When considering SEO tactics, one question constantly on Internet Marketers minds is how do I get more traffic? Most who are serious about making money from their blogs will post regularly, answer comments, and keep a mailing list of prospects to market to, but does this in itself bring more traffic to your blog?
Probably not. Your SEO tactics may get your site listed with the search engines easily, but without a top twenty listing at one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo! or MSN), you will not have traffic literally banging down your door.
In order to get better search engine results you have to make sure you are using the right keywords, you have to know how to use those keywords effectively, you have to have links pointed your way and you have to regularly check the results of your hard work.
Here are some ways to achieve this:
- Choosing Appropriate Keywords
In order to choose appropriate keywords you need to know which search terms your visitors are using to find you. Most blogging sites give you the option of checking to see just how people found you. If you do not have this feature available, go to http://www.statcounter.com/ and install their free service on your blog immediately.
Now you need to research those keywords. Visit wordtracker.com and type in the most generic terms people are using to find your blog. You’ll get a list of related keywords used at major search engines in the past month. Although it is an oversimplification of the search engine optimization process, try and stick to the more unusual but natural-sounding keywords as your top picks.
- Putting Keywords in the Right Places
Once you’ve picked a keyword that applies directly to your blog, make sure to incorporate it into the following portions of one complete blog posting:
# The title;
# The first sentence;
# Each header (if you have any);
# Once a paragraph; and
# The last sentence.
If you have any links to outside sources use the same keyword as your link text, where possible. Also, for each blog posting, try and pick a different (but related) keyword to use. Feel free to reuse keywords every 30-45 postings.
- Submitting to Directories
Your next step is to take these keyword optimized blog postings and post them to the article and blog directories. Most of the search engines determine the relevancy of your blog by how many outside websites link directly to you; therefore, posting your blog entries (with a link back to your site in your resource blurb) is an easy and straightforward way of enabling this process.
It may take a couple of days to see any results, so try and wait a week before you take a look at StatCounter. Check if your hits have increased at all. Are there any new search engine referrals?
To track your blog’s ascent up the search engine rankings for any given keyword, try Search Engine Rankings – Instant, online reports of web site rankings in 8 top search engines and web directories, including Google, Yahoo! Search, Bing (MSN), AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Yahoo! Directory, and Open Directory (Dmoz). It is an excellent way of ensuring your blog positioning efforts are paying off.
With all blog postings, good relevant unique content is the key to achieving great results. Without useful, interesting information that cannot be found elsewhere, your visitors won’t come back for more. Incorporate these simple search engine optimization techniques into your blogging practice however, and you’ll keep the visitors you already have and dramatically increase your readership through high ranking search engine placement in no time.
