SEO | SkySpark

Building Website Traffic: Your Company Blog & SEO

One of the primary reasons why it’s so important for websites to maintain a blog is search engine optimization. A blog is an effective way to add keyword-rich content in your website. There are millions of blog readers all over the world. You also have the perfect excuse to be fun and include multimedia files such as podcasts, videos, and images—something you can’t conveniently do if you’re running a professional website.

But before you can relish the benefits of a blog, you should first work your way in making sure it attracts a good amount of traffic from your targeted niche, and the pages are optimized properly. The following ideas can be great starters:

Participate in a blog network. As its name implies, a blog network contains a list of blogs all over the World Wide Web. Becoming a part of one allows you to promote your blog to people who also love to read entries. A lot of them also permit you to add their badge into your page, boosting your credibility or authority.

Update your content often. Make it a habit to have at least 3 blog posts a week, enough for your readers to keep on coming back to your blog. Don’t forget to provide them quality and, as much as possible, unique content. Most of all, be very consistent. For example, if they’re used to seeing a new post every Monday, ensure you can do so all the time.

Add some keywords. Like websites, blogs still depend on keywords to be seen in search engines, especially Google. Nevertheless, see to it you don’t overdo it. In fact, include keywords only when they would appear natural or very important. Your main priority should be the interest of your readers. If they’re happy with what they’re reading, they’ll be more than willing to share your link with others.

Include buttons. Many readers may want to share your post, but they don’t like the time-consuming process of doing so. Give them no excuse by adding buttons on your every post. These buttons may point to Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and other social media and networking websites.

Make your page dynamic. Just because we tell you to give quality content, you’ll settle for texts all the time. It’s like reading a physics book. Unless you’re absolutely interested in the subject, it gets pretty boring in the long run. There are many ways to liven up your blog. You can add videos and photos. Many have also tried podcasting and are successful.

Add the subscription button. Don’t let those occasional readers get away from your blog for good. Include a Subscribe button on your blog. It should be added along with your first blog post.

Keep track of your statistics. With tools such as Google Analytics, this shouldn’t be extremely hard for you to do. Tracking allows you to measure the success or lack of effectiveness of your efforts. You’ll know which keywords work very well and which you should concentrate on as well as understand your visitors a lot better.

Credit: An article on internet marketing tactics by the SEO experts at SkySpark Marketing in Calgary.

The Do’s and Don’ts List for Blogging: Brainy SEO
It’s true. Blogging is one of the most effective search engine optimization tactics you can implement. Moreover, once you get the hang of it, it isn’t difficult to do at all. But no matter how easy it sounds, you may still end up not getting the most of it simply because you aren’t completely aware of its dos and don’ts.

Avoid getting yourself in such situation by remembering these do’s & don’ts:

Do: Add keywords in your blog post, but don’t spam.
Keywords still remain the lifeblood of both blogs and websites. Without them, it will be so difficult for you potential audience to find you, especially in search engines. However, you should also learn to put some limits. Keyword spamming happens when a key phrase or word is repeated multiple times in a blog post. You can think about keyword density and prominence, but here’s our friendly advice: write for your audience. Keep those keywords in mind, but make your audience’s interest and potential reaction your utmost priority.

Do: Give your posts a great title.
It’s like trying to pick a nice book in a shop. Unless you have a subject or an author in mind, your possible choice is the one with the catchiest, intriguing title. It’s the same thing with blog posts. You can’t get into first base with your audience if you have a lousy title. It’s okay to be quite mysterious, but make sure it doesn’t border on vagueness. Of course, it helps if you can also pepper keywords right in your title.

Don’t: Be lazy.
Blogging requires a good amount of commitment from you. You have to be consistent. Otherwise, your readers will not appreciate your randomness and settle for other blogs. It doesn’t matter if you post 3 to 5 blogs a week. The most important thing is you can produce almost the same number of posts every time. It may help you, though, if you can come up with themes. For instance, if you have a food recipe blog, Monday may be about meatless dishes; Tuesdays, seafood; Wednesday, poultry; etc.

Do: Allow people to interact with you.
The dynamism of blogging doesn’t stop once you include pictures, audio files, and videos in your posts. It should also extend to your readers’ involvement. In fact, they love to be very engaged with you. So turn off your comments, add some polls, create posts with questions in the end, encourage feedback, and be open to possible guest post.

Needless to say, as the owner of the blog, you should maintain peace and order among your audience. It’s always better to simply turn on your comment moderation tool (just make sure you check comments regularly) and emphasize you don’t tolerate spamming and flamebaiting.

Don’t: be spammy.
There’s really nothing wrong with adding ads, banners, and even Google AdSense in your blog. But too much of them can be so annoying and greatly reduce the power of your blog. Make sure nothing blocks the reading view, menus still remain accessible, and audience doesn’t feel forced to click on your ads.

The The Do’s and Don’ts List for Blogging: Brainy SEO Tips was written by the SEO experts with SkySpark marketing