27th Jun, 2007

SEO for Bloggers: The Summary (Part 6 of 6)

Blogging is uniquely suited for search engine optimization, because the search engines definitely favor websites that have lots of relevant, easily updated content.  However, there are ways you can maximize your blog’s promotional abilities - SEO techniques you can use to “blogcast your brand”.

Here’s a rundown of my SEO for Bloggers series:

Part 1: Getting Started with SEO.  Start here to learn exactly what SEO is and the basics of how to use it to promote your message, including choosing your keywords properly.  If you only read one of these posts, read this one (but you really should bookmark them all!).

Part 2: Link Building and Link Popularity.  This post covers a key component of any blogger’s SEO strategy: getting tons of incoming links.  Search engines love websites that lots of people are linking too - after all, popular blogs are popular for a reason, and that reason is simple: people like ‘em.

Part 3: Link Baiting for Fun and Profit.   Link baiting is the art of getting other bloggers and webmasters to link to your site by creating interesting posts that benefit your readers in some way, shape, or form.  After all, people link to content they find compelling.

Part 4: Building Your Cornerstone.  Strong flagship posts are the pillars of blog - they are your most compelling content, they bring in the links, and they naturally have an ultra high keyword density.

Part 5: Off-Site SEO and the Social Media.   This post describes how to use the social media networks and the user-driven aspects of Web 2.0 to enhance and promote your blog.   There are a whole lot of amazing tools and communities out there, so use them to your advantage.

There’s one more point to remember about SEO, and that point is that the results generally don’t happen over night.  Yes, content can go viral, but building a popular blog with lots of readers takes time - you have to develop your keyword-dense cornerstone content, to build link popularity and generate incoming traffic, and to make a name for yourself in your niche.

Responses

oh ack, this post makes me feel like such a novice. I just can’t wrap my brain around this stuff. I don’t know the slightest bit about keywords. How do you know if a word is key?

Also, just not sure what you mean about flagship posts. What constitutes as one? I mean, I really just never have an idea of whether a post is going to be popular or not.

re: keywords - you can use a keyword tool (there are some free ones out there like 103bees (http://103bees.com/) and hittail) - SEO book (www.seobook.com) has TONS of info and tools too. I also like good keywords (http://www.goodkeywords.com/) - it’s also free.

I also figure out what my keywords should be looking at the search terms that lead people to my sites, and by asking myself what questions I am answering - e.g. some that apply to this blog are “business blogging” and “why blog” and “branding blogs”. Sort of a connect-the-dots-backwards thing - how and why are readers coming to my blog - and then I make sure to use those terms in my post.

re: flagship posts tend to be longer posts that provide tons of value for readers - part 4 of the series covers them a bit. The concept tends to apply more to people who are trying to become authority bloggers and to own their niche - a way for them to show off their expertise that other sites will link to because it’s really helpful, interesting, and/or entertaining.

I’m going to cover keyword tools and give a rundown of some of the good, free ones on the net in the next week or so.

[...] SEO for Bloggers: The Summary (Part 6 of 6) [...]

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