Search Engine Optimise and Promote your Blog Part 1

All of us have now heard of blogs. For search engine optimisation purposes, a < href="http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/internet-marketing-blog">blog is a key weapon in your website promotion armoury. Many businesses are now seeing a growth of traffic and a commercial return from their blogs, especially those who allow their customers or even detractors to post comments and get engaged.

There are certain guidelines which will help you to maximise the impact of your blog and none of them are complex or difficult to implement.

Content & Keywords

You should have an ongoing content strategy for your blog. Each post should fit within that content strategy and over time you will build up a mini encyclopedia of useful and unique content for your readers.

Develop a character or personality within your blog, even within a business blog, and if you can be opinionated, as well as even subversive or argumentative if it suits your cause!

Don't post on a subject if you are not knowledgeable about it - there will be thousands of others out there who know more! If you really need to cover a particular subject and feel unsure about the level of your knowledge, interview an expert. Interviews can make great reading, and if you pick someone suitably well-known or famous, you will increase your readership greatly.

It may be that you have a limited number of topics on which to post, due to knowledge, experience or to maintain focus, and these topics should be clearly illustrated using categories.

Your categories should be easy to navigate within your blog, and articles or posts should fit within a particular category. You can add tags to the post to further define its content, and a tag list or cloud will help to ensure you don't repeat tags or use synonyms, as well as making it easy for your audience to surf relevant content.

Keywords are vital in blog posts, but don't overdo it. Far better to sprinkle your keywords throughout an article where relevant and to make sense to your readers, than to overload an article in an attempt to con the search engines.

Your title should be punchy, informative and where at all possible include keywords and phrases. Ditto the URL for your post, which should reflect your title.

Keywords should also be included when you optimise your images, video and podcasts (audio). Not only for the search engines but for anyone using screen readers and other applications which enable the less able to navigate a website easily.

Keep your posts timely and seasonal. Watch the news and trends, and capture traffic caused by a specific news story that is relevant to your audience.

Be aware of the time of year. If you write a business blog for small businesses, consider what they may be interested in right now. Is it the end of the tax year? Height of the season? Time to plan marketing for Christmas? Post relevant content which fits with your readers needs. A blog for home owners - why not give them some spring cleaning tips? Remind them of jobs that need doing at this time of the year. Think about your audience.
How to articles are often widely linked and need to be informative, descriptive and include photos and/or video. A How To article about using your products may have a very small audience if your product is niche, but it will become the de facto link for that information if it is well-written.

Content is king, and as you develop the style of your blog, it will become obvious from your audience's comments and feedback what information they are seeking. Understanding and writing for your audience is vital, and will help you to develop promotional strategies to suit. We cover these in Part 2 of this article.

Phil Robinson is an experienced online marketing consultant and Founder of ClickThrough Marketing - an international Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing agency