Most internet marketers agree that content is still king, even in 2010. Creating compelling content that makes readers come back for more is one way of building your visibility and authority online. Much that creating unique content is tedious work, majority of bloggers, webmasters or internet marketing experts would say that in addition to compelling content, there is one magic formula that would help you boost your credibility and visibility, online. That magic formula is through effective search engine optimization (SEO). Below are some of the best tips I have compiled for newbies out there that are valid in 2010:

1. Concentrate on home page – Most new bloggers make the mistake of optimizing their landing page and waste their time on it. Unless your landing page is a sales page, having at least one to three long-tailed keywords on your homepage that would attract links, is good enough for the blog as a whole.  This does not mean that you should skip landing page optimization ever. As a beginner, your goal is to build your traffic. And building traffic through link building is a proven strategy.

2. Site Maps are a must on your blog – WordPress is one platform that has built in site map tools that even newbies will find easy customizing. An effective and successful blog must have a site map in order for search engines to find new content instantly.

3. Robots.txt is a must on your blog too – Equally important is the use of a robots.txt file that tells search engines which pages to crawl and which to leave out. Especially when you are using a content management system that utilizes dynamic pages, like WordPress, duplicate content pages are occuring everywhere, in archives, in categories, in tags, in date etc. Robots.txt is a must if you want your new articles to be indexed instantly by google and also a fix for me when I wondered why my pages are not indexed by google.

4. Optimize more than one keyword in a single post – Optimizing your article for 1 keyword is so 2003. Optimize your post for multiple keywords!  The secret?  Google’s Wonder Wheel. If you have not realized the functionality of Google’s Wonder Wheel, well, you are missing a lot. For one, Google would not put it where it is right now if it is not helpful. The Wonder Wheel is located on the left side portion of the Google site. When you use it, it gives you and idea of what other long tailed keywords based on the original keyword you placed searchers are looking for. These long tailed keywords can then be used in your post instead of mentioning your original keyword, thus, creating redundancy. Nice tool, right?

5. Use your own images –  It is advisable to use your own pictures on your blog.  However, if you need to use images other than your own, always indicate the source of your picture.  Also remember to change the caption and the size of your pictures so that the infamous crawlers of the google world would consider it unique.

6. Use Flash, if needed –  With the technology we have, using Flash in your blogs is no longer that much of an obstacle like before for those crawler bots!  They do crawl despite the Flash in your site.  Technology is changing, thus, search engines continue to evolve as well.  However, please remember that although flash may look aesthetically pleasent for your blogs, it substantially decreases the loading time of your web page.  And this slowness may not only scare away your readers in favor of your competitor’s site but google recently introduced site speed as one small part to their algorithm.  So, use it sparingly!  And by the way, if you opt to use Flash, be sure to change it every now and then so as not to bore your readers.

7. Google Page Rank – It is common for all bloggers, of course, to achieve the top of a Google Page Rank.  However, Google has already said that your page rank will not at all affect your rankings in the Search Engine Results pages (SERP) from 2010 and beyond.

8. There is NO best SEO Company (yes, you heard right, not even an ex-google employee ) – Who else would be an authority on search engines other than Google? And according to Google, there is no such thing as best SEO company.  Although Google considers their Pay Per Click and Adwords as the best search engine advertising strategy there is, endorsing an SEO as being the best is tantamount to accepting that this best company outsmarted their algorithms.  So, friends, never believe an SEO company when they say that they are Google Certified.  Google never certifies any SEO company.

There you go, bloggers. Outlined for you are eight blogging tips in 2010, keep on blogging for fun and profit!

admin Blog Marketing, SEO, Web Traffic