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Getting Your Blog On-Line:
Get Your Blog
Noticed By Google
www.BlogMarketingBasics.com
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
1
Introduction
• You’ve been putting a lot of work into your blog – now it’s time to start
working on getting it listed in the search engines – primarily Google.
• To do this you’ll need to set-up a Google Analytics account, and a Google
Webmaster account so you can submit a sitemap for your blog and track
the visitors to your blog.
• Both of these steps are very important!
– Submitting a Sitemap helps Google navigate through your blog when it crawls your site,
making sure it doesn’t miss important content for potential readers.
– You need to track where your visitors are coming from, how long they stay on your site,
the pages they visit plus other factors that let you know how well you are serving your
target readers.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The data provided in this document is intended to help readers improve their WordPress blogs. By following any or all of the steps in
this document the reader takes full responsibility for all results. The reader also understands this information is provided as is and
carries no actual or implied warranties of any kind.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Before You Begin . . . .
• If you’ve followed our other tutorials, you now should have –
– Your domain name
– Your hosting company
– WordPress installed
– Your blog theme installed
– Plug-Ins installed
– Widgets set-up
– Your blog header created and installed
– You have made basic design changes – like changing your blog’s color scheme
• Missed some of these tutorials? Click on the links above!
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Why Make Your Blog Google-Friendly?
No question – you could start a blog and begin building content and leave the
finding of your blog to the Google-bots. Eventually they would get to your
blog and begin crawling the content. But making you blog “welcoming” to
Google helps in a number of areas:
1.
Helps Get Your Site Indexed Faster - A good sitemap submitted to
Google will help your pages get indexed faster.
2.
Helps Get All of Your Sites Content Indexed – Your sitemap also helps
you get all important content crawled and indexed.
3.
Keeps Out Content You Don’t Want Indexed – You also can make sure
content you don’t want indexed stays out of the search engine.
4.
Helps You Make Better Use of Your Time – Using Google Analytics can
help you identify the best content on your blog – and the best ways that
readers find this content.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
4
A Word On Google and SEO
• This tutorial is not intended to be a compressive overview of
search engine optimization (SEO) and Google.
• It is only a BASIC tutorial on the initial steps you must take to
get your blog indexed on Google.
• We also show you how to set-up your blog so you can use
Google Analytics to determine how your blog is doing with
regards to visitors, content, time spent on your blog, etc.
• Look in the Blog Marketing Basics Resources page for details
on tools to help you with your actual SEO efforts.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
5
Make The Process Easier With Plug-Ins
WordPress makes things easier by letting you use Plug-Ins. You can make the
job of setting-up your blog on Google easier with these Plug-Ins.
Tool
Where To Get It
Overview
Google Analytics
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
googleanalytics/
Makes it easy to include the Google Analytic
tracking code on each of your blog pages.
Google XML
Sitemap
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
google-sitemap-generator/
Automatically generates sitemaps of your blog
and notifies Google when they change.
All-In-One-SEO
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
all-in-one-seo-pack/
Handles a variety of SEO functions for your blog
including titles, descriptions, keywords, and
many, many more.
Scribe SEO
Use Our Scribe Affiliate Link
Integrates keyword research and content
optimization for search engines into one great
Plug-In. We use it on all of our sites – highly
recommended.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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First – Sign-Up for Google Analytics
Google offers a great analytics
service that is free.
All you’ll need to do is visit
http://www.google.com/analy
tics/ and sign-up for an
account.
Once you have your account
you can quickly set-up your
blog for tracking and for other
services provided by Google.
NOTE: If you have a Google
Gmail account it is
recommended to you set-up a
different account for Google
Analytics.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Set-Up Your Blog For Tracking
Once you’ve logged into your
Google Analytics dashboard,
scroll down to the bottom of
the page.
You’ll see a link to “Add Web
Site Profiles.” Click on this link
to set-up your blog.
Click “Add a Profile for a new
domain” then enter the URL
for your blog.
Click the “Finish” button when
you are done.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Get Your Google Analytics Tracking
Code
After entering your site
details you’ll see a page
that contains your Google
Analytics tracking code.
This code needs to be
placed on each page of
your blog so that Google
can track various statistics
for each page.
You’ve got two options –
one is to use the Javascript
“Paste this code on your
site” – or you can use a
Google Analytics Plug-In.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Install The Google Analytics Plug-In
Log into your blog’s
Dashboard and go to “PlugIns” – click on “Add New”.
Enter “google analytics” in
the search box and click
“Search Plug-Ins”.
Locate the “Google
Analytics” Plug-In and click
the “Install” link.
Once the Plug-In is
installed, click the “Activate
Plug-In” link.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Enter Your Data Into The Plug-In
Once the Google Analytics
Plug-In is installed go to your
blog Dashboard and click
“Settings” then “Google
Analytics”.
Enter your “Web Property
ID” in the box as shown –
you get this number when
you first set-up your blog on
Google Analytics (page 9).
Change Asynchronous
Tracking to “Yes”.
Click “Save Changes”.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
11
Check To Make Sure Your Set-Up Is OK
Log back into your Google
Analytics account – look for
your blog under “Website
Profiles”.
Click on “View report.”
On the top right-side of the
page that opens click the
“Check Status” link.
If you have successfully
entered your Tracking Code
into the Google Analytics
Plug-In you should see the
“successfully installed”
message.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
12
Now Set-Up Your Site On
Google Webmaster Tools
After setting your blog up
on Google Analytics you
also should set it up on
Google Webmaster Tools.
Webmaster Tools provide a
number of very useful tools
for evaluating and
managing your blog.
You also have the ability to
submit your blog’s sitemap
directly to Google so it can
be crawled by the
Googlebots.
http://www.google.com/webmaster/tools/
You can log-in with the same Email and
Password you used for Google Analytics
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
13
Enter Your Blog and Verify Ownership
Log into Google webmaster
tools and enter your blog
under “Add a site . . .” then
click “Continue”.
Use one of two options to
verify that you own the
blog site –
1.
Link the webmaster
tools to your Google
Analytics account
(easiest).
2.
Download and HTML
file and then upload to
your blog.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Upload HTML File To Your Blog
Download the “verify
ownership” HTML file from the
Google webmaster tools site.
Use and FTP program like
FileZilla to upload the HTML
file to your blog’s root
directory.
(http://filezilla-project.org/)
Once you’ve uploaded the
HTML file go back to Google
webmaster tools and click the
“Verify” button.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
15
Make Sure Webmaster Tools Is Set-Up Properly
After clicking the “Verify”
button you should
immediately go to the new
Google webmaster tools
Dashboard for your blog.
If there is a problem you
will get error messages on
the “Verify ownership”
page – these errors must
be corrected in order to
continue.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
16
Install Google Sitemap Plug-In
Now that your blog is set-up
on Google webmaster tools
you can add a sitemap.
Log into your blog and go to
the Plug-Ins page, click the
“Add New” button.
Enter “Google Sitemap” in
the search box then click
“Search Plugins”.
Locate Google XML Sitemaps
plug in and click the “Install”
link. Once the Plug-In is
installed click the “Activate
Plugin” link.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
17
Build You Blog Sitemap
Once the Google Sitemap
Plug-In is installed, go to
your blog’s Dashboard and
click Settings > XML
Sitemap.
The XML Sitemap
Generator settings page
will open – to generate
your first sitemap locate
and click on the “Click
here” link.
If successful, you’ll see the
results of your sitemap
build on the settings page.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
18
Submit Your Sitemap To Google
Look on the Google XML
Sitemap settings page for the
name of your sitemap
(probably “sitemap.xml”).
Go back to your Google
webmaster tools Dashboard
and click on “Site
configuration > Sitemaps”.
Click on the “Submit a
Sitemap” button.
Enter the name of your
sitemap and click the “Submit
Sitemap” button.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
19
Make Sure Your Sitemap Submitted Correctly
After submitting your blog’s
sitemap you should see a
screen similar to the one on
the top right.
Since this is the first time
you’ve submitted the sitemap
you’ll see a “clock” image
under “Status”.
The screen on the bottom
right shows the Sitemap page
the day after submission.
This screen shows the details
on submission, status, and
URLs submitted and indexed.
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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Great! Now Your Blog Is Ready
To Be Noticed By Google!
A few final things to keep in-mind –
1.
If you’ve just started your blog getting the pages on your blog indexed by
Google will take time. You can help move things along by getting highquality links to your blog – but don’t get frustrated if your Sitemap stats
show 25 URLs downloaded and 0 URLs indexed. Google won’t be rushed.
2.
It will take time – as well – for any meaningful data to be provided by
Google Analytics. This tool is great for tracking a number of important
metrics for your site – but the driver of these metrics is traffic. If you
don’t yet have traffic then the data is not going to be that useful.
However – make sure you understand these measures so you can analyze
those thousands of unique visits you get to your site each day when
things really take off!
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
21
We Appreciate Your Support!
If you have a need for the following resources we
appreciate you using our affiliate links!
Service
Affiliate Link
Description
Domain Names
NameCheap
We manage most of our domain names with
NameCheap
Web Hosting
HostGator
One click WordPress installs, great prices and support
for web hosting
Premium
WordPress
Themes
StudioPress
We use the Genesis Framework and Prose Child Theme
from Studio Press for most of our blogs
Analytics
Market Samurai
Market Samurai delivers great features at a great price
– use it to give your blog a leg-up on the competition.
Blog Optimization
Scribe
We use the Scribe SEO Plug-In on all of our blogs –
research and optimization together and easy to use
©Copyright 2011 by Blog Marketing Basics LLC
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