In almost all blogs, the blog’s homepage is targeted for a set of keywords, different category pages are targeted for different sets of keywords and different posts are targeted for different sets of keywords. While optimizing a blog post for a set of keywords might be easy, optimizing the homepage and category pages of a blog for keywords is somewhat challenging.

Let’s start. First of all, you need to be clear about what keywords you are targeting. That means you gotta select sets of keywords for your homepage and category pages. If you want to reap financial benefits from your blog, keyword selection is a very important part and generally, you would need to do a lot of keyword research before you are able to find the right keywords you should be going after. I am not going to go into details of how to do keyword research in this post. I use Google’s Adwords keyword research tool and I think it’s a great FREE tool. You might also want to use the same if you are yet to sort out the keywords you would be targeting.

Second, to implement this keyword optimization technique, you would need to structure your blog for it. Chances are, you already have this kind of structure for your blog. You blog’s homepage should show the descriptions of the posts and your category pages should show the excerpts.

Although the technique I am explaining here can be applied to all blogging platforms that have provisions for excerpts and descriptions, let’s take WordPress for an example because it’s the platform that I use and it’s the platform that most of my readers use. If you are using WordPress, excerpts of posts are 55 words long by default unless truncated beforehand with a more tag or a custom excerpt is written. Descriptions of posts go till the more tags. This kind of structure forms the base for this keyword optimization technique. You now need to perform the following steps to effectively optimize your blog for keywords.

1. You need to inject the keywords selected earlier for the category page of the category that the post belongs to in the first 55 words of the post so that it will show up in the excerpts shown in the category page.
2. You need to inject the keywords selected earlier for the blog’s homepage after the first 55 words in the post but before the more tag.
3. While performing steps 1 and 2, you also need to take in mind that your individual blog posts also need to be targeted for certain keywords. So you would also want to inject keywords related to your post in those first 55 words or before the more tags. You would also want to inject relevant keywords along the way till the end of the post. Make sure you don’t overdo this and keep your keywords percentage in a blog post to below 5%. Putting keywords at the start and end of a post is a great idea.
4. You may want to skip steps 1 and/or 2 while writing some posts to make sure you don’t over stuff your keywords in your homepage and the category pages.

If you look closely, what we have done is, we have optimized the descriptions of posts showing up in the homepage to have the keywords we selected for the homepage. Similarly, the excerpts in the category pages are optimized to have the keywords that we selected for category pages ( and not the keywords that we selected for the homepage ). Although the descriptions in the homepage will also show the keywords selected for the category pages, this should not cause any problems because different posts in the homepage would generally belong to different categories and the keyword density would not be high enough to make the homepage and category pages fight against each other for the rankings.

If you cannot get my point even after you re-read, drop a comment and I will be happy to explain.

Happy Blogging !

Related posts:

1. Add descriptions to category pages in WordPress to inject relevant keywords I optimize my category pages (the pages that show excerpts of all the posts in the category) for certain keywords and I think all bloggers should do the same. Now to optimize the category pages for certain keywords, adding descriptions at the top of the category pages that contain relevant keywords would do some help. [...]...
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Here are two important things that I would like to discuss before I get to the code:

1) Certain themes allow for the description that you enter as Category Description from the Edit -> Category page of the WP Control panel to be displayed on top of respective category pages. All themes don’t provide this functionality. Mine does not. If you have a theme with this functionality, chances are you are already displaying descriptions on your category pages.

2) If you are using All In One SEO pack plugin, the plugin inserts the category description that you enter from the WP Control Panel (from Edit -> Category) as meta description tags for the respective category pages. This is a great functionality provided by this plugin and I urge everyone to use this feature. But if you are using a theme that displays category descriptions in category pages (as explained in point 1), you end up with a description that is exactly the same as the meta description tag for that page. What if you want longer descriptions to show on top of the category pages and short meta descriptions?

So the thing is even if your theme has the functionality that I discussed earlier I urge you to use the code that I will give you in a while so that you can insert a relatively large description packed with the keywords that your are targeting. By packed I mean that accommodates all the keywords that you are targeting and not keyword spamming.

Here’s the code:

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<?php if(is_category('category-name')) { ?>Category-Description<?php } ?>

where, category-name should be replaced by the category slug and Category-Description should be replaced by the actual category description.

You need to add this code to the archive.php file of your theme. You can wrap the code inside a div so that you can apply CSS rules to it. You need to add similar codes until you are done with all of your categories.

That’s it and now your category pages will become more optimized for the keywords you are targeting.

Related posts:

1. Add meta-keywords to category pages in WordPress Here’s another blog advice for you. If you are using All In One SEO pack plugin and are not able to add meta-keywords to category pages in WordPress, I am gonna teach you how to do that in this post. Some of you might argue that meta-keywords are obsolete things. Yes, it is said Google [...]...
2. Simple Keyword optimization technique for homepage and category pages of a WordPress blog In this post, I am gonna talk about a simple keyword optimization technique for WordPress blogs. This piece of blog advice that I am giving away is easy to implement and is an onsite blog optimization technique. Let’s start off with the basics. If you have a blog and you want people to get to [...]...
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The default WordPress installation does not provide any support for adding meta-keywords to category pages without playing with the code. Yes, there are plugins to make life easy. However, the very popular All In One SEO pack plugin can only be used to add meta-keywords to posts and pages, but not to category pages and it is this shortcoming of All In One SEO pack that inspired me to write this post.

Plugins like HeadSpace2, SEO Title Tag plugin do provide an interface to add meta-keywords to category pages. So, if you have no SEO plugins installed, getting one of these two is a good idea if you want to do a complete optimization of your blog. But what if you are already using All in One SEO plugin?

The author of HeadSpace2 plugin says it lets you import data from All In One SEO pack. I tried doing the same, but a weird thing happened. All of the meta-keywords entered in All In One SEO pack got imported as tags. Thankfully, I try plugins locally on a dummy WordPress installation on my PC whenever possible before trying them on my blog. Hence no damage was done to my blog. After I could not use HeadSpace2 plugin, I decided to check out SEO Title Tag plugin, but after reading its documentation, I came to know that it does not support importing data from All In One SEO pack.

So I was left to either install HeadSpace2 plugin or SEO Title Tag plugin and import all data from All In One SEO pack manually or find something that would work with the All In One SEO pack. Luckily I found a code that would work with All In One SEO pack in a few minutes after I started playing with my theme files.

The code is not hard at all and is one line per every category. The code needs to be added to the header.php file of your theme near other codes used to generate other metadata. For example I added the code after the following line in the header.php file, used to generate the generator metadata:

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<meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" />

The actual code to add the meta-keywords is the following:

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<?php if(is_category('XXXXXX')) { ?><meta content="metakeyword1, metakeyword2" name="keywords"><?php }?>

where,

XXXXXX = the slug of the category to which you want to add meta keywords to.

metakeyword1, metakeyword2 need to be replaced with your actual keywords.

Add similar codes until you are done with all of your categories.

Note: If you want to add meta-description to category pages in WordPress while using All In One SEO pack plugin, you can do so easily by editing a category and writing a description for it. This description will be used by the All In One SEO pack plugin as meta-description for that category.

If you find it difficult incorporating my solution, post a comment and I would be happy to help you out.

Happy blogging with WordPress and All In One SEO pack plugin !

Related posts:

1. Add descriptions to category pages in WordPress to inject relevant keywords I optimize my category pages (the pages that show excerpts of all the posts in the category) for certain keywords and I think all bloggers should do the same. Now to optimize the category pages for certain keywords, adding descriptions at the top of the category pages that contain relevant keywords would do some help. [...]...
2. Dealing with 404 errors thrown by sub-category pages in WordPress while using /%category%/%postname%/ permalink and disabling the default category base "category" The title of this blog post is really long, ain’t it? But it needed to be that long to explain the scenario correctly. I use /%category%/%postname%/ permalink for my blog posts. At the same time, I have gotten rid of the default category base “category” by using the Top Level Categories plugin. What Top Level [...]...
3. Simple Keyword optimization technique for homepage and category pages of a WordPress blog In this post, I am gonna talk about a simple keyword optimization technique for WordPress blogs. This piece of blog advice that I am giving away is easy to implement and is an onsite blog optimization technique. Let’s start off with the basics. If you have a blog and you want people to get to [...]...
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GoogleWebMasterCentral blog states:

We thought it’d be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing.

Google does not give away its algorithm secrets in this document but Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter guide aims to provide webmasters with the basic ideas of improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text etc. Although Google says this guide is meant for webmasters of all sizes, new or old, but as the guide focuses on basic areas only, I think seasoned webmasters are already doing everything stated in the guide correctly, so this SEO guide would be more useful to the newbie webmasters who want to start on the road to SEO.

Happy SEOing.

Related posts:

1. Simple Keyword optimization technique for homepage and category pages of a WordPress blog In this post, I am gonna talk about a simple keyword optimization technique for WordPress blogs. This piece of blog advice that I am giving away is easy to implement and is an onsite blog optimization technique. Let’s start off with the basics. If you have a blog and you want people to get to [...]...
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22,903,007

www.HowRichWillIBe.com will tell you how rich you would be in the next 10 years. To find out, you need to answer a set of 15 questions and you will know your fate. You don’t need to register, head over to the site from here and you will be greeted with the first question.

I answered my set of 15 questions and found out that I’ll have 22 million dollars with me after 10 years.

I didn’t make this post just to brag about how rich I will be in the next 10 years. The thing I actually want to show here is the remarkable way the makers of HowRichWillIBe have thought of to acquire free backlinks.

At the end of the quiz, this website gives you a piece of code that you can place at your blog/website and brag about how rich you will be in the next 10 years. Now, I wanted to do the same, and I guess a lot of people taking the quiz will do the same and whenever anyone puts the code in his blog/website, HowRichWillIBe gets a free backlink. Guys, you can also utilize methods like this to get free backlinks to your blog. Like, you can start a contest on your blog and then make a piece of code about the contest which will show an image that describes your contest. You can then ask your readers to add that code on their blogs for some incentives like extra entries to the contest. This is a better way than asking them to blog about your contest because, this way, they can put the code regarding your contest on their blog’s sidebar too and they don’t necessarily write a post on their blog about your contest. Now, people visiting your readers’ blog will know about your contest and hence you will attract more visitors to your contest and more visitors to your contest means more people will place your code on their blogs to get extra entries to the contest which means more free backlinks.

Related posts:

1. Simple Keyword optimization technique for homepage and category pages of a WordPress blog In this post, I am gonna talk about a simple keyword optimization technique for WordPress blogs. This piece of blog advice that I am giving away is easy to implement and is an onsite blog optimization technique. Let’s start off with the basics. If you have a blog and you want people to get to [...]...

Check out my sidepanel and you will see a list of blog categories. Now among them, at the time of writing this post, I have put the following in my blog header:

SOME USEFUL INFO ON MAKING MONEY ONLINE, BLOGGING TIPS, GETTING TRAFFIC, SEO, PAYMENT PROOFS, USEFUL TOOLS, SCAM LIST, WORLDWIDE FREEBIES, MORE….

(See the top of my blog)

Now, notice that I have not put all of my blog categories in my header. That’s what I meant by putting only the niche categories of your blog in your header. There’s no use putting a blog category like General in that precious spot within h1 tags.

For almost all blogs, niche categories correspond to niche keywords, so what you are basically doing is stuffing your keywords inside h1 tags which really helps in SEO. I have also added some words to my header that are not in my categories. You can also do that to stuff more keywords in your header. But, remember not to put a lot of words in your header because that will make your blog look ugly. Hey guys, I want a feedback, how’s the header of my blog looking? Does it look ugly?

Believe me, this is a plus point for SEO because Search Engines give importance to text that they find at the starting of your page and to texts within h1 tags. So if they find your niche keywords in your header within h1 tags, you will certainly get a boost in search engine rankings.

Related posts:

1. Simple Keyword optimization technique for homepage and category pages of a WordPress blog In this post, I am gonna talk about a simple keyword optimization technique for WordPress blogs. This piece of blog advice that I am giving away is easy to implement and is an onsite blog optimization technique. Let’s start off with the basics. If you have a blog and you want people to get to [...]...
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3. Add descriptions to category pages in WordPress to inject relevant keywords I optimize my category pages (the pages that show excerpts of all the posts in the category) for certain keywords and I think all bloggers should do the same. Now to optimize the category pages for certain keywords, adding descriptions at the top of the category pages that contain relevant keywords would do some help. [...]...
4. Google releases Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide One of the things that haunt new webmasters is the less know-how of how Google wants the basics in their web site to be. Now, webmasters needn’t be worried about not doing the basics correct because Google has released its official Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. (Right Click to download). GoogleWebMasterCentral blog states: We thought [...]...
5. What is a blog? A blog is a website on which the owner posts entries. An entry can be anything – plain text, pictures, videos etc. Usually the entries are available to the readers in a reverse chronological order, i.e. the latest posts first. Most blogs are written by a single person on a single topic. However this is [...]...