised for trying to 'trick' the search engines into listing your content, it will become a boring read. 
4. Consider content length - Most plugins and apps which assist with search engine optimisation recommend content of at least 300 words long. Whilst I personally don't subscribe to a word count driving my content, and prefer to be led by what I actually have to say about a topic, it's a guideline which should help you understand 2 factors. Search Engines are seeking 'content rich' pages and the process of 'saturating' your keywords within your topic can make 'quality' mighty difficult to reflect in short posts. i.e. imagine repeating the word 'writing' some three times in a text 100 words long vs a more natural flow within a 300 word counterpart ? Makes sense doesn't it ? On the contrary, your writing style and target audience will very much start to influence your content length, not every audience wants to read an essay, where as others are more engaged by longer pieces. 
5. Links - there has traditionally been a leaning towards 'link building' in the SEO race to such a degree that in the past companies have built their whole business on this alone. However Search Engines are not looking for a vast number of links from and to your content, they are looking for quality of your content, and your links are a good indicator of this. Links within your text and content to verify that you are providing good quality information is a valuable search engine practice. Likewise, many are watching their analytics in order to see who is linking into them, should you be writing brilliant content which others might want to share, this practice just may help you get noticed, and hopefully get you that link back. Equally, include the link to your blog in appropriate places, such as in email signatures replying to contacts about your blog, in comments on other blog sites etc. This not only provides a history of linking to your site for search engines to find, it provides other pathways of finding your site for potential readers. 
6. Images - include images in your post. Imagary is not just for visual pleasure, they also guide the eye around the page and users are more likely to read your content if they find it visually appealing.  However search engines cannot 'read' images for the purpose of being able to identify their topic / meaning, try to give the images names which reflect the post subject/content, complete information for the images such as title and 'alt' as search engines can read this. 
7. User experience - make it easy to navigate around content on your site. 
8. Don't forget social networks - whilst most search engines no longer refer to metadata for their rankings, most social networks still refer to this. Use enticing (content appropriate) descriptions and tags for every post and page. 

Practising these techniques will help you keep your site and content search engine friendly, and will soon become second nature if considered routinely in the course of publishing posts.