Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no easy task. However, it is something you must become proficient in to run a successful blog. Getting indexed on all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) is just the beginning. What good is being indexed if people can’t find you?

It’s a proven fact that most people don’t bother to search much further than the first few pages of search engine results. SEO is all about getting your blog “search engine optimized” so that it can be indexed highly enough to be found by others.

Lately, search engine optimization has been my primary course of study. As anyone that reads this blog consistently knows, I’ve made leaps and bounds from the stumbling, bumbling blogger that set out with an ambitious goal a month ago. I’ve learned a lot in a very short time span, but what I’m going to teach you today is one of the most important factors in determining how successful your blog will be. In short… SEO is uber important!

Some keys to search engine optimization (seo) are…

• Writing Keyword Rich Content
• Interlinking Posts
• A Proper Site Map
• Outbound Links
• Inbound Links
• Validated Code
• Avoiding Duplicate Content
• Optimal Posting Length
• Stick To A Topic
• Regular Updates

Let’s break this down a bit further.

1. Writing Keyword Rich Content - Search engines use keyword density to target their results. Keyword density simply means how many times your keywords appear in your article. You’ll notice that every time I mention SEO or Search Engine Optimization, I’ve entered them in bold text. This gives you an example of targeting keywords. The keywords I’ve targeted for this post are SEO and Search Engine Optimization. The more I use these words in my article, the more relevant the search engines will think that my article is to someone searching for these terms. The key is not to go overboard. SEO is a double-edged sword. You wan’t your posts to be keyword rich, but you don’t want to use the keywords so much that it provides a bad reading experience. Plus most search engines frown on keyword dumping (repeated un-relevant use of keywords).

2. Interlinking Posts - When search engine spiders crawl your site you want to make it as easy as possible to find your articles. An article should never be more than a link or two away from another relevant article. Help the spiders find your older articles, and you become more likely to get a higher slot in the search engine rankings. This works because hopefully your older articles have something relevant to the newer ones… and vice versa.

3. A Proper Site Map - This ties in with #2. You want to make all of your articles easily index-able by the search engine spiders. An up-to-date site map helps you to achieve this. You don’t know how to create a site map? If you are a Wordpress user then you are in luck. There is a wonderful plugin that creates a site map for you!

4. Outbound Links - Another very important search engine optimization technique is to link to relevant sites. Some people are still on the fence as to whether or not this works, but I’m a firm believer in it. I rank very well in search engines with a few of my articles, and I seem to rank better on the ones in which I include a link to a relevant site.

5. Inbound Links - You are looking for two things in an inbound link. You want the link (ideally) to have a better ranking than you. You also would prefer that they link to you using anchor text (the text within the link, check the site map link above) that is relevant to your site. It’s also preferential that they are relevant to your niche. Although all of these are important, you never want to turn down a link, even if it doesn’t help you much with your SEO campaign.

6. Validated Code - This all ties in with numbers 2 and 3. You want to make it as easy as possible for a search engine spider to crawl your site. A few sections of broken code can slow or even stop the progress of a search engine spider. This site will make sure that you use validated code.

7. Avoid Duplicate Content - Original content is a must. Your SERP (search engine results placement) will suffer if your are thought to have duplicate content on your site. It’s always better to link to a bloggers story than to copy and paste it directly onto your site.

8. Optimal Posting Length - There is no right answer to determine exactly how long your posts should be. However, I will tell you that when it comes to search engine optimization, longer posts fare better. I try to keep my posts above 300 words. I feel that anything over that gives me the ability to deliver my message, and it is long enough to strategically place keywords throughout the post.

9. Stick To A Topic - This is a HUGE tip for your SEO campaign. Your individual posts might fare pretty well on a search engine just by using keyword rich content, interlinking posts, links (inbound & outbound), and some of the other things I’ve described. However, your site as a whole will never fare well unless you pick a topic or a niche and stick to it. When it comes to ranking your site as a whole, search engines want to see LOTS of relevant articles. This is also true on a post by post basis. If you want to write about something, try to narrow it down to one specific topic. If you must mention another topic, try to at least make it relevant.

10. Regular Updates - Updating your site regularly gives search engine spiders more and more opportunities to crawl your site. Getting the spiders to crawl your site regularly means that an article that might take weeks or months to move up the search engine food chain, might only take a few days… or even hours!

These are just a few of the tricks of the trade. There are many more available, but using these should give you a huge head start when it comes to learning advanced SEO techniques down the road. Using these 10 techniques I’ve managed to rank on the first page of Google for quite a few of the posts I’ve written. I have no doubts that you’ll have the same success.

Search engine optimization can be a very long process. Don’t get frustrated or give up if you don’t see your posts on the front page of Google within a few days of writing them. It takes time. Persistence and experimentation are the key. Just keep at it!

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