Blogs and search engine optimization

The very term search engine optimization is probably enough to make you roll your eyes twice, yawn, and drop off to a sound sleep of boredom.



Even the commonly used (at least among those who stay awake to think of such things) is SEO.



That abbreviation also sounds somewhat uninviting. It reads like a government department that demands to know everything about your life in triplicate; or something your school health nurse strongly hinted you should avoid.



For those of you still awake, it's not all that bad....really....it's not!



The goal of SEO concerns helping your blog appear high in searches on search engines (usually spelled Google). When someone enters some words or a phrase, into the search box, the results that the Google algorithm considers most relevant appear.



It's not magic. It's math.



Google uses a mathematical formula called an algorithm, to search and calculate the relevance of some three billion indexed documents, to your query.



The results don't simply appear by chance. They are arrived at through calculations of 1's and 0's.



Still awake?



Good. It gets better. Trust me on this one.



Well, maybe not. But I'll tell you anyway.



You can help your blog appear higher on the search engine results. You can use the formula (without knowing any math. Now that had to make you feel better.



What is needed to be done are just a few basic things.



Here are two ideas (there are more but two is enough for now) that will really make a major difference to your search engine rankings.



Since you do them now, it's not too much of a stretch.



One part of the calculation involves links.



Google and the other search engines love to see incoming links. The more incoming links to your blog the better. Even better than that is incoming links from blogs (and other traditional websites) that have lots of incoming links themselves.



Since most bloggers love to link out, and to exchange links, that part is fairly easy. And no, you are not "helping your competition" in the search engines. Every blog, even ones that appear the same, have a different emphasis, on slightly different topics and search terms.



Your main competition, for high search engine rankings, is not other bloggers. It's the traditional static websites that you have to work against. There are a lot more of them, than there are blogs!



Of course, since you can out link them, you have them half beaten already.



The other way to gain high search engine placements is by posting a lot of fresh content to your blog. Search engines love fresh content, and regularly updated blogs certainly provide it.



Hey, that was easy too. You do that already, right?



Well, then all we have to do is tweak it a bit. If you have a visitor counter, check the visitor traffic logs, and look for referrals from the various search engines. The search engine referrers will include Google, MSN, Yahoo, AOL Search, Inktomi, Alltheweb, and AltaVista.



Look closely at the words, used by the searcher, that found your site as a result of the query. Web counters like Extreme Tracking (free by the way) keep records of the keywords entered into the search box.



Click on the log entry of your web counter. It should take you to the search engine results page where your blog was found. What you will see is the page where your blog was found, and the position of your blog on the page.



The ultimate goal is to be in Position Number One on Page Number One. That is the Holy Grail of search engine optimization. Of course, you can add a lot of visitor traffic without obsessing over being at the very top. The first three pages of a search are your realistic initial goal.



If your counter doesn't take you there, don't remove your old counter, simply add another one to your site that does travel to the search engine pages. More than one counter is not a bad idea. I use two, as do many other SEO oriented bloggers.



Look carefully at the most used words that found your blog. Examine the next nine or ten as well.



When you post to your blog, try to use those frequently searched words in your posts. Use them fairly often (but not too much....think common sense and readibility here), and early in your posts. You won't have to make your posts "artificial" at all.



Simply use the terms that you have already been using. They are what searchers enter into their queries to find you.



By adding links and touching up your posts, you will rise in the search engine results. You will get more readers, and they get to enjoy your words of wisdom.



Win-win situation.