If you are thinking about creating a blog, how to advice is always good to have. Here are my 7 steps to a search engine optimized blog:
1. Find a subject that you are knowledgeable about. Make a list of subjects and pick the one you know the most about. If you have a business, then you may want to write about it. If you are new to your business then writing about a hobby or interest is best.
2. Find a host for your blog. I like WordPress but there are others such as blogger.com, livejournal and thoughts.com. I recommend using your own website to host the blog rather than the free hosting. This will cost money but well worth it if you want the search engines to find your blog. If you are just blogging for fun, then the free hosting will be fine.
3. Once you create your blog setup, the next step is to add a post. I start with a keyword search tool such as Google AdWords. Then I think of a string of words (3 or more) and do a search. What you are looking for is many people searching for the words but not many people using those keywords. When you find a string of keywords that 4,000 - 10,000 people are searching for but only 50% or less are using these keywords, then write your post around those words. Use those words in your title and in the first paragraph (bolded). This is the hard part. Making your blog post make sense using those keywords. This is where your creativity comes in to play. You may not think you are creative, but you will be surprised when you put your mind to it.
4. Once you have created the blog post, send out an email to your list and let them know about your blog. I use Twitter but there are many social networking sites that you can use such as Facebook, My Space, Orkut, Linkedin, Tagged and so many more.
5. If you want the search engines to find your blog, post to your blog everyday. If that is not possible, then post at least 2 - 3 times per week. Search engines love fresh content, so the more you post, the higher you will rank in the search engines.
6. Now that you have completed steps 1 - 5, it is time to take your blog post and create an article. You may have to change it up a bit in order to follow the articles posting rules. I like Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard and Free Articles Directory. Once you have 3 articles posted, you will be considered an expert author and that will also help you with the search engines.
I also recommend Squidoo and Hubpages. These are single web pages with your articles on them.
7. The last thing I recommend is to visit other blogs and post a comment. Make sure you read the post and leave a sincere comment. Also, use the blog's keywords in your comment. This will provide links to other sites, another thing the search engines look for.
Blogging can be fun and also hard work. The more often you post, the quality of content and keywords you have in your post and the links to your post will determine how quickly the search engines find you. It does take time to get the "natural traffic" from blogging but it will be worth it in the end.
My site is an Internet Marketing Advice Blog, I will be posting articles and info about how to be more successful with your internet marketing efforts.
