photo credit: r0bz

The goal is to make sure your blog is high in the search engine rankings for the keywords that you think people will use to find you.  And that of course, makes it easy for prospective customers to find you!

WordPress blogs are designed to help make SEO as easy as possible.  There are a few simple tasks that you need to do to make sure that your blog setup is optimized.

• Custom Permalinks-customize your permalinks instead of using the default links. The permalink should include a keyword and a category that is also a keyword. See Plugins,Widgets & Permalinks for a detailed explanation of permalinks.
• Text-when writing make sure to include your keywords in your posts. Just make sure that using them is natural and it doesn’t look forced. And don’t overdo them either…one or two mentions is good. It is also a good idea to bold or underline one or two of them.  That makes the search engines notice them.
• Post Titles-make your titles as descriptive and attention getting as you can. It is also a very good idea to include your main keyword if possible.
• Page Titles-another great way to insert keywords into the blog.
• Category Names-Guess what? You should use your keywords for your categories too.
• Photos and Video-WordPress makes adding images and video easy.  And the search engines love them!
• <ALT>tags- An <ALT> tag provides a description of an image or photo.  This is useful for a text-based browser or for screen-reading technology for visually impaired people.  The benefit for SEO is that the search engines read the <ALT> tags as keywords.  So guess what you should be putting in your <ALT> tag? If you guessed keywords, you’re right!! 

So those are a few steps you can take to make the search engines love your blog!  As a matter of fact I think I need to make sure all my images have <ALT> tags!

WordPress Makes SEO Easy is a great post from: The Blog Builder Guy-I Build It So You Don't Have To!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! is a great post from: The Blog Builder Guy-I Build It So You Don't Have To!

Here is Part 2 of

16. Research and choose your mailing list option correctly the first time. I recommend Aweber. What you choose is up to you, however moving a mailing list later can be a huge pain. I know from experience.

17. When choosing a topic to focus your blog on, two things should be considered: (1) Your interest in the topic, (2) How MARKETABLE your topic is.

18. Learn to SELL. The way to a full-time income by blogging is to learn how to MARKET and sell things using your blog. Yaro Starak does a good job of selling via his blog, for example.

19. Don’t discount Facebook. It is a powerful networking tool and you should take the time to build your network, just as you might on Twitter.

20. Create a Facebook page. On Facebook, create a page for your blog or yourself and invite your readers and Facebook friends to become fans. This page can be your blog’s outpost on Facebook. Be sure to import your blog posts as notes.

21. Don’t Be a Me-Too Blogger. You don’t want to become a copy-cat news blog, where you type news-style posts about what is happening in a saturated market. In technology, this is common. Offer something unique that cannot be found everywhere else in your market. 

22. Learn to think about your blog as a business. The blog is a promotional and delivery mechanism to your ultimate product or service.

23. When writing your About Page, pay attention to what you write. Don’t just rattle off some dumb, cookie cutter facts. Your About Page should tell a story of who you are and why your blog is worth reading.

24. Do lots of videos. Use TubeMogul to publish them in as many places as you can. And make sure your blog URL is not only in the video, but in the text description that accompanies the video.

25. When making videos, be REAL and be personable. Your videos are an important component to your blog’s brand. Don’t waste the opportunity.

26. Link to other, related blog posts regularly in your own posts. Not only your OWN posts, but the posts of others.

27. Remember, blogging is a SOCIAL business. Be accessible to your readers and proactively get out there and talk with other people in your niche.

28. If you can afford it, travel to blogging conferences. Not only can you learn a lot, but socializing with successful people often breeds so much motivation and success in yourself that is simply beyond words.

29. Write an e-book, create some videos – whatever – but the idea is to create something which is of value to your readers on your subject, and have it available to SELL to them on your blog.

Power Blogging Tips (1)

Power Blogging Tips (2) is a great post from: The Blog Builder Guy-I Build It So You Don't Have To!

Blogging and social networking are inextricably linked in the sense that both contain certain features and certain properties that are common to both. Both are aimed at creating a wide movement as far as multimedia interaction is concerned. Though it is true that blogs can be regulated and kept very private, the main purpose of them is to reach out to a number of people, to have a medium to voice your opinion.

Another similarity is that both these concepts have existed in cyber space for almost a decade now, but in the initial stages both were rather exclusive of one another. Only in the recent times have they been merged, and their similarity in motives truly recognized.
Blogging is essentially done to channel your thoughts out on to an online journal. You also want other people to read what you have written.

This way, you go about coming in touch with people from all over the world who you would not have otherwise known. Similar is the function of social networking. It is a hub where the young and the hearty flock. The chances of getting an audience at such a platform are high.

The origination of the term ‘blog’ is interesting. It was initially called a ‘weblog’ meaning a log or a diary or a journal that helps you to record your thoughts on a day to day basis. In that sense it was rather in its primitive stages and did not turn into an instrument for propaganda immediately. This term was later shortened to blog and this is when free blogging services like Blogger became extremely popular.

After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:

Bruce Ableson launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers’ blog entries:

Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJourna in March 1999.

Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a Web site, followed by Diaryland in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.

Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Prya Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999 (purchased by Google in February 2003)
  End of Part 1

Introduction to Blog Development is a great post from: The Blog Builder Guy-I Build It So You Don't Have To!