Blogger is a free CMS that let everyone to make a blog in less than two minutes. You can make a professional looking website/blog at BlogSpotwithout paying a penny. However if you want to remove the sub domain of BlogSpotyou have to purchase the custom domain name and then configure in your blog setting. There are also many other features that you can enjoy freely using Blogger such as Adsense linking (you can directly sign up for adsense from your dashboard), SEO features (Meta tag, search description, robots.txt, header tag and so on), user-friendly interface, two types of post editor just like Wordpress i.e. You can post using the text and the HTML editor, a large verity of professional themes and much more. Although, there are lots of features there, but this platform is truly unoptimized if you don’t make changes in certain settings. Here, in this post we are sharing the top SEO strategies for Google’s blogger that every webmaster that is using this CMS should apply.
To get a high rank in Google and other search engines yahoo and Bing etc your blog has the best SEO practices. It’s very important to get the organic natural traffic for free. So, follow the above rules to make your blog search engine friendly. They are just simple and can easily be modified by the settings that we mentioned. Keep blogging and SEO to boost your revenue.
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1) How To Optimizing Post titles In Blogger
Post title is one of the key to SEO that must be according to the guidelines of search engines. By default, the Blogger post title is not well SEO Optimized in old templates but if you are using the new templates they are well optimized post titles. Here, we have the complete description of how to SEO optimize your post title in Blogger.
To optimize Your Post Title follow the below description.
Login to your Blogger dashboard | Template | Edit HTML >> Click anywhere in the template and press CTRL+F and search for the below code.
HTML
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
Replace the above code with the below.
HTML
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> |<data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title> </b:if>
You can see the result of this change By comparing the screenshots below.
Before the Change
After the change
Now the post titles of your blog are more SEO friendly as compared to previous one. It is highly recommended that if you have the default Unoptimized post title then kindly make changes as above.
2) Change Heading Structure H3 to H2 or H1
A well SEO optimized heading structure always drives a mass traffic to your blog. If you are using the old and default blogger template then it may have the unoptimized heading structure. In this part we will cover how to SEO optimize your post heading from H3 to H2 or H1, sidebar widget heading and the footer widget section heading.
To SEO optimize the heading structure of your blog follow the below description.
Change the Post title to H1 from H3.
HTML
<h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
Note: You will find this code Twice in your search. Stick with the second result because the first result id for mobile devices and the second for the PC. You can also change the first code snippet for better SEO.
The Whole code will be look like the below one.
HTML
<a expr:name='data:post.id'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h3 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url != data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h3>
</b:if>
Replace the below code with that of above.
HTML
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "index"'>
<a expr:name='data:post.id'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h1 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url != data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h1>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<a expr:name='data:post.id'/>
<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h2 class='post-title entry-title' itemprop='name'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url != data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h2>
</b:if>
</b:if>
Note: Here, we play the trick by changing the post titles at the home and post pages. The green color background defines the post title tag on the post and other static pages etc. And the blue color indicate the post title tag on the homepage just. This is the best SEO practice to get more attention of the search engines to get quick index of your posts.
Surely, by changing the above structure your CSS for h1 and h2 will disturb. Therefore make some customization to your CSS for H1 and H2 tags.
Search for
CSS
h3.post-title
and replace it with the following style
CSS
h1.post-title
Below you can see the initial/default post heading tag and the optimized tag after being changes.
Initial/Default Post title with H3 tag.
After changes as per above description.
Set Headlines For Sidebar Widget Section:
It is very important to set the widget headings from h2 to h4. Here, we cover the process of how to make such changes.
Search for the ='sidebar
here you will find all the widgets that you have currently installed.
Hit on the black arrow to expand the <b:includable....</b:includable> tag for each widget manually.
After expanding the tag you will see the
HTML
<h2><data:title/></h2> OR <h2 class='title'><data:title/></h2>
Change the <h2> with <h4>
HTML
<h4><data:title/></h4> OR <h4 class='title'><data:title/></h4>
Do it with all the widgets currently installed and whenever you install the new one change it according to the above description.
Set Headlines For Footer Widget Section:
Same Rule apply here according to sidebar widget section headings.
Search for the ='footer' or ='lower'
here you will find all the widgets that you have currently installed.
Hit on the black arrow to expand the <b:includable....</b:includable> tag for each widget and manually change the <h2....</h2> tag with <h4....</h4>.
Note: Footer widget section titles have the same structure as of the Sidebar. so, you can optimize them according to the sidebar widget title description.
3) Optimizing Blog Labels
Every blog has some labels that are essential to navigate within the blog. But the un-optimized labels may harm your blog SEO because when search engine comes to index your post he just needs one unique URL for that post. But the labels and archives also the gateway to the posts in your blog. So, they confused the robots and no index etc of your posts. Here, with just a single trick we will optimize the blogger SEO.
To optimize your blog labels follow the below description.
Search for the following piece of code in your template
HTML
<a expr:href='data:label.url'>
Replace the above code with the below one.
HTML
<a expr:href='data:label.url' rel='tag'>
Here, is how the final result.
4) Optimizing Comments
Comments are the important part of blog. They can have the positive effects on your blog SEO and they also harm if un-optimized. Too many links in the comments may create problems because; Google may consider it Spam and ignore your blog. Therefore, it’s very important to optimize them by just nofollow all the links appeared in comments.
To optimize the comments in your blog follow the below description.
Search for the Following snippet
HTML
expr:href='data:post.createLinkUrl'
Replace the above code with the following.
HTML
rel='external nofollow' expr:href='data:post.createLinkUrl'
The final result will look like the below screenshot.
5) Optimizing Blog Archive
Blog archive show all of your posts according to date and visitors can easily navigate to find the useful information in your blog. They are best for users as they show posts in a complete hierarchy. But note that archives confuse the Google robots when they come to crawl on the homepage. Here, with just a simple trick we will SEO optimize the archive in your blog.
To optimize the archive in blog follow the below description
Search for the following code
HTML
<a class='post-count-link' expr:href='data:i.url'>
Replace the above code with the following
HTML
<a rel="archives" class='post-count-link' expr:href='data:i.url'>
The final Result will look like the below
6) Optimizing PermaLink
Permalinks are the links that summarizes the post titles using the target keywords and they make the URL of post that you publish on the web. The optimized permalinks always a good job because the little SEO changes make possible the huge natural traffic flow to your blog. So, here we will cover how to SEO optimize the permalinks in your blogger blog.
Here, in this section we will cover the permalink optimizing strategies for Blogger.Follow the below steps to SEO optimize the Permalinks of your posts.
It should be no more than 4 words and the maximum 35 to 40 Characters in Length.
It should summarize the Post title with main keyword.
Use synonyms for Keywords in Permalink
Never Use Underscores ( _ ) but hyphens (-) for separating word
Don't use the multiple keywords.
Simple is the best
Below screenshot show the good practice regarding permalinks in blogger.
Note: Sometimes it may happen you change the title of your post with another with any reason. Here, the difficulty is that the permalink is the default that you set while publishing the post first time.The best practise is to change the permalink also for best SEO. You can change the permalink according to your new post title by just revert post to draft and to add the new custom Permalink.
7) Optimizing Meta And Search Description In Blogger
No doubt, Meta description is the most important SEO part of every blog/website. This is the recommended by the search engines such as Google, yahoo and Bing because it appears as a part of search results. Every blog must have this description to tell the search engines about the niche of blog. So, missing it means the un-optimized blog that will rarely appears in search results.
This is the most important SEO practice that is recommended by Google and other search engines. Here, we will cover how to enable thee Meta description For overall blog/website and the search description for individual posts.
How To enable Meta Description in Blogger
Go to your blogger dashboard and navigate to Settings >> Search Preferences
Under search preferences you will see the meta description. By default it is disabled click on edit to enable it. write a proper description related to your blog niche within the 150 Character limits. Use our tool to count character easily.
Write description without use of excess keywords and click save changes.
The next step is to check whether search description in blogger is working or not. We can check this by using the Meta Checker online tool.Paste your post or page url and click check the results.
If None of the meta description appears follow the below description.
Go to your Dashboard | Template | Edit HTML Search For <head> and Paste The Following Code Below <head>
HTML
<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription != ""'>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='description'/>
</b:if>
Save your template and it will successfully show the meta tag for your homepage.
Add Meta Tags In Blogger For Improved SEO
Meta tags play and important role in your SEO Campaign. You can get noticed on search quickely by using some of most important meta tags. Wordpress offers lots of plugins to add but in Blogger (blogspot) we have to add them manually. So follow the below description.
Go to template >> Edit HTML and search for <head> paste the below meta tags below <head>.
HTML
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta content='Your description goes here!' name='description'/>
<meta content='template, WordPress, magazine, elegant, simple, Blogger Templates' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='text/html; charset=UTF-8' http-equiv='Content-Type'/>
<meta content='true' name='MSSmartTagsPreventParsing'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<meta content='noodp' name='robots'/>
<meta content='Mohammad Qasim' name='author'/>
<meta content='Next design web' name='copyright'/>
<meta content='index, follow' name='robots'/>
<meta content='id' name='language'/>
<meta content='id' name='geo.country'/>
<meta content='global' name='distribution'/>
<meta content='1 days' name='revisit-after'/>
<meta content='Indonesia' name='geo.placename'/>
</b:if>
Description:Simply fill out the required information and save your template.
Search Description
When we have enabled the meta description the search description will automatically enabled. You just need to add the search description within certain limit prescribed by Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Note:
Meta title & description limit on Google:
The Google shows 69 Characters (Including Spaces) for Page Title & minimum 156 Characters (Including Spaces) for search Description.
Meta title & description limit on Bing:
The Bing shows 65 Characters (Including Spaces) for Page Title & up to 150 Characters (Including Spaces) for search descriptions. And some of Bing search descriptions are seen up to 185 characters.
Meta title & description limit on Yahoo:
The Yahoo shows the post/page title up to 72 Characters (Including Spaces) & it shows up to 161 Characters (Including Spaces) for search Description.
Meta title & description limit on Ask.com:
Ask.com shows 69 Characters (Including Spaces) for Page Title & instead of meta description, it show a snippet of text from that page up to 312 characters for search description.
8) Errors and Redirections
Sometimes, visitors type the wrong URL or searching the post in your blog that is not exist. Therefore, it causes the problems to search engines robots and crawlers. Here, we will cover how to add the custom 404 page in blogger for better SEO and how to redirect from one URL to another within the blog. Follow the below description.
Under errors and redirections we will take look at the custom page not found and custom redirects as they are most important and recommended by Google.
Custom page not Found
To set custom page not found in blogger go to Setting | Search preferences >> Errors and redirections. Here you will see box that allows you to add the message and redirections when user found this page on your blog. You just need to paste the below code (By Mybloggertricks.com) in it and you are done. You can also make your custom page
HTML
<!-- NDW 404 Page -->
<p style='line-height: 30px'><strong>
<font color='#ff0000' size='5'>
Oops!
</font> <font color='#666666'>
Looks like you either clicked a broken link or a page that you were looking for doesn't exist. <br/> Kindly do one of the followings:
</font></strong></p>
<ol style='line-height: 25px'>
<li><a href='javascript:history.go(-1)'>« Go Back</a> </li>
<li>Report the Problem to us by <a href='CONTACT PAGE URL'>Clicking Here</a> (<em>This will help us serve you even better</em>) </li>
<li>Go To Homepage by <a href='HOMEPAGE URL'>Clicking Here</a>
<br/></li>
<li>Search Anything Using Below Search Box</li>
</ol>
<br />
<center><form _lpchecked='1' action='/search' class='search-form' id='search_mini_form' method='get'>
<input id='searchinput' name='q' onblur='if (this.value == '') {this.value = 'Type Here & Hit Enter';}' onfocus='if (this.value == 'Search the site') {this.value = '';}' type='text' value='Type Here & Hit Enter'/>
<input id='searchbutton' style='vertical-align: top;' type='submit' value='Search!'/>
</form></center>
<p>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/></p>
<p align='center'><font size='5'>Page Not Found!</font></p>
<br /> <br /> <br />
<p align='center'> <font style='font-size:150px; font-weight:bold;' color='red'> 404 </font></p>
<style>
.status-msg-wrap {
font-size: 100%;
margin: none;
position: static;
width: 100%;
}
.status-msg-border {
display:none
}
.status-msg-body {
padding: none;
position: static;
text-align: inherit;
width: 100%;
z-index: auto;
}
.status-msg-wrap a {
padding: none;
text-decoration: inherit;
}
#sidebar-wrapper, #midsidebar-wrapper, .gapad2, .blog-pager, .post-header-line-1, .post-footer , #rsidebar-wrapper { display:none !important;} #main-wrapper { width:98%!important;} .post { width:98%!important; }
#searchinput {
background: #FFF url(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DqsSIdDHoXE/UC7emvfWcII/AAAAAAAAAwo/X7HUuvC4oBs/s000/search.png) no-repeat 7px 8px;
background-color: #FFF;
border: 1px solid #ddd;
color: #A0A0A0;
display: inline-block;
font-family:arial;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight:bold;
height: 24px;
width:300px;
margin: 0;
margin-top: 5px;
padding: 5px 15px 5px 28px;
vertical-align: top;
}
#searchinput:hover{
border: 1px solid #bebebe;
box-shadow: 0 1px 2px rgba(5, 95, 255, .1);
padding: 5px 15px 5px 28px;
}
#searchbutton {
background:#444;
color:#fff;
height:35px;
border-radius:5px 5px 5px 5px;
box-shadow:1px 2px 1px 1px #ABABAB;
border:1px solid #fff;
margin-top:3px;
padding:8px;
}
#searchbutton:hover{background:#555;}
</style>
Save your settings. Check it by http://www.yourblog.blogspot.com/anything
Custom redirections
Custom redirects lets you to redirects from one url to another. You can use this option if you want to redirect the visitors from the old url to new one or any other page. To set custom redirects in blogger follow the below description.
Navigate to settings | Search preferences | Errors and redirections >> Custom Redirects.
Fill out the required url path just as FROM And TO. From refers to the post and page that you want to redirect and To refers the destination path where you want to redirect.For example in the below screenshot i redirect from one post to another.The structure is given below
HTML
From: http://.../2014/05/optimizing-heading-tags-in-blogger.html
To: http://../2014/05/design-inspiration-and-technology.html
Note: Do not enter the full URL in that field. Just omit the domain name and enter just the remaining part as you can see above. And this option only work within your blog and you can't do any external redirection using this option. Also you can specify whether this is permanent or temporary redirection.
If you want to make this redirect mobile SEO friendly just add ?m=1 at the end of the old URL that you are redirecting. For eaxample
http://.../2014/05/optimizing-heading-tags-in-blogger.html?m=1
Below is the screenshot of how it works.
9) Crawlers and Indexing
Blogger Now offers the best SEO settings as compared to previous version. Now you can add the custom robots and header tags easily in your blog. They are very important and the wrong use may cause the harm to your blog SEO and drop you from the search results. So, here in this part we will cover the fully optimized settings that are devised by SEO experts.
In this part we will cover the robots.txt and custom header tags settings.
Custom robots.txt
Here we will discuss about what robots.txt is and how to create and add custom robots.txt file in Blogger. All that deals with crawling and indexing of your blog which covers your blog SEO. This file tells robots and search spiders what to index and not index in your blog. This is very important from SEO point of view and it's also recommended by Google to clearly index your blog. Here, you will find how to enable and add custom robots.text file in your blog.
Go to settings | Search preferences | Crawlers and indexing >> custom robots.txt.
By default this file is disabled click on edit and enable it. Now, copy the below code and paste it in the box.
HTML
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /
Sitemap: http://www.Your-blog-url.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=UPDATED
Note: 1) If you are Google publisher then keep the User-agent: Mediapartners-Google as it is otherwise remove
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:
2) Now, Just change the your-blog-url with your own and click save.
3) Explanation:
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google : This is a first command which apply on the Google publishers who are using Google AdSense. If you are not using Google AdSense then remove it. In this command, we're telling the AdSense's separate robot that crawl all pages which are having AdSense Ads.
User-agent: * : Here the User-agent is calling the robot and * is for all the search engine's robots like Google, Yahoo etc.
Disallow: /search?q=* : This line tells the search engine's crawler not to crawl the search pages.
Disallow: /*?updated-max=* : This one disallows the search engine's crawler to do not index or crawl label or navigation pages.
Allow: / : This one allows to index the homepage or your blog.
Sitemap : This last command tells the search engine's crawler to index the every updated/new post.
Custom robots header tags:
Using it properly can improve our blog ranking that helps us to gain more visitors from search engines and hence our blog page views will also increase.
Go to Settings | search preferences | Crawlers and indexing >> custom robots header tags (by default it is disabled click on edit to enable it.). Once enabled change it according to below screenshot.
Below is the description of all.
Tag
Description
all
There are no restrictions for indexing or serving. This is default for all
noindex
Do not show this page in search results and do not show a "Cached" link in search results.
nofollow
Do not follow the links on this page
none
Equivalent to noindex, nofollow
noarchive
Do not show a "Cached" link in search results.
nosnippet
Do not show a snippet in the search results for this page
noodp
Do not use metadata from the Open Directory project (DMOZ) for titles or snippets shown for this page.
notranslate
Do not offer translation of this page in other languages in search results.
noimageindex
Do not index images on this page.
unavailable_after:
[RFC-850 date/time]
Do not show this page in search results after the specified date/time. The date/time must be specified in the RFC 850 format.
8) Submit Sitemap to search engines:
Sitemap communicate with search robots and tell about all of your posts that you have published. It’s very important to have a XML sitemap for your blog and it’s recommended by Google and other search engines. By adding sitemap you can increase your blog authority and good index of your posts. Here, we will cover how to add the sitemap in Blogger blog.
The last part of this post is adding the sitemap to different search engines using their webmaster tool such as Google and Yahoo. To submit Sitemap to Google go to your dashboard under the sitemap section click on add sitemap. Just paste the below green highlighted code in it if your blog has upto 500 posts.
HTML
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=500
Note: If you have more then 500 posts then you can add another of the same order as above.
You can submit the sitemap to yahoo and search engines in the dashboard.
Hope you enjoyed the SEO strategies/practices for blogger blog. We try our best to have clear explanation with clean style so that readers can fully enjoy this post. Our special thanks to mybloggertricks, bloggeryard.com and helplogger.