Of course the rules of blogging can change as new developments are discovered, but I often find myself explaining the benefits of having a blog for search engine optimization (SEO).  Here they are:

1. RSS Feeds: Blog software often has RSS feeds built in which can assist in building link popularity. When the blog’s RSS content is syndicated (or subscribed to by other blogs), any embedded links from the blog’s content will also help in sending qualified traffic;

2. Blog Searches & RSS Directories: Once you have your blog together, your site can begin to feel the benefits of visibility within blog directories and RSS feed search engines. Web sites without feeds (your competition maybe?) are not included in these kinds of directories and search engines and thus, would not receive the added benefits your blog has provided;

3. Inbound link magnet: Since we can use blogs to develop links to each other, blogs are a significant source of many postings to social news and social media web sites. Whether it is text, audio and/or video, the media is easily supported for syndication. The more media (or content) available, the more likely it will attract incoming links from other blogs. There are many widgets and plugins that make it easy to share blog content, (i.e. the WordPress WP-O-Matic plugin).

4. Well-organized content: Blog software can use category features that allow organizing content via themes. Use of categories make it easier for search engines to understand the theme of your content providing greater possibilities of ranking well on your themed topics;

5. Deep linking: If your blog (or web site) posts product or service related information, you can use “deep links and anchor text” to products and information from other sites and/or pages within your site to rank well for long tail phrases, and to pass PageRank between pages within your site;

6. Canonical URLs: Blog software provides uncomplicated URL structures making it fairly easy for search engine spiders to find and crawl blog content. Setting your Permalinks can further assist in creating legible URLs that are keyword-rich and help to drive visitor traffic;

7. Fresh content: Both readers and search engines reward fresh content with loyalty and repeat visits. From the search engine perspective, having freshly updated content means your site will be crawled more frequently allowing your new content to become searchable more quickly. New and fresh content is also indicative of a more authoritative web site that people will want to visit;

8. Your Supporting web community: Allowing comments and trackback features in your blog software encourage interaction, but may also result in some spam initially.  The blog community provides citations or links from other sites that search engines reward with better ranking.  Loyalty of blog readers can boost a site’s visibility through supported opinions from other blogs, web sites, and in forums;

My recommendation to Online Marketers attempting to improve web site SEO is to take advantage of the blogging opportunities and gain qualified traffic from the alternatives to search engines.  The result will provide incremental increases in your site’s traffic with search engine referred traffic as an added bonus.

For anyone new to the blogging or the website scene, MailChimp is a FREE email plugin (on WordPress) and can easily be implemented for a website by logging into MailChimp.com and creating an account to retrieve the Formmail coding.

To simplify for this post, I will share how easy it is to add email to your WordPress blog.  First, go to your WordPress Dashboard.  There, select Plugins and Add New.  You can then browse for the MailChimp plugin and Install directly from within your Dashboard.  After the Plugin is installed, “Activate” the Plugin.  Next, on your Dashboard, Select Settings and you will see a new addition for “MailChimp Setup”.  You will need to create your FREE MailChimp account to input your Logon Information during the Setup.  Minor tweaks within the Plugin Setup are preferential.  Next, go back to your Dashboard, select Appearance, then Widgets.  At this point, you can drag/drop the MailChimp email widget to the place you would like to see it on your blog (I recommend the top, right-hand corner for best visibility).

Now that you have configured your email collector for your blog (or website), have an interesting offer that entices visitors to signup.  This email collection can be a goldmine for your marketing opportunities.

To do this, you will need to be on your WordPress control panel and scroll down to Settings.  Beneath the Settings category, you can click on Permalinks which will help you configure your blog to write a logically named URL based upon your variables selected.  I recommend these variables:  /%post_id%/%postname%/

The end result will look like this:

http://unique-gift-list.com/1709/top-14-luxury-designer-hand-bags/

If you have already started your WordPress blog without configured permalinks, you can add the variables in at any time without causing damage to your blog.

I HIGHLY recommend Hostgator because of their Control Panel options. Like many ISPs, Hostgator’s Control Panel offers Fantastico which has the WordPress installation and can ease your pain when setting up your new blog. Once you have your blog setup, the next steps will be choosing your themes, plugins and the aesthetics of your new site.

Of course, you’ll need to create your Adwords account first where there is a $5.00 signup fee charged.  Once you have an Adwords account created, you can start populating the account by performing research for keywords relative to your product or service.  Google has a built-in Keyword Tool that you can access within your accounts through the Tools tab, and then selecting Keyword Tool.  This same Google Keyword Tool is accessible outside of an Adwords account as well and looks like this:

The Google Keyword Tool is absolutely free and can offer you keywords based on Website Content or via Descriptive Words and Phrases you enter.  HINT: Look for relative keywords that provide high traffic volume.  I tend to steer away from “broad match” keywords and prefer to use “phrase match” or “exact match” keywords.  The broad match types tend to grab traffic that is not necessarily relative.  Phrase and Exact match keywords usually attract more qualified clicks and, in turn, cost you less in clicks from what I call “Lookie Lous”.  Until next time…

Adding Google Adsense to a segment of your site (e.g. right-hand, left-hand, top or bottom navigation areas), can add to your bottom line. With organizing my own site here, I have simply edited the themes pages to add Adsense code to the right-hand navigation. The Adsense ad code you choose can deliver an add in most of the popular sizes, be it graphic links, text links, or both.  For a post, I reviewed several options and, personally like graphics.  You may choose to add Adsense code to each post.  See the following example:

Of course, I prefer to keep a simple, non-cluttered look and have kept the Adsense on the right-hand side of the page.  You may notice, if you’re adding this code for the first time, it may take a while for the ads to sync up and show relative content ads.  Usually, about 1-2 hours is when you can see a final result of Adsense Ad Units.

Since this is just one article I’ll be writing on monetizing your website, check back for more details on adding Affiliate Ads to your site for further monetization efforts.  Until next time…

By using this tool, you will be able to type in a Keyword Phrase (i.e. SEO Optimization Services) and have several sites pop up that have an “Add Link” option to list your site.  Example below:

Many of these types of sites require reciprocal linkage (meaning you’ll need to add a snippet of their code onto your site for them to list your site on theirs). However, many of these sites do not require reciprocation and may pass along PageRank to your site.

Another important place to list your site is with the DMOZ.org. Contents from this site populate the 1st and 2nd Tier search engines with the relevant information you provide. No reciprocation is needed with directory listings.

It is important to remember that PageRank passed on to your site will not occur immediately. This may take 2-4 weeks, dependent on a variety of factors. The main thing to remember is that the hard work you put into getting your site linked now will pay off in the very near future.

In light of recent changes with Search Engine and algorithms, I have re-engineered this site in a WordPress environment using special SEO plugins to achieve the best tweaking for SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages).  Mind you, this site was rebuilt on 07/24/2009 with a few pots of coffee and lots of competitive research.

Throughout the progress of ranking this site (and client project sites), progress will be documented here so you can follow along with your own site using similar tactics and strategies.  Until next time…