Complete SEO Trick For Blogger Layout

This post will provide you complete information on search engine optimization (SEO) for blogger templates. I have implemented this SEO guide at one of my “dummy” blog, SeasonEpisode TV News. Don’t forget to check it for study case. I believe that this post isn’t the most complete SEO guide for blogger template. If you have any idea, drop me a commend and then we can discuss it here.

Page Title

Standard page title for a single Blogger post is BLOG TITLE: POST TITLE. You can improve SEO by changing the title tags to POST TITLE | BLOG TITLE. Find this code in your XML template,

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

replace with this code,

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>

You can also add some keywords to homepage title, for example

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/> | TV Episode Guide | TV Show Info</title>
</b:if>

Meta Keywords and Description

Some blogger expert have written tutorials about how to add meta keywords and description. It is very easy, you need to add this code after title tag above or before <b:skin><![CDATA[/*
For example,

<meta name="description" content="SeasonEpisode TV News - TV Episode Guide" />
<meta name="keywords" content="tv news, season episode, episode guide, tv listing" />

But, this code add same meta keywords & description to all posts. It is not good because you will find a warning at Google Webmaster Tools because duplicate meta keywords & description are detected. So, it is better if you only add meta keywords & description to the homepage. For example, you can add this code,

<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl'>
<meta name="description" content="SeasonEpisode TV News - TV Episode Guide " />
<meta name="keywords" content="tv news, season episode, episode guide, tv listing" />
</b:if>

Heading

Heading Tag (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5) is also important for SEO. All of Blogger widgets (gadgets) title use H2 tags.  But, Minima Template use H3 tag for post title and many blogger templates use H2 tag for post title. To improve SEO, you need to use H1 tag for post title. For example, find this code,

<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h3 class='post-title entry-title'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h3>
</b:if>

This example shows that your template use H3 tag for post title (If you don't find it, your template may use H2 tag for post title). Replace H3 (or H2) at this code with H1, for example,

<b:if cond='data:post.title'>
<h1 class='post-title entry-title'>
<b:if cond='data:post.link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.link'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:post.url'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.title/></a>
<b:else/>
<data:post.title/>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</h1>
</b:if>

And you need to change post title font size by adding this code before ]]></b:skin>

h1.post-title, .post h1 #Blog1 h1, #Blog2 h1 { font-size:1.5em; }

For example, i use 1.5em font size. You can change it if you want.

Social Bookmarking

This year, community is the king! Adding social bookmarking links can help you build your community and improve SEO. For example, i use Sociable icons (I’ll write tutorial later). I have written similar tutorial here.

Breadcrumb

You can use breadcrumb to provide “easy” navigation for your visitor. You can find the tutorial here.

Related Posts

Some blogger expert have written tutorials about how to add related posts hack. All of them use JSON javascript code. Read the best related posts hack here…

Auto-Readmore Link

Auto-Readmore link doesn’t have direct relationship with SEO. But, you can use it to improve user interfaces for your visitors. Make your visitors enjoy your blog, get more traffic, and SEO will follow There are two type of ReadMore hacks. They are CSS Javascript hack based. You can find the tutorial here (CSS) and here (Javascript).