How to Use Tumblr for SEO Traffic Growth Effectively

Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking site developed in 2007 by David Harp. This has been the best blogging website, lately with around 411 employees.

As of April 8, 2018, Tumblr hosts over 406.9 million blogs. As of 2015, the micro-blogging site had 226 million registered users. As of January 2016, the website had 555 million monthly visitors.

Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo in 2013 and then Yahoo was acquired by Verizon Communications in 2017.

Celebrities like Lady Gaga, Zayn Malik, John Mayer, and Taylor Swift are on Tumblr.

Back in 2011, it was the first blogging platform to host President Obama’s blog. The only drawback is that it is not ad – free.

However, the best part of it is that it provides its users with unlimited storage and more than 1000 themes. Before we move ahead and talk about Tumblr for SEO and Marketing lets try to understand what Tumblr is all about.

Why Tumblr?

Tumblr is WordPress combined with Facebook i.e. it provides you both with the features of a blogging site and a social networking site as well. The blogging platform allows its users to share their blogs.

  • 130.5 million blogs on Tumblr, as of August 2013
  • 28th highest traffic site on the web according to Comscore
  • 300 million unique monthly visitors according to Yahoo
  • 50% of Tumblr users are under 25 years of age
  • 53.5% of female Tumblr visitors

Apart from this, there are many other brands that use Tumblr:

  • eBay
  • British Airways
  • Norton
  • RedBull
  • at&t
  • MasterCard
  • Coca-cola
  • BMW
  • GQ
  • Gucci
  • NBA
  • Adidas
  • Disney

Benefits of Tumblr for SEO:

1. Dofollow links:

Tumblr has this feature for your links. Since it is a micro-blogging website, it gives you full control over your blogs and tumblrogs and how they appear including the Dofollow links on your blog or website.

For instance, you have written a blog post and it has been popular due to Tumblr’s social sharing, then Tumblr will ensure that your certain blog post is reposted to other tumblrogs.

Now, this is a Dofollow feature of Tumblr. Isn’t it amazing!

The Dofollow links will link to your original post, though. And given the number of its registered users, it’s beneficial for you to share your creative content on Tumblr and have it Dofollow as compared to other social sites.

2. Content testing ground:

Content testing is yet another wonderful feature of Tumblr.

If you’re into SEO marketing, you will originally have many images to post and share them on social networking sites.

Tumblr will do the basic testing for you, it will scrutinize how well will the image do on social sites. Made your work easy!

Generally, Tumblr has a dashboard and its chronological similar to Twitter. Since it is sequential, you may post more posts then Facebook and have your readers scroll right past through it.

Moreover, Tumblr users are more lenient. This simply means that you get to know which image or content of yours is worth sharing on social sites.

Once you have known this, you may repost that content. The added advantage is the hashtag feature which makes it possible for you to find this content at a later point of time.

3. Microsites:

Tumblr being a micro-blogging site, it’s indeed the perfect place for microsites.

Tumblr allows you to set up your blog for free and is easy to manage or user – friendly.

You may even change your domain name instead of Tumblr domain conveniently. However, you may not have enough options and flexibility as compared to WordPress.

Creating microsites in Tumblr will help you create a collection of web properties. And these properties in return will give you a proper PageRank.

It’s up to you to create content and be frequent with your posts which will make your tumblrogs to PR2 – PR4 in a matter of months.

Microsites help you build serious content for your brand, avoiding all the memes related to it. Not to forget, the serious content also gets noticed on Tumblr.

4. Amazing content discovery:

The hashtag, as discussed earlier is a great feature that not only helps you find older content but also will help you discover content that is relevant to your blog.

Tumblr users more frequently, use hashtag instead of Search option of Facebook.

The hashtag isn’t affected by your follower count; it will simply show you the results on the basis of your keyword.

New tumblrogs can be easily built from scratch, and you achieve numerous reblogs for your creative content without worrying about the number of followers you have.

In Tumblr, you don’t have to follow a blog in order to love its blog posts. Tumblr surpasses Facebook in this situation using hashtag since it allows you to search using a hashtag and have people love your posts without they not following you.

5. Branding:

Online brand promotion is essential. Tumblr has a Sponsorship feature which will make you do this at your ease.

And you don’t have to approach other social media giants for this.

The micro-blogging site provides you with an additional outlet to keep your potential clients or followers engaged by frequent posts.

This is similar to that Twitter and Facebook, given that you have a younger fan base. Tumblr helps you establishes your brand name.

Tumblr SEO: Content Ideas for your blog:

1. Memes:

Memes are highly recommended because they are funny and users tend to love them.

They are the perfect type of content for promoting your business or blog through social sites.

One good meme can go popular overnight, affecting your follower base as well. The secret lies in creating original and funny memes related to your blog content.

You may have a team of creative designers to achieve this or you may hire them as freelancers to use memes once in a while rather than on a daily basis.

2. Photos:

Similar to Pinterest and Facebook, captivating images are quite popular on Tumblr. This happens so because of the strong young demographic, whose attention lasts only for a few seconds.

This makes you more attentive than twitter handles because Twitter has a word count base.

So, if you’re good with DSLRs or love clicking pictures, you may go ahead.

If not this, you should be good at image editing software like Photoshop or even Paint.

The third option is Instagram. This messenger app allows you to edit your photos in various filters so as to captivate the hipster fan base.

3. Illustrations:

Illustrations are also a way of getting that attention from your followers. All you need is a good graphical designer or a team that focuses on this.

If not this, you may approach sites like as Fiverr, Upwork, and DeviantArt. These websites will help you create your custom artwork which will be related to the content or your blog.

The third option is to take inspiration from others’ artwork but keep in mind the copyright issues. To avoid copyright, you may add credits to the source or mention it.

3. Quotes:

A Quote is a one-liner which has a profound effect on the reader’s mind. The perceiving value of a quote can be increased by social media sharing.

If you’re into SEO, you may consider having quotes since these are the best way to attract a user’s mind.

These quotes are not only influential but also are easy to create. All you need is a little graphical content idea and there you’re phrasing a good quote or a quote from a celebrity and use it for your purpose.

This will not only go viral on Tumblr but social media handles like Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+ as well.

4. GIFs:

Animated GIFs are popular with users and you may use it on your Tumblr blog just like your Google+ page.

Building a new animated GIF might seem tedious so you may instead try GIFs and change the caption of the image before posting it to your blog.

This will promise quicker backlinks to your blog.

Few Tumblr SEO tips:

  • Perform all the normal on-page SEO stuff
  • Anchor text optimization
  • Using structured data in the blog
  • A responsive Tumblr theme
  • A Tumblr Sitemap
  • Find and fix 404 errors on your Tumblr site
  • Optimize your images (title tags, size, and quality)
  • Create links to your individual Tumblr posts
  • Build content around your images
  • Link your Tumblr with Google Search Console or Webmaster Tools
  • Reasonable ads

Below are a few more content ideas for Service Industries:

  • Fun photos from your company or community
  • A graph on the importance of your service
  • A how-to video related to your industry
  • Graphics or how-to of funny things that happened at work
  • Playful photos of things that happen at the workplace

A few more content ideas for retail Industries:

  • An infographic of why your products rock (mandatory)
  • Funny pictures of your customers
  • Front – end’s image
  • Graphics with statistics about your product or services

 Tumblr SEO Practices to Keep in Mind:

1. Choosing Top Level Domain:

It is a crucial decision while you’re still at the initial stage of creating a blog. Your domain name will be a part of the blog and will affect the users as well.

A catchy one will be easy to remember. Additionally, a top-level domain will improve Google ranking factors when it comes to SERP (Search Engine Result Page).

2. Building Content which is worth sharing:

While creating content for your blog, you will have to think like your readers.

You should strike a chord in their mind so that they not only love your blog but also share it on media platforms. This is the core of SEO, creating content which the users will love.

This rule will help you stay longer. The statistics show that 70 % of users of Tumblr or Tumblrogs are between 16 to 34 years of age.

Thus, you got to establish an impression so that they realize that your brand is beneficial to them. Your aim should be to create refreshing content so that it gets a maximum number of Dofollow links and spreads awareness of your brand among the readers.

Plagiarism and long paragraphs must be avoided. Instead try using the content ideas mentioned above in this article (memes, GIF, quotes).

3. Interlinking Posts or Pages:

The trick is to build a thick website, not a thin website. A thick website has many webpages, or posts and a good number of links.

These links should be interlinked to each other i.e. you should relate your new content to your old content.

For instance, if you’re writing on Mothers’ day, you may add a hyperlink to another article on your website which is about “Gift Ideas”. This will keep user captivated, he won’t visit another website to find gifts for his mom. Instead, he will take up the link provided by you. This is a great SEO strategy.

4. Tagging Posts:

Tagging your post is a way to get into Google’s page ranking because they allow tags to be indexable. Thus, you may gain exposure through more tags. Tumblr focuses on a hashtag instead.

So you have got two strong reasons to always tag your posts so that they find their way through social networking sites.

5. Website Speed:

Google tends to rank a faster website better because slow websites lead to bad user experience.

Thus, you may work on faster loading of your webpages and avoiding heavy images or scripts.

6. Crawlable Comment Form:

Using this form will be an advantage if your blog is exposed to comments by the real end –users. This will add uniqueness to your brand and relevant ideas to the post.

It’s recommended to avoid the Facebook comment system rather you may use the Disqus comment system which is good for SEO.

7. Heading Tags:

The H1 tags must be a part of your page. The title or keyword should be within the h1 tag and the subheading within h2- h6 tags.

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