A Blogger blog is a fairly simple thing. It’s easy to get up and going and it’s quick to post articles. However, there are a few simple things you can do if you want to make it easier to find your blog in the Interwebs.
The first two things you can do are really simple and require no knowledge of HTML or the back end of Blogger. These instructions work for whichever blogging platform you use.
Descriptive titles
Yep, you’d thing this one should be easy, but many people (including myself) forget this really simple step. Make your titles really descriptive and they’ll be more likely to be indexed by Google and the other search engines. For example, Special Report: CHOICE clothing sizes is a good title but Great vest is really pretty boring. What I should have used as a title was something like Dramatically tailored vest (in-fact, I might just rename it).
Descriptive links
This is another one where people (including me) get lazy. A link that points here is far less likely to be indexed than a link that points to a post on Icy’s shoe rules.
The next three things require you to start playing around a little bit with HTML, don’t be afraid though, you can do it ^_^.
Use headings within your posts
Now this is one I use rarely (except perhaps the headings within this post) but it is just as effective as the first two. In-fact, any text within any HTML tag is treated with higher priority in a search engine, than the normal text in a post, so this goes for bolded text, numbered and un-numbered lists as well. Here’s how to use a heading in Blogger.
- Write your new witty, informative and interesting post
- Click on the Edit Html tab at the top of the post
- Find the text you want to format as a heading
- At the start of the text type <h1> and at the end type </h1>. All HTML tags use the left and right angle brackets and the closing tag always uses the / symbol (that way you know it is the closing pair of the tab.
- Switch back to the Compose tab and check the result. If the text is too big, switch back and try using the <h2> </h2> tags, or even h3 or less until you get a look that works for you.
- Save or publish your post!
Alt tags for pictures
Alt tags for pictures are more likely to be indexed by a search engine, just the same as links and headings. IFB has talked about this before. Here is how to do it specifically in Blogger.
- Write another witty, informative and interesting post.
- Upload your photos into your post and position them to your liking.
- Click on the Edit Html tab at the top of new post.
- Look for the images in the text, they start with the code <img…
- Scroll along each <img> tag looking for the text alt=”” (use the search function in your browser if this makes it easier.
- Add your descriptive text within the quotes, including your site name. I might have something like alt=”Fabulous fashion @ Individual Chic”.
- Save or publish your post.
Meta tags
Way back in 2007 Jeannine went into what Meta tags are and how to use them. They’re pretty simple, just a way to add keywords and descriptions to your blog. For instructions on how to add the tags to Blogger, see below.
- Go to your Blogger Dashboard
- Click on the Layout tab and then Edit HTML
- Click on the link that says Download Full Template. Save the template somewhere on your hard drive with a nice descriptive name. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. If you screw things up, you want to be able to go back to a working copy
- Look for the <head> tag. It should be right at the top of the Edit Template window. Put a couple of blank lines below it
- Type in the tag below, substituting your name of course ^_^
<meta content=’Icy’ name=’author’/> - Add another line and type in
<meta content=’Your blog description here.’ name=’description’/> - Add a last line and type in
<meta content=’all of the keywords you can think of, separated by commas’ name=’keywords’/> - Click the Save Template button
- Load up your page and check it all works.
I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. Let me know in the comments.
Thanks, Icy.
image by ClickFlashPhotos
HEK – you can use photo bucket or any other image store. You just add the alt=”..” tag within the ‘style’ section of the html. Try just after the height or width tag.
Charles – *blush*
Nina, Michael, Chinthu, Vinda – you’re welcome ^_^
Kenny – the html doesn’t seem to come through, but for the closing to the meta tag make sure there is a space between the closing quote and the final slash. The other thing you can try is to look at the source of a blogger page and just cut and paste the tag from there. Right click on a page (like my one) and then choose “veiw source” from the menu. The meta tag should be at the top of the page. Also try swapping single quotes ‘ for double quotes “. It might depend on if you are using CSS or standard HTML tagging.
Vegetarian Traveller – I’d hope your blog would be indexed by now (you should wait at least two weeks) but if not search for “Google Webmaster Tools” and sign up with those to see if you can diagnose the problem.
Graham, BV – You’re also welcome ^_^
Jill – I’m not sure what the message is, but read what I’ve said to Kenny.
.-= Icy @ Individual Chic´s last blog ..Ambra’s new Killer Figure =-.
Good post thank you, baut Backlinks is everything
thanks, I did find something useful (that I didn’t even know was useful to know
)!
.-= The Very Subjective´s last blog ..: The Thing About IT, Navy, Caramel And White =-.
I do not really get what you mean. Is it possible to increase traffic to my blog by going to picassa and tagging all the pictures i have uploaded? because i cant change the html coding of the uploaded pics frm my blogger.
Thanks, it is a very helpful post. I will do it for my blog.
Thanks for this post! I’ll try it as soon as I wake up
.-= Monica´s last blog ..Local designer – Gold Saturn =-.
Super super helpful. Thank you!
Great post. thanks ! I will try all of the above
I am just getting use to everything and trying to expand my following …so this helps
rovactive Art =-.
thanks again
.-= tara´s last blog ..John Issac & Friends
Great post, thank you! I found this very helpful, as I’m beginning to explore new things on my blog!
Thank you for this information. As a technophobic blogger, I am excited to try some of these techniques! You Rock!
.-= Shelayna´s last blog ..The Pacific! =-.
Thanks! Great tips.
.-= Vegetarian Traveller´s last blog ..Laspada’s Original Hoagies – Davie, FL =-.
Hello, about the meta tag- I followed your steps and I cant seem to get it to work :/ …..It comes back at me with an error, saying something is’nt closed like the (tag) but the code is copy and pasted from your instructions,…so Im not sure how to go about this to change it ? Thanks-good post btw
And I have a blogger blog
Hello
I’m posting this again as it came back with an error.
I’ve used the tips you mentioned above and hoping they will work for my blog.
Thanks
.-= StyleNuggets´s last blog ..Topshop coming to NZ =-.
Definately gonna try out using meta tags!!
thank you for your simple instructions for non techies like me! x
.-= vicki´s last blog ..Ice cream smiles… =-.
thanks for the great tips and for making it easy.
i ran into the same trouble as “Kenny,” and swapping the single quotes for double quotes did the trick.
much appreciated!
Thought I’d leave an update to say…..it works. I took the time to re-do my blogs as per the tips above and my traffic increased. Thanks IFB and Icy.
Don’t know what I’d have done without this post. A lot of tips on other sites are too detailed or too hard to understand.
.-= StyleNuggets´s last blog ..Style in movies, movies with style =-.
When I added meta tags, this always appears:
Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “content”.
I really do not know why. I’m sure I followed the instructions correctly.
Scribbles of my Sentiments
Check out Cool Blogger Themes
.-= missjahz´s last blog ..What I Did for Love (10) =-.
Hey Im having the same problems… Let me know if you figure anything out and I will do the same! seems like no one wants to add any additional help here
.-= Tara ´s last blog ..DIY: Studded Bustier (part uno) =-.
This was great. Just put in my meta tags. Thanks!
Instead of going back to the html (a pain, I’ve tried it when I wanted to fix other problems) of a post to add alt tags to your images I would recommend just typing out the html for the images. I type out links so that I can add a target=”_blank” function to it so I think if you want to add alt it would be easier to do it from the beginning. Just make sure you dont’ save the draft first because the html will be converted instantly!
I’m not sure though, for the images it’s recommended that we just add our blog name? Or what does this mean? How does that help us?
.-= JESSU´s last blog ..Early morning, blinded by rain, high waist buffet. =-.
Hello
I followed your instructions regarding meta tags, but it came up with all sorts of error messages. I’ll ask my boyfriend the computer-wizard to fix it later!
.-= Julia´s last blog ..College =-.
I use both Picassa and Flickr for sharing photos over the internet but i use Flickr more often than Picassa.-,.
Really nice info given………
can someone tell me kindly how I can add rss feed to my blog.
Thanks
.-= Game reviews´s last blog ..Prince of Persia The Sands Of Time(*******—/10) =-.
Hi,
Im trying to add meta tags to my blog but I am getting the following error:
Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “content”.
My meta tags are designed as follows:
Can someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thankx for your help!!!
Hi,
Im trying to add meta tags to my blog but I am getting the following error:
Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “content”.
My meta tags are designed as follows:
meta content=’T-Rex’ name=’author’/
meta content=’Lyrics from “Empire State of Mind” from Jay-Z’s 11th studio album The Blueprint 3 (2009).’ name=’description’/
meta content=’JayZ, Illuminati’ name=’keywords’/
Ofcourse I will add a “” at the end of each tag marked by a “/”.
Can someone please tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thankx for your help!!!
The quotes above are supposed to have a greater than and less than symbol.
hi, for those who have the meta content, replace the ’ in code with ‘. Its because xml coding doesn’t recognize ’. I tried it in my blog and its working fine.
Thanks so much for this info! I just added meta tags. I got an error message at first, but I realized that I had included an apostrophe (‘) in one of my tags and it was messing up the code.
I am having isssues with the meta tags showing up on my blog, and I’m just getting error messages.
Hiya! I know this is kinda off topic however , I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest authoring a blog post or vice-versa? My blog addresses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I believe we could greatly benefit from each other. If you might be interested feel free to send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Terrific blog by the way!
This is realy nice artical. I learn lot of things for blogging. Thank you very much!!!
Keep it up.
I use this tip for my blog , It’s getting more traffic now thankx web master.
Thanks ! I used this tips on myblog and we will see
is XHTML code is necessory for the blog to be more searchable
?
or html is enough?
Hello! this is a great post. can you please help me. I’m trying to do the meta tag, but this error always appear when I save the template
Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “name”.
All those having problems with xml, just change all the apostrophes: ‘
with double quote marks: ”
in the bits your copying. It will work!
xxx