Learning SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you have a blog or website, and don't know what SEO is, that's probably the reason why you haven't been getting many viewers. I've known about SEO for a while, but have just recently started doing heavy research on the subject.
You might notice my blog titles for example. All of them are comprised (at least partially) of keywords relevant to the subject matter. Keywords don't necessarily make for great blog titles though. Personally I would rather have witty, interesting, non SEO focused titles that engage the viewer. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, I don't have very many viewers. Sacrifices have to be made.
The title of the blog is apparently pretty important. I was a little worried about mine, 'Affiliate Noob', mainly because I don't think very many people are going to be searching for the word 'noob'. I have read though that as long as at least one word in the title is a keyword, and that keyword matches the theme of your blog, your in good shape.
Now for something I was a little confused about, but recently had cleared up for me. What do you do about your tags? More is better right? So whats to stop me from placing 20,000 tags at the end of every post? From what I understand, the more tags / keywords you have, the better. But they all have to be relevant! If someone were to search google for "learn affiliate marketing" and my blog had nothing but tags relating directly to that subject, I would rank higher then an identical blog with wildly varying keywords.
That's because if you put the tag 'sexy' at the end all your posts, Google with think that your blog is a little bit more about 'sexy' and a little bit less about 'affiliate marketing'.
Finally your copy needs to contain keywords as well. If you can supplement a statement with a relevant keyword and still sound clever, do it. For example: In an earlier paragraph I stated that I would 'rather have witty, interesting, non SEO focused titles that engage the viewer'. My first instinct to describe my blog titles only as witty and interesting. But I saw my oporitunity to inject a keyword and I did it.
One thing that I have not been doing is pushing this blog. There hasn't been much to push until just recently. The single most important factor for getting highly ranked in search engines is how many links are directed toward your website. Every article I have read has stressed this. Comments in forums and on other blogs DO count, so get out there and start whoring your blog.
I have heard it mentioned that who's linking is just as important as how many total links there are. For example: If I were to create a second blog, with 50,000 pages and 50,000 links pointed back to this blog, it probably wouldn't help my rankings much. Because the new blog isn't ranked well with google. Those links have very little value. Whereas if say AOL.com were to post a link to my blog, it would probably help substantially.
Also on the subject of links there seems to be a time factor involved. Several articles have mentioned that the older a link is, the more value it has until it reaches maturity. Which means if you hustle your ass of and get some links out there, you still might have to wait a couple of months before they start having an effect on your page rank.
That's all I know about search engine optimization. I am by no means an expert as I have just started with this. If you are interested, I recommend you read this article on SEO for blogs hosted on Blogger.
