OntoSearch

Given the popularity of blogs, and the importance of blogs in creating inbound links to your business website, you’d think that they’d already be equipped with perfect semantic web markup. But you’d be wrong. Of course, these errors aren’t going to make or break your business, but you’ll be ahead of the game if you’ll address some of the problems yourself. Here are 5 areas that you’ll want to address as you’re correcting the semantic web markup on your blog:

1. Page Titles. There’s no way to get around the importance of a page title as it relates to search engine rankings. Search engines take the contents of your “title” tag and put those contents in the search results that they display. Some blog platforms do a good job of handling page titles such that the page titles are displayed optimally within search engine results pages. But many times the platforms preface the page title with the name of the blog, which may or may not have any significance for an internet user, particularly if the name of your blog has little or nothing to do with the title of the page that your user is looking for.

Another reason to pay attention to page titles is that search engines don’t read content, they scan it. So your page titles should be as relevant to the subject contained on the web page as possible.

2. Logos and Taglines. Many blog platforms contain site logos within an “h1″ tag, which may not appear to be problematic at the outset. The problem, however, is that the “h1″ tag, aside from your “title” tag, should provide the most important information about your webpage to both searchers and search engines. Instead, you should be using the “h1″ tag to give search engines and human searchers the most important information you can about the contents of your webpage. To fix the problem, try putting your blog title inside a “div” tag.

So what to do with that “h1″ tag? Put your tagline within that tag on your homepage. Make your tagline specific and compelling so that searchers will know exactly what they can expect from your webpage. Put in within “h2″ and “h3″ tags in your secondary webpages. It should never appear to be more important than the title of the page or the title of the post.

3. Post Titles. Your post title is the most important information you can provide to a search engine, so make sure it’s not hiding within an “h2″ tag. Instead, put it inside an “h1″ tag so that searchers and search engines will know exactly what they will find on a particular page. There should only be one set of “h1″ tags on each of your pages, so take advantage of them and use them wisely.

4. Sub-Headlines. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals emphasize the importance of relevant, well-laid-out content in the quest for increased search engine rankings. And one of the best ways to lay out content within a blog is to use sub-sections to break up the material into easy-to-digest pieces. Since the title of your post should be in an “h1″ tag, then it certainly makes sense to put sub-headings within “h2″ tags, but if they’re currently in “h3″ tags then it’s probably too much trouble to change them now.

5. Sidebar Headlines. Several blog platforms put sidebar headlines within “h2″ tags. The problem with this is that most sidebar headlines don’t have much relevance to your actual page content, so you’re wasting a valuable “h2″ tag on something that won’t make much difference. The most value you should give them is an “h3″ or “h4″ tag. In the case that your sidebar headlines are actually quite relevant, you may want to put them in “h3″ tags; otherwise “h4″ tags are most appropriate.

Don’t count on your blog platform to mark up your page well. Do it yourself and see the results!