A blog that is properly optimized for the search engines is a busy blog. Making sure that you are optimizing your site correctly is easy once you get the hang of it. And it is a very worthwhile use of your time, which you’ll quickly realize once you start seeing all the search traffic coming in.

Here are a few SEO tips to help you get started. One caveat though – these tips are a bit more advanced and will work best for anyone who has ever toyed around with the html of your blog.

Tip #1 Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords.

Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage?  Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages.  Here’s a quick look at tags.

There are a number of tag types including:

* Title tags. Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords.  Here’s what they look like – <title>Primary keyword phrase here. </title>

Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase.  The sentence will describe your blog or post in less than 90 characters.

* Header Tags. Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines.  They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this – <h1>Primary and/or Secondary keywords here</h1>

The “1” designates this header as the most important header on the page.

* Meta Tags. Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page.  Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.

For a Wordpress blog, you can add the meta tags on the same page where you type your post. In the right sidebar just below the “Publish” box is a box titled “Tags.”

* Alt Tags. Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic.  Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag.

Tip #2 Add content to your site daily.

Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking.  Content is what search engine spiders look for and index – without it there’s nothing to index or rank.  Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide daily, optimized content and your traffic will soar.

Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links

The more blogs which link to your blog, the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal.  Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic.

There are different types of links.

• A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com
• A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text.  Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page.
• If the link is to an internal page, for example a specific post published on a blog, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link.”

You can encourage linking to your blog by:

• Adding content to your site.
• Submitting to article directories.
• Publishing press releases.
• Commenting frequently on other blogs and building your community.
• Participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites.

Tip #4 Be Social!

Now more than ever before, blogging is about building a community.  Social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site – create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation.

Tip #5 Participate In Memes and Blog Carnivals

Many hosted memes and blog carnivals embed participating blog links into their posts. This means that your ranking goes up because of the link. As a result, your blog moves up in the search engines. (If you’re looking for memes to participate in, check out our huge meme list here. Also, visit the blog carnival hub to find specific carnivals you can submit posts for.)

For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy.  Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action.  Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.

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