20 Hot Tips to Succeed as a Blogger – Tip 14: Get familiar with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 8:14 am

This entry is part 14 of 19 in the series 20 Hot Tips to Succeed as a Blogger

If you can agree with me that promotion/marketing (either free or paid) greatly determines the level of success a blog can experience, then you might need to begin to subscribe to the fact that SEO is the life wire of your blog promotion/marketing.

Today, I’ll like to discuss a subject that mostly sounds complicated but has become a must for every blogger to get familiar with, because it covers every aspect of the things you do to your blog directly (on-page) and indirectly (off-page), with the simple goal of gaining targeted visitors to the blog.

As a matter of fact it can right be assume that SEO is the life wire of your blog’s success. As it’s a known fact that without targeted traffic any blog is doomed, so also you should know, that without proper SEO your blog may never experience it goals; be it monetary or otherwise. I know many people might want dispute this, but that will not change the fact, it’ll only shows their wrong perception of the simple fundamental goal of SEO; which is to gain targeted traffic to a site/blog. You might also have heard it been referred to as Search Engine Marketing or simply Search Marketing.

What actually is SEO?

The term Search Engine Optimization describe a diverse set of activity that you can perform to increase the amount or targeted traffic that comes to your website from Search Engines.

…..Search Engine Optimization, An Hour a Day.

From the above definition, we can deduce a very key and important point; did you notice that it didn’t talk about ranking high in search engines; which mostly is an integrate part of the essence of SEO. The problem with the idea of ranking high in search engine is that; ranking high in search engines might not really achieve positive results, if the traffic it’s gaining is not highly targeted.

So, it’s more beneficial to consider “target visits” as the goal you are aiming at with your SEO campaigns, because if you are only aiming to just rank high in search engine without optimizing for targeted visitors, the efforts might not produce your desired goal.

What the Need for SEO Anyway?

I would want to try to justify or proof to you in “my own words”, why SEO has become a need you must met, if you are really serious to achieve success with whatever goal your blogging activities aims to achieve, rather I’ll like to let the stat speak to you in numbers you might understand better;

Research conducted in 2005 by OneUpWeb.com showed that top 10 placement in Google increased site traffic to five times its previous level in the first moth

A 2005 survey by search engine firm iCrossing found that search engines are the most popular tool for researching products and services before making an online purchase and 54 percent use search engines to find the website from which to buy.

Also, if you don’t yet feel the important need for SEO, then maybe some of this scenario might help you to thing again;

A potential customer is trying to find your phone number so they can call in and order. Searching for your product name, they come across your competitor and call them instead.

…..Search Engine Optimization – An Hour a Day

Final Though

SEO is not a topic that any one can attempt to cover and fully do justice to, in a simple blog post like this one and I wouldn’t attempt to do that right here either. You might want to take the time to get more familiar with SEO, as matter of fact you can’t do without it, especially as it affects you as a blogger and how it can help your blog to achieve more results.

Fortunately, you’ll get a great deal of free information on SEO by searching through Google. But if you are looking to get your hands really dirty with down-to-earth, real world advice and a clear program to get you where you want to be, I’ll recommend you get a copy of Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day. You should see this great post Search Engine Optimization for Blogs – SEO