ActiveRain Tutorials

Increasing blog traffic through organic search engine results is one of our most popular classes that we teach here at 210 Consulting.  The reason this is subject is so popular is that many understand the importance of their blogs showing up well in the search engines, but are not exactly sure what it takes to accomplish this.  As I have shared in the past, businesses who blog receive 55% more online business than those who do not according to Hubspot.

I've also shared a few basic principles to increasing blog traffic like the importance of writing consistently, labeling your photos properly, and even how to optimize a blog on a budget.  These are some great starting points on how to increase the traffic to your blog, but in order to really optimize things, there are a few basic principles & concepts that need to be used each time you write a blog.  This webinar on August 9th, 2010 at 1PM will walk you through step by step on how to write the best possible posts for search engines.

In addition to teaching you how to optimize things, we will also teach you how to write posts that are appealing to consumers.  Many times people get focused on SEO that they forget about the importance of writing something that is of interest to a consumer who is visiting the blog.   You only have one chance to wow that potential reader and if what you write isn't interesting, then they will move on to find the information they need from somewhere else.

We will teach you how to make your posts visually appealing as well as share several ideas for writing that can help you generate virtually an unlimited number of blog posts.

At the end of this course you will know:

• How to write a successful blog post that consumers will read
• How to get your blog posts showing up well in the search engines
• How to garner traffic into your blog by sharing on other social networks.

This 2 hour session is a must for anyone who is new to blogging, or to anyone that feels they are not optimizing their efforts with their blog at this time. The cost for this course is $50.  In addition to the live webinar class, you will also receive a copy of the presentation after with a copy of a recording of this class for review whenever you need a refresher.  If you are interested in this class but are unable to attend, feel free to contact us to purchase a recording.

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

Trying to optimize blogs can be a very difficult task.  But trying to optimize a blog on a tight budget can be even more daunting a task.  I often get asked by clients how to blog and how to write them to show up well in the search engines.  This is known as search engine optimization, or SEO.  With the current state of the economy many of the clients I help are not at liberty to spend bbuckets of money on advertising and PPC campaigns, so they are trying to optimize a blog on a small to non-existent budget.

So how do you optimize blogs with minimal money? Well, there are plenty of ways.  The first step is to start with a small niche. The biggest mistake I normally see is that someone starts up their blog and begins writing with goals and aspirations of dominating search engines for these really broad & generic terms like car batteries, or wedding cakes.  But if you go for more specific items like wedding cakes in Myrtle Beach, or a Duralast Gold 24-DLG car battery, then you will start to gain good rankings easier and quicker.  The instant gratification will inspire you to continue on writing as well.

Secondly, know what people are searching for.  Google Adwords is a great place to get an understanding of what type of terms are being searched and how often they are being searched.  Sometimes just the slightest tweaks to your keyword focus can be the difference to getting to the top page of Google with your post.  The biggest thing is to choose keywords that are attainable for great rankings.  So be realistic in the terms you choose.  I guarantee that if you take some time & focus on this before starting to write you will see results.  A recent client of mine who has a very small budget and a completely brand new site was able to focus on a few good keywords and has been able to already start receiving clients directly from her blogsite.  She also has several terms already ranking #1 in the search engines after only writing a handful of posts.

Thirdly, links can be a difference maker in how your site shows up in the search engines. Look for places you can link back to your blogsite.  This can be a large time consumption, but if you can find things like your profiles on other networks, friends who are willing to link to you, it will increase your traffic to the site as well as the number of incoming links your site has.  The one warning I would make is that this is where you could end up blowing your budget out of the water that you have set up for optimizing your blog.  Companies will try to sell you links and charge you high prices for those links.  This also can be the place that your site goes from ranking #1 to being blacklisted if done improperly, so please do some investigating before you start.  While there are very reputable ways to do this, there are also several ways that the search engines frown heavily on.

The last way to optimize your blog and drive traffic to your site is to use your imagination and make your business different from everyone else’s online. When all the competition has the same type of advertising campaign you do, step outside the box and be creative.  A company that recently did this that comes to mind is Pepsi.  They stepped outside the normal box of advertising this year during the Superbowl.  Instead of spending millions on 30 second commercials, they decided to use that income to build a giant online community of followers that would spread the word about their site & push traffic to them.  Has it worked?  Well, take a look at the stats according to compete. Year to date their web traffic is up 10% while their biggest competition, Coca-Cola is down 24%.  Coincidence? I don’t believe so.  I believe this is due to the change in their focus and doing something unique from the rest of the competition.

These four basic steps to optimize your blog can all be done for relatively no budget at all.  It will just take a little bit of time, effort, and creativity to accomplish.  Finally, I leave you with this video from the master of SEO, Matt Cutts from Google Webmaster.  It seems we agree on this one 100%.

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors