Improve Your Google Rankings in One Easy Step

Posted: Friday, January 9th, 2009 | Author: David

seo your website Having a top rank in Google is the holy grail for anyone who has a website. Organic Google traffic is free advertising and how most bloggers (especially those just starting out) achieve visitors and traffic to their site. It all comes down to a simple numbers game. Essentially, more traffic = more money-making opportunities from your blog. The question is, how do you get ranked higher for my blog posts using Blogger?

Before I tell you how, let me give you a quick lesson is search engine optimization (aka SEO). There are two main components: “off-page” and “on-page” optimization. “Off-page” SEO refers to tactics such as link building. The more websites that point their links to your blog/website, the better. It’s a democratic way of showing Google that your site must be important if lots of people are pointing to it. Even more important with “off-page” inbound links is the actual link text (anchor text) that is used to point to your site.

Here’s my proof. If you search Google for the term “click here” you’ll see that Adobe Reader and Apple’s Quicktime software are in the top 3 results. Why? Because so many other sites are linking to these two sites with “click here” as the anchor text to download their software. That’s the power of “off-page” SEO which you as a blogger can’t do much about besides writing such great unique content that generates lots of links.

So with “on-page” SEO you have complete control over how well you’re optimized for Google. This includes keywords in your post titles, title tags, using header tags (h1, h2) and other tactics. Now the one we’re going to focus on in this article is the blog title tag.

Title tags are one of the most (if not the most) important “on-page” elements to ranking high in Google. Search engines such as Google weigh the importance of each word in the title from left to right. So ideally you want your blog post title all the way to the left and your actual blog name to the right. Below is a perfect example of how this should look. You can also check out our Premium Revolution Template which is currently using this technique as well.

blogger seo title

Blogger templates by default don’t come with search engine optimized (SEO) title tags meaning you aren’t maximizing your blog to rank better in Google. If you take a look at your existing Blogger title you’ll see that blogger displays the blog name first then followed by your post title. They have it backwards so let’s get your blog setup properly.

We’re going to have to make a quick edit to your Blogger template which might intimidate some of you but it’s very small and painless. All I ask you to do first is to backup your template just in case you make a boo boo. That makes it easy to revert back without much headache.

Step #1

In your Blogger dashboard, go to “Layout” => “Edit HTML”.

Step #2

In the template code, do a search for this: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>. It’s usually in the first 5-10 lines of code in your template near the top.

Step #3

Replace that bit of code with the following code:
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title> </b:if>

Step #4

Save your template and go back to your blog. Click into any individual post and look at the page title.

All your blogger posts are now much better optimized to rank higher in Google. I’m not going to promise you a night and day difference but you’ve taken a step in the right direction. Now just go post unique high quality content so people searching Google will find your blog first!

Ready to super charge your blog? Check out our professional premium blogger templates or make money by joining our blog affiliate program!

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526 Responses to “Improve Your Google Rankings in One Easy Step”

Raffi Shahinian on Jan 9, 2009, 9:08 pm

Couldn’t do it. I’m getting the following error message:

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “cond”.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Amit k on Jan 9, 2009, 10:22 pm

Excellent Article..I am gonna implement this in my Blog: http://freshwebdeveloper.blogspot.com
Very uselfull or all Websites/Blogs

arun on Jan 10, 2009, 5:53 am

hay dude its worked fine for me thanks & now i implimented in blog too…

http://www.hacking2all.blogspot.com

thanks onceagain..

chimera on Jan 10, 2009, 9:07 am

thnx bro .. gr8 tips ..
http://www.winnersjobs.blogspot.com

David on Jan 10, 2009, 10:34 am

@Raffi, I’m not quite sure what that error message means. It sounds like an unrelated error since everyone else seems to have gotten it working fine.

Vicky on Jan 10, 2009, 10:56 am

It worked, although my actual title looks
like this :

Send in the Locusts|What Were You Thinking?

Should the part be there,or is there something I should have done differently to get rid of it?

Vicky on Jan 10, 2009, 11:56 am

When my question (above) posted to this site it only showed part of what I typed.

the title itself is precede by the word “title” which is surrounded by the angle brackets (). How can I stop that showing up in front of the post title?
Thanks

Sandi on Jan 10, 2009, 1:11 pm

Hi, just followed your instructions and everything worked right except I too have preceding my blog post. As you can tell by my url I have a blogger template.
Thanks!

An American in France on Jan 10, 2009, 9:02 pm

Wow, This is really good information! I actually already knew this and it really helped in Google A LOT.

Aaron Zapata on Jan 10, 2009, 9:35 pm

It didn’t work for me either. I got the same error message that Raffi got.

David on Jan 10, 2009, 11:27 pm

@Vicky, I made a mistake in step #2 but just fixed it. In your case, just edit the template code and remove the <title> and </title> tags that surround the new code you pasted in there. Make sense?

sujith bhakthan on Jan 10, 2009, 11:45 pm

hi, thank u for your tip. i hav tested in my blog. its working.

http://www.keralastatertc.blogspot.com/

dd links on Jan 11, 2009, 12:23 am

It doesn’t work for label pages.for label pages only blog titles appears without the name of label.
please fix

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 6:01 am

@ Raffi: I was getting that error too. This is how I fixed it…

The new code replaces the within the code you find in STEP2, not the entire .

To do a simple “find, replace” of as well as address the issue Vicki brought up, I used this:

Hope that helps.

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 6:11 am

*grumble!* The code isn’t showing up in my response above.

Since I can’t edit my response, I’ll try to post it on my blogs and see it if shows up.

http://creative-practicality.blogspot.com/
http://teachingtoolstoys.blogspot.com/

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 7:06 am

It’s posted to both. Thanks in advance for the traffic.

zee on Jan 11, 2009, 7:28 am

this is what i need when im blogwalking.. excellent
http://www.indonesiaassociate.com

Vicky on Jan 11, 2009, 9:36 am

David,
Thanks so much – I made the deletions in the code, and it disappeared!
Thanks so much for the tip, and for the follow-up help.

Raffi Shahinian on Jan 11, 2009, 10:05 am

@Meri,

I think we’re almost home. Your fix solved the error problem, but now, the post titles look like this:

” Post Title…”

What do I do?

Thanks,
Raffi

Sandra on Jan 11, 2009, 2:57 pm

I tried this code and I get this error message
Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Element type “b:if” must be followed by either attribute specifications, “>” or “/>”.

What do I do now? I am using blogger

Thanks

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 4:59 pm

@Raffi: *shrug* David? 🙂

@Sandra: Did you try my suggestion in comments 15 & 16? Or are you referring to David’s original code? The code I modified still isn’t perfect (see Raffi’s comment 19), but it’s close-ish.

@Everyone: The “” thing shows up on the individual posts pages even with my suggestion.

To see what I mean, compare this (http://creative-practicality.blogspot.com/) to this (http://creative-practicality.blogspot.com/2009/01/improve-your-google-rankings-in-one.html). Anyone have any ideas…?

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 5:01 pm

*sigh*

“” = title within

(Take that interwebs!)

Meri on Jan 11, 2009, 5:03 pm

….I give up.

“” = “the title itself is precede by the word ‘title’ which is surrounded by the angle brackets ()”

Sandi on Jan 11, 2009, 7:30 pm

Hey Meri,
Thanks for your response. I just copied and pasted our new code and it works like a dream!
Thanks again!

Sandra on Jan 11, 2009, 7:55 pm

Ok I got the code to work but! I had to remove the first 2 codes before and after it so it didn’t show on my title.

Now when I click the post on the page it is showing on it before the post title. Which is this code: |
. HOW do I remove that?

Sandra on Jan 11, 2009, 7:57 pm

Ok that didn’t go thru. The 2 codes I removed were br before and after data blog title.

Now when I click on my post title, I see br and title before my post title name. How do I get that right? If I remove the br title before the data blog page name, it gives an error code.

Aaron Zapata on Jan 11, 2009, 9:57 pm

sandra, i have the same question and I posted a comment to meri’s blog. i’m sure they have an answer for us.

David on Jan 11, 2009, 10:35 pm

@Meri – Just remove the <title> and </title> from the outside of the new code you pasted into your blog template. That will fix it.

David on Jan 11, 2009, 10:39 pm

@Sandra and others, this is what your code probably looks like now which is incorrect:

<title> <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title> </b:if> </title>

Replace that code with the exact code from step #3 above. That should fix your problems.

Kartik on Jan 11, 2009, 11:03 pm

thanx a lot…Actually I had never realized before that my template was configured to show the same title on all pages…even the post pages…individual post titles never showed up on any page…so i think this was a big deterrent to SEO.Thanks a ton…plz keep up the good work…

Roger on Jan 12, 2009, 6:03 am

Thanks it works for me! But I do not know what it does.

Sandra on Jan 12, 2009, 7:03 am

No the code in step 3 DOES NOT WORK! That was giving me the error code I was getting!

ramaraobobby on Jan 12, 2009, 5:56 pm

Using the code given here its working. But With the code that I got through email update it showed xml error. Anyways many thanks to you David for this wonderful tweak. Keep up the good work.
Bye..take care

John on Jan 13, 2009, 12:06 pm

Works a treat. What a great site.

kerjain aja on Jan 13, 2009, 4:17 pm

Terimakasih, Thank
I’ts happens to me
see my blog at http://kerjainsendiri.blogspot.com
blog in Bahasa Indonesia as language

Tabloid Internet on Jan 14, 2009, 1:18 am

Thanks to share this great tutorial with us. We just apply it for http://tabloidinternet.blogspot.com/

Capitalrider on Jan 15, 2009, 5:22 am

Nice.I will follow your rules to otimize my site.
http://www.capitalrider.com

Daya on Jan 15, 2009, 10:41 am

Thanks for Your tutorial.I have changed my template following your advice..Many Many thanks…
http://mobilestreasure.blogspot.com

sandra on Jan 15, 2009, 10:59 am

Ok with help from Meri I got this to work some what.
I got your email David and will send you my template.

I wanted to add read more to my posts, but when I added it, I got double posts, so not sure of why.

Anyway, I’ve noticed more people coming from google.com to my blog and I just wanted to say thank you for that.

Aaron Zapata on Jan 15, 2009, 11:35 am

I used the code in #29 and it finally worked for me. Thanks David!

Ree on Jan 15, 2009, 12:39 pm

I had the same trouble as Raffi, but I played around with it until I got it to work. Here’s what I did. I replaced the code mentioned in step #2 with only part of the code in step #3. |

Now it works like a charm. Visit my blog to check it out http://gettinghealthywiththesouthbeachdiet.blogspot.com

David on Jan 15, 2009, 1:11 pm

@sandra, that’s great to hear it’s working!

David on Jan 15, 2009, 2:29 pm

I also got the error message:

We were unable to preview your template.

Please correct the error below, and submit your template again.

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.

XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “cond”.

nafia on Jan 16, 2009, 4:27 am

its not working for me.same as Raffi.Any help

amol on Jan 16, 2009, 8:04 am

Thanks that worked well!!

sanju4pals on Jan 17, 2009, 3:40 am

hey thats a nice article.. new to this site. and really finding worthwile to find it.. dam why didnt i knewd about this site before… 🙂

http://www.contestoffers.blogspot.com

arya on Jan 17, 2009, 12:50 pm

I’ll try this one, Thaks for share

How to Kiss on Jan 19, 2009, 10:18 am

Nice! I done!
http://howtokiss123.blogspot.com/
Thanks http://www.eblogtemplates.com

konco on Jan 20, 2009, 10:41 pm

nice tutorial

allglamour on Jan 21, 2009, 5:29 am

thanks for this blogger tip. it truly helps