Blog Optimization

There's all sorts of buzz about blogs lately and yet so many companies are still wondering what to do about it. In fact, there are a tremendous number of business blogs that are not realizing much of their potential visibilty on the web. Why? Because they're not optimized. This is very much the same scenario that occurred with web sites in the late nineties. Back then I worked with a company that sold web sites - lots of them. But after getting the site up and running, the traffic didn't come by itself. So we figured out optimizing for search engines and that was the start of my SEO career. Blogs can generate traffic without search engines, but WITH search engines it can be even better. With blogs, there exist as many or more optimization opportunities to optimize as with a web site. While most blog software is more search engine friendly out of the box than many web sites, the opportunities for blog optimization are readily available. For our SEO and Digital Point, Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Keywords should NOT determine your content (unless it's an AdSense blog). Optimize the template. Make sure post titles appear in the title tag and append the title tag (hard code) with the most important phrase for your blog. Example: " Interview with Brett Tabke - Online Marketing Blog" Online Marketing Blog is included on every blog post title tag automatically. Also use the blog post title as the permalink. If you're using keywords in the blog post title, then they will occur as anchor text in the permanent post link. While you're at it, just make the post title a permalink. Make it easy for your blog readers to subscribe and include RSS feed subscription buttons or "chicklets" in a side bar or on a dedicated Subscription Info page. Here's a handy social bookmarking links. Here's RSS and Blog directoriesAlso submit the blog to regular directories such as (JoeAnt, MSN Business Central, etc) that have categories for blogs. Ping the major RSS feed and Blog search engines each time you post. This can be configured with blog software such as Movable Type or WordPress to work automatically. If you're using Pingomatic or FeedBlitz (what we use), Zookoda (this one is more for using blog posts as a weekly newsletter), Bloglet. No matter how many optimization tactics you employ on a blog, there is no substitute for quality content. Blog optimization is only as effective as the quality and usefulness of the content you're optimizing. Lee Odden is President and Founder of Online Marketing Blog offering daily news, interviews and best practices.