This week is all about SEO and Keywords. First up, a guest post from Alex Papa on how to get eyeballs to your blog or website.
Enter the ‘Blogosphere’: a world where corporate minds and marketers of all kinds congregate with a common goal. A goal to have their distinctive voices heard, to build a level of trust, and to present their services. Businesses have scanned the blogging scene, and recognized that the blogging platform presents a potentially lucrative revenue stream. Marketing strategies and blogging are now intertwined as a form of brand building and promotion. Irrespective of prior knowledge, geographical positioning, or intellect, the blogging realm offers significant potential for reward.
Blogs and Business: Where is the Benefit?
Unlike a commercial website, a blog presents a lax setting. Viewers are not barraged with “Buy Now” buttons and other conspicuous sales pitches. This lowers the guard of the reader, and opens the door for a relationship to be built. A relationship initiates a level of trust, which correlates to a potential client and friend. The key determinants to solidify a level of trust is to offer your reader unique value-adding content. The content you provide illuminates your voice, exposes your character, and establishes your credibility. Contributing value-adding content on a consistent basis will ensure your readers return to your blog.
An expansive reader-base equates to a sizable market for your service. But with millions of blogs in existence, obtaining significant traffic can become an arduous assignment.
Social Media Traffic
Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook can yield significant traffic for your blog. Facebook is the second most traffic intensive platform on the web, with Google firmly on top. Creating targeted “groups and pages” on Facebook can drive a substantial amount of traffic directly to your blog. Joining and participating in communities such as forums have proven to be another free source of direct traffic.
Organic Traffic
Another supply of sizeable traffic will be derived from the search engines like Google or Yahoo. This form of traffic which is commonly known as “organic” traffic will be the prominent source of traffic your blog receives. Traffic generated from search engines will always be laser targeted because users key in search terms that are specific to their needs.
Quality blog authors commit a fatal error by producing blog posts that are eloquent and of superior class, but lack search engine friendliness. Search engines are not professors evaluating the quality of your writing. They are programmed to decipher the relevance of your content according to the search term utilized by the user. If for instance a user keys in the term “Increase Blog Traffic” and this term is not incorporated in your content, then the search engine will deem your content irrelevant. Search engines don’t care if you are a best selling author.
There should be a dual focus when writing a blog post. Firstly, one should write for one’s user, and secondly, one should write content that is optimized for the search engines.
Keys to Writing Search Engine Optimized Content
When a search engine evaluates the content on your blog, it links the content of a post to “keywords” that are commonly used by everyday search engine users. If your blog post does not contain any of these keywords, your post is of no value to the search engine. The elements required for you to optimize your content for the search engines are:
• Engage in keyword research. Know what people are searching for in relation to your service offering.
• Structure advertorial posts by integrating a primary product keyword into your content.
• Ensure your keyword appears in the title, introduction, body, and conclusion of each post.
Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog, and your readers will sustain your blog and business, if you offer them long-term value through your content. Subtlety is essential when promoting your service to your readers. Assaulting you readers with consistent sales pitches will destroy your relationship and reduce business profits. Approach each post that promotes your service with tact, and use persuasive language rather than heavy-handed sales pitches.
Alex Papa is the editor of Norton Antivirus Codes blog. He also manages several online marketing companies such as Business Opportunities Expo.