Ultimate SEO Tip List for Bloggers: Part Three

Hi friends! I am back today with PART THREE (the final part) of The ULTIMATE SEO Tip List for Bloggers. Here is PART ONE and PART TWO in case you missed them!

Let’s get right into the most asked questions I get surrounding SEO for blogging!
Where do I put the keywords on my blog post/website so that my blog post/website shows up?
When writing a post, I do my keyword and research and decide on a phrase that I want it to rank for. Then there are multiple places you will want to make sure the keyword/phrase is. Grab a copy of my 9 Step SEO Checklist to walk you through the process.
If you have WordPress, I highly recommend the Yoast plugin, it will give you a green light when you've got your post optimized and it's the best thing ever. Seriously. (See next question for more info!)
Can you tell us about Yoast? Is Yoast a plugin?
Yoast is a plugin for WordPress. There's a free version and a paid version, I've never used the paid version. I just use the free one. What it does is you tell it what keyword phrase you're trying to rank for. Then as you go along writing your post and uploading your photos and everything, it will start making green lights. Once the post is optimized, Yoast will give you a green light for the entire post and then you can stop worrying about optimizing (although I always try to make all the lights green).
Are there certain specs for the final sizes that we should use for images?
I wrote this post about optimizing your photos for SEO, that I encourage you to read. You don't want to be using images that are wider than your blog post text. You definitely don't want to use photos that are uploaded directly from your DSLR or iPhone.
Your photos only need to be at 72 dpi for the web. Some tools will give you this option when saving. There is no need to do 300 or 600 dpi for your blog post. Ultimately you want the file size as small as possible while still ensuring the image is clear and crisp. Large photos can increase the page load time of your website which will have a negative impact on your SEO efforts.
How do I optimize my homepage?
To optimize your home page, you want to optimize your title tag and you want to have text that talks about products and services that you sell. For my other site (health and fitness), I would want my title tag as: “Body Positive Online Health & Fitness Coach.” Many homepages now consist of a banner, multiple photos, a contact area, and a navigation bar. What they are often missing is text. Google needs something read on every page. Google cannot read text that is overlaid on graphics.
The most important thing I tell people is, “Do you have multiple paragraphs on your homepage that talks about what you do?” You want to talk about what you do, who you are, who you serve, etc. Then you want to add at least one optimized photo (just like for blog posts). You're going to want to use the keyword in a heading as well. The 9 Step SEO CheckList I have available for download is not just for blog posts – but any page on your site.
How can we test website speed? Does Google have a tool for that?
You can use the site: testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com. Put your site's address in and let it run. After it runs (which can take a few minutes), you will be told your site's speed, the percentage of impressions you're losing because of your site's speed, and you can enter your email to get a complete report. I will tell you that many are issues a developer will need to handle. I can almost guarantee you that optimizing your photos will be one of the suggestions.
How important is Google Analytics? Is Google Analytics, if we don't have that on our website, is that something that we can do pretty simply on our own? Is that a complicated process?
EVERYONE should have Google Analytics installed on your website. I have a FREE 7 Day workshop to help you get Analytics set up and started on your SEO.
The workshop takes you through installing Google Analytics on your site, getting search console installed, submitting a sitemap to Google, understanding analytics, finding the top 25 pages and learning how to optimize for SEO.

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Whew! SEO can be simple once you know the tricks and have the proper tools in place. What questions do you have? Leave them in the comments below or email me!
Cheers!