This is Part II of The Basics of SEO:
6. Use Your Keyword Phrase in the Body of Your Content
It's important that you use your keyword phrase in the body of your blog post. A good goal to try to achieve is to use your keyword phrase at least twice in the first paragraph of your post and as many times as you can (without keyword stuffing - see #10 below) within the first 200 (alternatively, the first 1,000) words of your post.
7. Use Your Keyword Phrase in and Around Your Links
Search engines count links higher than plain text in their search algorithms, so try to create links that use your keyword phrase. Avoid using links that simply say, "click here" or "more information" as these links will do nothing to help you with your search engine optimization. Leverage the power of links in SEO by including your keyword phrase in them whenever possible. The text surrounding links is typically weighted more heavily by search engines than other text on your page as well. If you can't include your keyword phrase in your link text, try to include it around your link text.
8. Use Your Keyword Phrase in Images
Many bloggers see a large amount of traffic sent to their blogs from image searches on search engines. Make the images you use in your blog work for you in terms of SEO. Make sure your image filenames and captions include your keyword phrase.
9. Avoid Block Quotes
There are differing opinions on this issue with one group of people saying that Google, Bing and other search engines ignore the text included in the HTML block quote tag when crawling a web page. Therefore, the text within the block quote tag won't be included in terms of SEO. Until a more definitive answer can be determined to this issue, it's a good idea to keep it in mind and use the block quote tag cautiously.
10. Don't Keyword Stuff
Search engines penalize sites that stuff pages full of keywords simply to increase their rankings through keyword searches. Some sites are even banned from inclusion in search engine results because of keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is considered a form of spamming, and search engines have zero tolerance for it. Keep this in mind as you optimize your blog posts for search engines using your specific keyword phrase.
Paddy Deighan J.D. Ph.D
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