by Gene Patterson

Created on: September 18, 2010   Last Updated: September 04, 2011

Once upon a time, in the Golden Age of Blogging, things were simple.  You wrote good stuff and people found you.   Word spread and you had a hit on your hands. 

But that is only part of the equation now.  Building a Blog is simply tougher these days.  Competition is fierce and cutthroat.  There are literally millions of Bloggers out there competing.  You not only have to be good but you need to completely understand effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. 

You can write the most elegant prose imaginable, but if you do not understand the following techniques your Blog will likely remain empty and alone:

♦  Keywords:

Keywords are the phrases you want to be ranked for on search engines (like Google).  To have effective SEO you desire a keyword density of 2-5% within the post.  You also desire to have your main page optimized toward its own keywords and those keywords should be reflected in the URL.  It is also beneficial to have your post titles keyword optimized.

♦  Content is King

Content is King is an overused phrase when it comes to effective SEO.   It may be overused, but that really does not make the phrase untrue.   You can get people to your site with poor content but they will never keep coming there.  In the beginning content is not as important.  It is unlikely many are reading your site at first.  This just means you have room to grow as a writer.  Eventually when people get there you will need good content if you want to convert them to regular readers. 

Quantity is important to.  Think of every post as a door to your Blog.  The more doors you have the more chances of people finding it.  But if you have to choose between quality and quantity, quality is the way to go.

♦  Behind the Scenes

There are always little tricks that happen behind the scenes that make things work.  Effective SEO techniques for Bloggers aren’t any different.  Optimized URL’s as mentioned before is the primary key.  Meta Name and Meta Description Tags are two of the important ones. 

♦  Site Design

The opposite of "behind the scenes" is the site presentation.  Design can make or break a site.  If the it is too cluttered, too hard to navigate or just plain UGLY people will not stay.  There really is a lot going on with site design that is not seen at first. 

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