by Peggy Tee

Created on: September 18, 2010   Last Updated: September 19, 2010

Blogging may seem easy to the uninitiated, but there is an art to maintaining a blog. In an age where readers seem to have the attention span of gnats, and everyone owns a blog, how can you catch and hold the attention of your readers? SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an effective technique to increase web traffic to your blog posts.

Using keywords

The use of keywords and correct positioning is everything when it comes to an effective SEO strategy for a blog. Ensure you have high keyword density, frequency and prominence on your blog, and its contents. Using keywords organically and naturally throughout your content is important; without keywords, your blog cannot be found by search engines and readers.  

Niche positioning

Your blog is your brand and your product. Part of an effective SEO strategy is to choose the right topic on which your blog is based. You should stick with one specific, niche topic per blog - this helps your blog’s search engine ranking and increases traffic to your site. A niche topic will also help you deal with competition from other blogs.

Frequent updates

Search engines index blogs based on how often sites are updated. Original, frequent blog posts are indexed more often than stale content. Keep your blog fresh and new by constantly adding new content. Schedule regular updates using sites such as socialoomph.com, which allows users to save blog posts and publish them at a certain future time.  

Quality content

When it comes to SEO, using keywords often isn’t enough. You have to ensure that your blog contains quality content. Without in-depth, knowledgeable and entertaining content, your blog will not retain its readership for long.

Optimize content

Bloggers frequently focus on just the written word, using keywords liberally within the content of their articles. However if you neglect the other portions of your blog, such as pictures, titles and metatags, your blog will languish behind the SEO competition. Make sure you use keywords for pictures or photo titles, and place keywords within the titles of postings. Use a variety of relevant and related tags for each individual post.

Backlinks

The blogging world is often referred to as a community, and like any community, communication with other bloggers is part of an effective marketing strategy. By actively participating on other blogs or online forums, you can start to build a web of backlinks to your own blog. Resist the temptation to simply post a link to your own blog on every forum discussion you can access; instead, focus on responding to others’ queries. If your blog is about cooking and you’ve recently written an article on using leftover cream, you will be able to provide a backlink to your article if someone in the online community

Network

Social networking offers bloggers an effective channel of communication. Websites such as Facebook, Stumbleupon and Digg are all perfect for backlinking and building readership. For example, by linking your blog’s feed to your Facebook profile, you can automatically promote your content to your Facebook friends.

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