Use Natural Organic SEO For Traffic To Your Blog

Simple definition for SEO? SEO or search engine optimization is making your website or blog easy for the search engines to find.

SEO also means designing your site and writing your content so the search engines can easily collect the information found on your site. The search engine bots will then carry the information from your site back to the search engine database.

Back at the search engine your blog information is recorded into the database. That search engine database is what is used to provide the results when someone types into a search engine browser.

If your blog information isn't in the database, your blog won't be found on the search results. No results collected equals no traffic from search engines.

Graphic Courtesy of
Svilen Mushkatov

There are several steps you can take to make sure search engines not only are attracted to your blog but also will like your content.

1. Use keywords
Keywords are those terms, words, phrases people type into search engines to find the information they are looking for. When you include keywords in your content the search
engine bots (little computer search engine programs roaming the Internet looking for content) will find and index you.

If you don't use keywords, the search engines won't find your blog or your content. Doesn't matter how great, how brillant, or even entertaining you are. No keywords=no
search engines.

Photo courtesy of Stefanie L.

2. Write new content and post it.
Put out new content on your blog on a set schedule. This way the search engine bots know to expect new content from your blog. It's setting an expectation.

Pair the expectation with keyword rich content and you're developing a formula for success. Search engine bots will like what they find.

The more pages the search engines index or
include for your site, the higher the chance of traffic you'll receive from the search engines.

Photo courtesy of Hilde Vanstraelen

3. Use keywords in your title but write for real people.
Remember attract the search engine bots with the keywords. But don't forget there's a live person you want to read the post.

So make the title appeal to both the search engine bots and your readers. Carefully think out your post title before you make your post live. That is if you want to get more traffic to your blog.

Photo courtesy of Mario Alberto Magallanes Trejo

4. Use title tags but tweak them with search engine optimization.
Optimizing your title tags also helps pull the search engine bots to your blog and blog posts. You can do this by hand or use one of the plugins to help you optimize tags.

DO NOT use the default title tags generated by WordPress. My suggestion for a plugin to optimize your title tags is All In One SEO plugin. It's easy to use and really helps with the search engine optimization.

Now whether or not permalinks aid in SEO is up for debate. Some SEO experts say it doesn't make a difference, while others say it does. In the meantime, Google and the
other search engines aren't talking.

My take? Change to custom permalinks to take advantage of the way you've keyword optimized your blog post titles. Once you set up the permalinks to use your titles instead
of post?=128, then it's done.

Invest 3 minutes, for a possible edge in SEO. In my mind the 3 minutes are well worth changing the permalink set up. Just go to your WordPress dashboard and adjust the permalink settings for the custom permalinks.