Now that Google has released the Panda protocol and updated its page ranking methods to prevent the most common SEO hacks and tricks, bloggers and other internet professionals looking to optimize their sites for search engines are facing a brave new world. Panda certainly requires that SEO experts and amateurs change their methods somewhat, but in a way, it has also made life easier on them by boiling down the process of SEO to its basics. There’s no more need to generate thousands of irrelevant links or put guest posts on old, unread blogs that for some inexplicable reason maintain an impressive page rank. Now, SEO is all about making your blog as high-quality and accessible to search engine spiders as possible. And doing that can be boiled down to four essential steps.

Choose An Optimized  WordPress themes 

Lots of WordPress themes claimed to be optimized for search engines, but in fact, few WordPress themes actually are optimized. How to tell which ones are? Well, optimized themes usually cost money. Sorry, but adding in the features that appeal to search engines isn’t fast and easy, and developers want some return on their effort. You can also tell if a theme is truly optimized by looking at its features: blog titles should be wrapped in H1 tags. There should be little or no Flash. There should be XML maps for the spiders to follow. Using these guidelines will help you sort the legitimate SEO optimized themes from the ones that only use that description as a marketing ploy.

Get An SEO Plug-In

This will handle the meta tags, optimize your post titles, and generally make sure that each post you add to your blog is clear and easy to read—not for readers, but for search engines. Of course, the same thing can be done by hand, but an SEO plug-in makes the process much faster, and you won’t ever be tempted to save some time by simply skipping it. There are numerous SEO plug-ins available, but the most trusted of the bunch of is All-In-One SEO, which is recommended by almost every SEO expert and consultant on the web.

Put Keywords In Your Title

There’s lots of debate over where it is best to place keywords in SEO optimized content. Some people say they should be placed only in the first few paragraphs; others take the stance that keywords shouldn’t be clustered too closely together, and so it is smarter to scatter them through the entire article. Some people say keyword density should never exceed five percent; others say it has be down at two percent or lower. Of course Google isn’t revealing their standards, lest their spiders become easier to game. But the one thing that is clear is that your keywords should appear in the post’s (and web page’s) title. This helps the search engine, and it encourages users to click on your link when your page finally does rank in the Google results.

Write, Post, Repeat

The biggest and most important lesson in the post-Panda era is that SEO is no substitute for having a well-made and relevant blog. Over time, the cream will rise to the top, and an accumulation of relevant posts on one topic will make your blog one of the most-read and best-ranked on whatever topic you choose to cover. So don’t focus on SEO to the exclusion of writing and building up a body of interesting, informative work that draws in readers. When you do this, backlinks will build themselves, and great Google rankings will follow.

About author

Olga Ionel is a creative writer at ThemeFuse.com – a top provider of  WordPress themes. She is passionate about studying online marketing industry and sharing informative tips.

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