Is it Possible To Optimise Blogger Blogs

22 replies
Hi, I am new here so sorry if I am asking something that has been well covered before - I did look but couldn't find much on this topic. I have spent about 6 months building my first blog with Google Blogger, 70 plus posts, all original but I cannot seem to get any kind of ranking in the first ten pages of Google, or anywhere else for that matter.
Is Blogger just a bad choice? Should I bite the bullet and convert it all to WP or does anyone out there have any tips as to how blogger blogs can be keyword optimised.
The blog address is RockBottoms
all suggestions welcomed.
#blogger #blogs #optimise
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    2 answers:

    1 - Rankings are not about content they're about links.

    2 - Why waste your time spending months trying to rank a property you don't own?
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Jex
      Thanks
      Does that mean I wont be able to sell my blog at a later stage if I want to?
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Steve Jex View Post

        Does that mean I wont be able to sell my blog at a later stage if I want to?
        You'd be able to sell the content (which you own) but not the site itself (which Blogger owns). The way people normally do that is by transferring it, prior to a sale, to something like a self-hosted Wordpress blog. Nobody would be willing to pay anything much for something that someone else owns and controls, anyway.

        There are only really four (partly overlapping) groups of people (in "internet marketing") who use Blogger, Steve ...

        (i) People who are unaware of the unnecessary risks

        (ii) People who imagine that those risks are all problems that happen "only to other people" and that they'll be ok "if they stick to the terms of service"

        (iii) People who don't know that you can have your own reliably self-hosted WordPress blogs without even paying anyone a penny for the blog, the theme or the hosting

        (iv) Very few people who still imagine that "they must rank well because Google owns Blogger" (seriously, there are still a few people who believe that - obviously not yourself, though!).

        In other words, collectively, they're people who don't quite appreciate that it's entirely unnecessary and pretty ill-advised.

        If you want to see why so many who have tried are now advising others not to repeat their own mistakes, these threads will help ...

        Google Suspended My Innocuous Blogger Blog
        Squidoo/Blogger as primary website
        Blogger and deleted blogs?
        Blogger blog removed
        Wow Blogger Deemed All My Hard Work Spam
        Is blogger blogs worthy?
        have blogspot energy?
        is Wordpress really a better choice than Blogger in my case?
        Blogger Hosting...Is that ok??

        Of course it's possible to use Blogger without encountering disasters, and/or to make some money, and/or to derive some backlinks, and/or do other things from a "site" hosted there, but that doesn't make it a sensible thing to do: it's just completely unnecessary, when there are so many other, better, safer ways of doing exactly the same thing (also without paying, if that's a factor!).
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        • Profile picture of the author Steve Jex
          Thanks for your help.
          Not quite sure I understand what you mean about the risks though - if you get a couple of minutes sometime perhaps you might be able to give me a heads up on those.
          Thanks again.
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          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Steve Jex View Post

            Not quite sure I understand what you mean about the risks though - if you get a couple of minutes sometime perhaps you might be able to give me a heads up on those.
            The nine threads listed for you above do exactly that, Steve, and that was why I included them in my post. In those threads (and in probably another 50+ like them) large numbers of Warriors explain the risks at great length and in great detail. That's part of the value of a forum: the ability to learn from others' mistakes, when they're so carefully and clearly explained, and thereby to be able to avoid them for oneself. It helps people to stack the deck in their favor, to some extent, rather than against themselves.
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        • Profile picture of the author alrikvincent
          Does being in blogger result in better rankings?

          Short answer yes.

          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post


          (iv) Very few people who still imagine that "they must rank well because Google owns Blogger" (seriously, there are still a few people who believe that - obviously not yourself, though!).
          Though I don't use blogger anymore, I must say that I am one of those few people that alexa mentioned who think that you can rank well because Google owns blogger. If you have your blog in blogger, it is really easy to get first page ranking in comparison to having it self hosted. If your blog does not rank, it will usually mean failure to do proper on-site optimization. If you do that properly, you will see your website hit the first page of google quite fast for certain keywords. You should do your keyword research and all the other seo things you would have done if you were in Self-Hosted Wordpress. If you are not ranking in blogger, which gets indexed faster than any self-hosted site, then you will have a harder time getting it ranked in self-hosted wordpress.

          You do not have to take my word for this. You will see many blogspot websites showing up in the first page of google these days for top keywords. For example, look up "Personalty Development" a keyword phrase that gets 33,000 Exact global searches according to Google Keyword Tool. In Google.co.uk, I see PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT TIPS & TRICKS in position 4 at the moment. I have turned off personalization. Depending on when you read this and where you read it from, it may or may not be there.That website has only 2 posts to call its own and doesnt even have a page rank. Yet it is there in page 1 of google for a top keyword. What more, the keyword is not even there in the primary URL. It is counsiling.blogspot.co.uk not personalitydevelopment.blogspot.co.uk.


          Can your blog get deleted?
          Yes. There is a risk of your blog getting deleted. You have to take spam to a whole new level for that usually. I made a 15 autoblogs in blogger that posted 50 ezine articles automatically with a click of a button. I made these 15 autoblogs for each category in Ezine like SEO, Tattoos, Piercing, Email Marketing Etc. These blogs will post 50 posts at a time to each blog at the same time. The urls were even more spammy - searchengineoptimization21.blogspot.com. Of the 15 blogs that I created two years ago, the search engine optimization blog got deleted for being spammy. The other 14 continue to exist even today. These were blogs that I made to explore the possibilities of autoblogging. I have had other legitimate websites in blogger that I later moved to wordpress. I wanted to mention this here because I want you to know that your blog can get deleted and you wont be able to recover it back. But the likelihood of it getting deleted is lesser than the likelihood of your wordpress account getting hacked. My blog in blogger had search engine traffic of 3000 unique visitors per day. Then I moved it to wordpress. Nothing changed except that it was no longer free hosted. The permalinks, the site structure and everything else were the same but my traffic dropped to 1000 unique visitors per day. I had to build back links and do a lot of off site optimization to get my search ranking back. But it is still not like before. I moved it to wordpress because wordpress is a lot easier to use for larger website. Plugins will do the job of things that you have to do manually in blogger. But this is completely fine for smaller niche blogs like yours. If you had over 1000 posts and you want to interlink between posts, then it will be wiser to be in wordpress because you can use plugins that will do all the hard work automatically.

          Does Blogger Stop You From Selling Or Monetizing?
          You can monetize your website in almost every way you can monetize a self hosted website. But some ad agencies dont accept websites which are in free hosting. They are very few though. If you wanted to sell your website, you can do so by simply importing your blogger blog to self-hosted wordpress by hosting it in a free host like 000webhost.

          Why you are not getting ranked?
          So to come back to your original question. Are you not getting ranked because you are in blogger? No that is not the reason. You will have a harder time ranking in wordpress. What are you doing wrong?
          1. Not doing keyword reasearch
          2. Poor on-site optimization.
          3. Could use off-site optimization.


          Apart from that you could greatly improve your website. Adding subscription option like feedburner email subscription widget and facebook and google+ pages can be a start. There are websites dedicated to helping bloggers who user blogger as a platform. The following are the two main websites: mybloggertricksdotcom and spiceupyourblogdotcom. I recommend you take the time to go through mybloggertricksdotcom in great detail. Both websites use blogger.
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          • Profile picture of the author Steve Jex
            Thanks very much for such an informative response. It is very much appreciated.
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            • Profile picture of the author seobro
              The answer is yes. Most important is TITLE and body copy. I add the ALT tag to pictures and have a lot of images. Also, I have a lot of you tube movies. Please remember that you can use ad sense to make some money. Google paid seven billion to publishers lats year - yes seven.

              'Ads by Google': A Billion-Dollar Brainstorm Turns 10 - Megan Garber - The Atlantic
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              • Profile picture of the author VanessaB
                OP,
                You don't have a problem with rankings. You have a problem with traffic. And there are a few dozen other, and better, ways to get traffic than from SE rankings.

                I still use Blogger from time to time myself.

                When?

                When my kids wanted their own blogs and my eldest boy wanted his to be about 'beds, books and toys.' (We even made a Squidoo lens for him to try to get traffic to the blog, and he wound up selling a $600 bed from the lens!) My younger boy's blogger blog is about gardening, and again, he makes some sales of Amazon products. And none of our traffic comes from 'search.'

                *I'm NOT suggesting Squidoo. Or Blogger. For building a long term, sustainable business.
                However. there's yea another 'kind of person' who uses it and that's....

                When I find something cool I wouldn't mind writing about, but don't want to write for and constantly maintain the way I do with a blog. Like 'bunk beds.' I really don't have an interest in any of the niches (children's room decor, furniture, space-saving furniture, etc) to devote developing and upkeep on a whole a site. But a lot of the beds my kid was looking at on Amazon when we were picking stuff for him to write about were REALLY COOL! So a place like Squidoo or Blogspot was perfect for them.
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              • Profile picture of the author Fredbou
                Originally Posted by seobro View Post

                The answer is yes. Most important is TITLE and body copy. I add the ALT tag to pictures and have a lot of images. Also, I have a lot of you tube movies. Please remember that you can use ad sense to make some money. Google paid seven billion to publishers lats year - yes seven.

                'Ads by Google': A Billion-Dollar Brainstorm Turns 10 - Megan Garber - The Atlantic
                Don't forget the Meta Description. Most essential.
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                • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
                  Originally Posted by Fredbou View Post

                  Don't forget the Meta Description. Most essential.
                  No it's not.

                  You can completely ignore description if you want and you'll still get a description. Google will happily grab content from your page to use for the description.
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                  • Profile picture of the author owais211
                    Banned
                    Google rank is based on quality links and not because it's under the same company roof.

                    Blogger is just a training ground for you its now time to get a REAL career
                    By starting your own Wordpress site and start to monetize your site content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sheila Ross
    Looks like you blog pages has been indexed by google in well proportion. Would like to if you have built some backlinks for you blog? Without backlinks, you cannot expect traffic with original contents.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
    Ok - must be one of my contrary mornings.

    Onsite seo is (in my personal opinion) the way to go.

    Also, you need to do good keyword research. It's possible your content is too generic to rank in the face of strong competition.

    Blogger blogs can be a good way to test the waters. Now you've done that, and if you still believe the niche has potential, set up your own site. You have more freedom about what you can do with it, plus you can then use that blogger site for backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    If ranking is your main concern, then you should probably get a blog that can be hosted on your own website/webhosting service. Wordpress is a good choice, Blogger... owned by Google. Everything Google does pisses me off... (i do love Gmail tho )
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  • Profile picture of the author aarthielumalai
    First of all, blogger is a Google's property, and there are hundreds of horror stories floating around this forum about how they delete blogs without any explanation whatsoever. Why would you want to go down that route?

    You have a nice blog and with proper promotion, you can bring in a good amount of traffic to it, BUT don't do that with a free blog. Would you trust the advice from a free blogger? I wouldn't and why should your visitors be any different?

    I'd advise you to transfer your content to a self-hosted blog with a brandable domain name.

    Also, don't rely on Google alone for your traffic. Bring traffic from other sources too. Guest pot on other popular blogs in your niche. Guest posting has the SEO value too.

    Do social media marketing. Look where the people in your niche hang out. It might be discussion forums, social networks, anywhere. Promote your site in those places, and you'll get targeted traffic to your site. Video marketing, especially youtube marketing does well in traffic generation too.

    Hope that helped.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Jex
      Thanks aarthielumalai, I guess no one wants to run the risk of having their hard work deleted for some minor misdemeanour. Also, i would like to think that if, and I know it is a big if, my blog does become successful I would be a able to sell it on at some point and I understand now that would be a problem since I don't actually own it.
      Thanks again for taking the time to help me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sornie Samante
    The Answer is Yes but the comment on top was right. Why try to rank a property you don't own. Go ahead and do the following.

    1. Install Wordpress
    2. Host it with hostgator or any other preferred hosting company
    3. Create backlinks.

    that's all.

    Hope that helps. If you like to have a sure way to do this.
    Then BringTheFresh.com will help. ( No Affiliate Link)

    If you are more on SEO Type of Person.. BTF is for you.

    Hope this really helps,
    Sornie

    P.S Pesistency is the key here. Yes!
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Jex
      Thank you, I'm just contemplating the daunting task of moving all my posts over to Wordpress but I realise now that it probably has to be done. Another weekend spoken for!
      Great advice - thanks.
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      • Profile picture of the author Sornie Samante
        Originally Posted by Steve Jex View Post

        Thank you, I'm just contemplating the daunting task of moving all my posts over to Wordpress but I realise now that it probably has to be done. Another weekend spoken for!
        Great advice - thanks.
        Steve,

        You Are Welcome! I suggest that you do not dwell and worry more on the short term undertakings.. Remember that nobody wants a short term success.. sure we make plans to succeed, a real success we could be proud off

        Your TIME is gold, your TIME is your asset! Now, go ahead and invest it wisely!


        Good luck Buddy!

        Sincerely,
        Sornie

        P.S I don't know why I am writing this way, maybe because, I am investing some of asset to somewhere profitable
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  • Profile picture of the author socialsignals
    SEO actually has more to do about user engagement than links. Links are not the be all end all anymore.
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    BETTER THAN SENUKE, SCRAPEBOX AND ANY SEO SOFTWARE COMBINED.

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  • Profile picture of the author T086
    Blogger can be good to rank. I get a decent amount of hits to some one page blogs and its a good source of free traffic.
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