Simple Blogger Tutorials

Blogger SEO Update: Get Ready to Add Meta Tags

Posted: 23 Mar 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Blogger has now become more Search Engine friendly with its recent updated features. Now you don't have to search for any hack to add Meta tags to Blogger as you can have it the legit way. Just check whether you have the correct codes, enable some settings and off you go. Now you can add description Meta tag to not only for your blog's homepage but also to individual pages. So let's get started with it.

Add Meta tag code to Blogger

Just enabling the settings won't do. First check if you already have got the correct codes added to your Blogger template which will actually do the job. While editing the template, find for:

<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription != &quot;&quot;'> <meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='description'/> </b:if>

If it's there, then you need not to add anything more to your template. But, if it's not there then find:

<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='description'/>

Replace it with the above codes (marked in green).

If your template does not contains none of the above told codes then find for <head> and below it add the right codes that are marked in green.

Note: If you have previously added any other Meta tags, remove it for better reasons.

Add a Description about your Blog

Under your blog's dashboard, head over to Settings > Search Preferences tab.

Under Meta tags > Description, click Edit, select "Yes" for "Enable search description?". Now write a brief description explaining what you blog about. Don't forget to save it to enable this feature. This will add description Meta tag to homepage.

Add Description to your Post and/or Static Pages

While writing a new post from Blogger Post Editor, find for Search description on right-hand side panel under Post Settings. Click it and a box will open where you can write a very brief description about your post and click Done. The same way, you can also add description Meta tag to your older posts while editing them.

Errors and redirections

Here are some interesting new settings, Custom 404 page and Custom Redirects. I liked both ideas but really liked the idea of having a 404 page for Blogger (example).

When your blog reader reaches such an URL that does not exist on your blog, is called 404 or Not Found page. You can always change the text displayed for the default one.

However, the design suffices what's needed for your readers but if you want a cool custom one then head over to Blogger Plugins. If you ask me, I will do some experimenting before posting a tutorial.

Crawlers and indexing

You should maintain caution here because it's only for advance users.

If you don't know what those setting do, don't change anything. You may end up having no visitors to your blog who come from Search Engines. By default Blogger generates robots.txt file for every blog. It's enough. All you have to do is submit Blogger sitemap to Google Webmasters.

Introduction to Image properties and rel=nofollow tags

Read how to use image properties here. I'll tell you about the other one. If you click on the link tool (found under Compose mode form Blogger's Post Editor) a popup box will open where you will find Add rel=nofollow attribute. You should use this if you don't trust the URL, such as, spam blogs/sites or URLs which you think may contain malware. But try to give credit to good sites that deserves it.

Note:

These new settings for Search preferences (adding Meta tags dynamically to Blogger) are not available to Blogger's old interface (for now). You have to switch to the New UI.