You can have the most eye-catching, wonderfully designed blog the World Wide Web has to offer. But if it’s not properly optimized for the search engines, then no-one can find your content and in turn your blog will be invisible to users and you cannot reach to your targeted visitors.

Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO,  for a web design blog is very important because without it your blog will become invisible in search engines and trust me more than 75% traffic of a web design blog comes from search engines.

Here are 6 SEO tips for your web design blog shouldn’t miss:

1. Build your blog with SEO in mind

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In 2013, there really is no excuse for your web design blog to not be accurately optimized.

If you’re looking at setting up a new blog, you should build it with SEO in mind. That means ensuring a sitemap.xml and a robots.txt file are uploaded. It is these files that allow search engines like Google and Bing to crawl your website.

Even pre-existing blogs can benefit hugely from uploading this information. Without it, the search engines are unable to crawl and index your blog. These simple, quick fixes will ensure that your blog is SEO ready right from the off.

2. Optimize your URLs

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Many people forget that their blog URLs need to be optimized for search.

We get so consumed with making sure our keywords are used in body copy, that we forget the URLs are just as important. Where possible, shorten the URLs of your blog posts to include your keywords. Separate each word with a hyphen, and try to keep length to a minimum.

3. Make the most of meta-data

Meta-data is the hidden information for search engines and their crawlers. Human readers don’t see this text, but it tells Google what your blog posts are about, and what you’re trying to optimize for. Meta-data includes:

• Title tags
• Descriptions
• Keywords
• Alt-tags on images
• H1 tags
• And more!

While rankings don’t happen overnight, including this information will really help your SEO efforts. Get into the habit now of taking an extra 5 minutes to add this data to your web design blog posts and pages.

If you’re using an open source CMS like WordPress, this is really easy. But it is made even easier with plugins.

4. Invest in a plugin

Plugins make search engine optimization for blogs much simpler. WordPress SEO by Yoast is one such plugin. Every time you publish a new post, you will be prompted to fill in your meta-data at the same time.

Yoast asks you to fill in your title tags, focus keyword, meta description, and meta keyword. It will then alert you if your keywords are missing from any of the vital parts of your post. Search engine optimization has never been so easy.

By making it part of the routine, it becomes quick and easy to ensure your posts are optimized for the search engines. Yoast is also free, which makes it perfect for blog full-time and casual bloggers. Check out this post from Search Engine Land for some more great plugins.

5. Fill your blog with unique content

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Perhaps the most important thing to consider, especially in a post Penguin and Panda era, is that quality content is the key to organic SEO.

Your creative blog needs to offer something unique to your readers, and stand out from the other web design blogs online. The best thing you can do is write naturally and for human readers. This way, your target keywords will fit naturally into the content without the worry of over optimization.

Filling your blog with unique content – but remembering your URLs and meta information – is one of the best ways to help the search engines crawl, index, and rank your blog posts.

6.Forget Flash!

There was a time when Flash website design was big news. But that was before the iPhone era. Sure, a Flash based website can pack a punch, but anyone who lands on your site on a mobile won’t be able to view it.

Not only that, Flash based websites are almost impossible to optimize. Search engine spiders are unable to crawl the pages,  which means they’re less likely to be indexed. Instead, recreate eye-catching websites with parallax scrolling, image carousels, and other creative elements.

Keeping your blog search engine friendly is essential, especially as the blogosphere becomes more and more crowded. By following the top SEO tips outlined here, you’ll give your posts the best chance of ranking.