The power of the blog should never be underestimated by web designers and web masters alike. These pages on a site can are multifunctional, and are both traffic pullers and retainers. They are also a good way of engaging with your readership, which gives your company or website a human face.

Of course, one of the factors that determines whether or not your blog succeeds is getting people to look at it in the first place. A lot has been written about this subject, but in my opinion only the basics have been covered. The aim of this article is to open your mind to different ways of pushing your blog, to attract traffic from unlikely quarters.

The basics

Social networking: Much has been written about spreading the word of your blog through this medium. There is a lot of justification in this claim, as one person recommending your site, carries a lot of weight with other potential blog readers. The following sites I have found to be the most useful for spreading the word.

Facebook – Not so much for telling your friends about your blog, though this always helps, but the power of Facebook advertising is nothing short of incredible. If the aim of your blog is to sell a product or service, then you should investigate advertising on Facebook rather than, in my opinion, Google.

When I advertised www.link-optimise.com simultaneously on Facebook and Google, Facebook pulled in an average of 80 hits per day, compared to 6 per day from the mighty G. The reason? Though your ad may appear as an impression with Google, it does not guarantee it is going to be seen by the public at large. To see the ad, a person may well have to click on the “more links” button, and then click “more”, to actually view the ad. Nobody does this unless they are trying to discover where exactly their ad is making an impression.

Facebook, on the other hand, puts an add right in front of your target demographics screen. They are just off to the right and good ad wording, in our case “Tired of being nowhere on search engines”, catches the eye. Though you could argue that an impression is wasted if it is not at the target audience, it is more wasted if it does not appear on screen at all. Considering an impression on Facebook has a target audience in the millions, can you really ask for a better place to put an ad?

You can also create a Facebook page for your blog, and if you are a regular reader, you will know you can link your Wordpress blog to Facebook and vice versa.

Twitter. A very good site for telling your following that you have a blog and to draw attention to anything that is new on the blog, whether it be a new look, article, picture, or page. It is also good for letting people know there is a blog and it is yours. If you think of twitter, think of blog promotion. As with all social networking sites you can link them together, so linking twitter to your Facebook page for your blog, is highly recommended. That way updates on the blog page of Facebook, appear as tweets on twitter automatically.

Digg and Delicious are two other good social networking sites. Every time you upload something new on your blog, you can bring attention to it via Digg. A good choice of words and a good following on Digg, can generate readers of your articles which is what you want. If you are a clever user, you can write about a similar article to one that is already popular via Digg, and capture the same readership in the process.

Delicious is another good site which works in a similar way. The difference being that it brings attention to an entire page, rather than an article, picture, or film. This site is especially popular with designers who use it to showcase their work. Delicious is not limited to works of design however, and showcasing your articles on this site are always a winner.

Technorati. This is a great way not so much of spreading the word, but to generate links to your site, which is what Google analyses when working out where to put your blog following a search for your site on a search engine page. See back links below.

There are other social networking sites, that cater for a more specific kind of blog, or artistic works. My Space is perfect for musicians, as is blip.fm for music lovers. There are hundreds of social networking sites, and they all have their niche. Take time to explore and to enjoy them.

Use Wordpress for you blog.

The advantages of Wordpress as the platform for your blog has been showcased all over the web. Not only can it be customised very easily every hour of every day if you want to, it also has some great plugins for search engine optimization. I have found these plugins to be very good at generating that much needed search engine awareness, and to track my progress of my blog, as it battles for supremacy on the net.

Platinum SEO pack. Gets you noticed on Google and the like. Make sure you check the options.

Google analyicator. I have found this the most effective plugin for linking your blog to your Google analytics account.

XML sitemap plugin. This creates an XML sitemap of your blog, which is perfect for Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Another great advantage to Wordpress is its ease of use. Not just for themes and plugins, but to upload content to it. This does not have to be the written word either. Photos, films, and sound files can all be easily placed on your blog, and then they are all there for the world to see. Clever use of the facilities offered by Wordpress can make all the difference to how your blog appears to readers.

Wordpress, can also be used to feature social networking buttons, so it is easy for readers to link to your other social networking sites, as well as subscribe to your RSS feed.

A quick note on search engine optimization and how it ties in with social networks and pushing your blog.

When you write an article or upload something to your blog, it is a good idea to use as many social networking sites as possible to spread the word an event has taken place on your blog. This can be a time consuming process, which is why it is important to link as many social networks together as possible.

What you write to promote your blog is very important. Search engines look for something called anchor text. This is text that is embedded in source code, that can be linked to similar words on your blog, or what you write to promote your blog. I have found that on twitter, if I want to draw attention to myself as a freelance writer, a phrase such as “New article on Teahon”, the anchor texts will be, “article, Teahon”. This is ok, but it has not linked freelance writer with myself or my article. If I write “New article from Teahon, freelance writer”, then the chances are it will create the following anchor text. “Article, Teahon, freelance writer.”

When choosing words to push an article try and use ones that link what you do, who you are, and what you want people to know, together. It does not have to be Shakespeare, just meaningful and precise.

Further ways to search engine optimize

If you know anything about search engine optimization, then you are undoubtedly aware of a concept called back linking. This is the main ingredient for search engine optimization, and is in essence, external links to your website from others. Think of this as a voting system, that search engines use to rate your blog in the wider world.

Digg creates a good back link to your site, as does technorati. So be sure to push your sites on these mediums. If you want to increase popularity further, then you can post on discussion forums and blogs that are similar in nature to your own. If you are flowing this route, be sure to post constructive contributions, and not just rubbish like “Great post, thanks”. It is unlikely to get past comment moderation software if you do, and quite rightly so in my opinion.

Another good way of promoting back links is to submit articles to article submission sites. Ensure there is a link to your site from the articles, and you will have a good, solid back link to your blog.

A controversial route is to submit your site to website directories. Google, is reported not to like these and ranks them little in the way of solid back linking to your website. I paid a company to put my site www.teahon.co.uk, on a hundred website directories, and found that Google did not rate any according to Webmaster Tools data. Having said that, it did generate a lot of direct traffic, so was it a complete waste of money?

Competitions.

These are a good way to generate interest in your blog, and does not mean you have to fork out a bundle of cash either, providing you box a little clever. Many websites will donate prizes to you providing you mention them in your blog. How far this has to go will have to be negotiated by you, but in general as they are putting up the prize, a whole section of the blog for the competition could be a good idea.

Content

It can not be overstated how important it is that your blog’s content engages with your readership. Stale content loses traffic and once it is lost, it is extremely hard to get it back. Ensure that your content, is relevant, accurate, and speaks to the reader or viewer. Try and promote debate with your articles without being obvious. The more people that join in the better. Remember, the content is what blogging is about. If this lets you down, no amount of promoting is going to keep people coming back for more.

There is no substitute for engaging, vibrant and interesting content. Content is King, everything else is nobles at court. Make sure you regularly update it to.

I have found these to be good ways to promote your blog, or website. They are all fairly easy to implement, and a little time, effort and careful choice of words, can really make your blog shine through from the crowd.

It is worth remembering that blogging is highly competitive in some areas, and only by promoting your blog in someway will you gain attention for it.

There are other ways to promote blogs, if you have some good ones, why not share them with us?

We all know that search engine optimization is the way to promote your work via your Wordpress blog, so together with SEO plugins for your blog, and more SEO plugins for your blog, we now have more SEO plugins for your blog. So altogether you should now be able to attract lots of traffic, manipulate your blogs and pages to do just about anything that is remotely SEO related. That can’t be bad can it?

So here are some more plugins which should make your day.

SEO Tag Cloud Widget. This plugin allows your cloud widgets to be converted into HTML mark-up language. The advantage of this is that it makes them SEO friendly and therefore they can be indexed by search engines. In the past, cloud widgets were both loved and hated as without this plugin they are unreadable by search engine robots. Now this plugin is here, that has all changed. About time, quite frankly.

SEO title tags. This little plugin will enhance your title tags, and therefore make them more search engine friendly. They work by allowing you to place tags on your posts, pages, and any URL on your site. They effectively tell a search engine where to place your posts in regard to related searches for your blog. This takes the idea up one level from other plugins and Wordpress itself.

Simple Tags. If you have problems choosing the best tags for your blogs, or in other words not a soul is reading it, then this could well be for you. This extremely popular plugin, makes suggestions for suitable tags, auto-completes as you type a tag, allows AJAX admin interface, and allows mass tag editing. Nifty!

Sitemap Generator. Search engines adore sitemaps, they are kind of like chocolate and beer to them. So by having a plugin that creates one for you can only be good. This one is superior to most of them as it has options to multi-level categories and pages, category/page exclusion, permalink support, choices on what to display, and options to show number of comments.

SEO Wordpress Plugin. This plugin keeps it in the Wordpress family, as it does all the usual SEO tricks, but specifically aims all the optimization of links and tags at other Wordpress blogs that are used as a content management system. It is worth to use this plugin as it helps a little bit more to spread the word of your genius, as well as the others that we have brought your attention too.

Search engine optimization should never have its effectiveness underestimated, and has become one of the biggest concepts in the web today. The reason for this is obviously to promote your website via search engines, and so many companies are now springing up to do exactly that. The key to SEO in a Wordpress world though, is slightly different, and that is why these plugins together with other plugins we have brought your attention too, will be key to promoting your genius in the blogsphere.

Wordpress developers are not blind to the needs of bloggers such as yourself to promote your blog, and to that end all these plugins have been created to be used for search engine optimizing your blog. There are many more plugins to this end though, so keep your eyes open as you never know what is coming round the corner.

Obviously, as we find new plugins and other resources that do the essential tasks that are Wordpress related, we will endeavor to bring these to your attention, as know when it comes to resources and SEO, you can never have enough.

There are over a 120 million blogs out there in the blogsphere, so making your post stand out from the crowd is a bit of a challenge to say the least. This has been recognised by the Wordpress community and addressed, as there are now plenty of plugins that search engine optimize your blog. These will make the posts pull through on related searches to your blog.

Below are some good SEO plugins for Wordpress, so have fun, and try not to use them all at once. Not that I can stop you.

All in one SEO pack. Every blogger seems to love this plugin, as it does a little of everything SEO for your post. It helps you choose your post title, avoid duplicate content, and many other little tasks that make all the difference to pushing the blog up the Google page.

Automatic SEO links. This baby allows you to manipulate links for SEO use. You can choose a word or phrase for automatic linking, both internal and external, set anchor text, choose if it should be “nofollow” or not, and so on and so fourth. Also, you only have to do this for one word in a post, and its done. No spamming your posts with numerous links to the same thing is needed.

Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin is essential for SEO, as search engines are what it is all about. Ask, MSN and Yahoo are also supported.

Headspace2. By using this plugin, you can add meta data to your posts, and add specific JavaScript and CSS files to. The plugin will also suggest names for your tags among other things.

Meta Robots Wordpress Plugin. This gives you greater SEO control over your blog by adding robot meta data to it. This gives you the capability to add “nofollows”, prevent indexing of search pages, disable author and date-based archives, and prevent indexing of your login page.

No follow case by case. This plugin give you greater control over comments by allowing you strip the “nofollow” command from comments and then reapply it to the ones you do not wish to support.

Platinum SEO plugin. This plugin comes packed with features, such as 301 redirects for permalink changes, avoid duplicate content, auto generation of meta tags, and post slug optimization, to name but a few.

Redirection. If you have ever had the problem that you want to move a page on your blog but are worried that it wont pull through on searches, then this plugin can help. It helps with 301 redirects, records a log of 404 page errors so you can correct them, and sets up an RSS feed for errors.

SEO blogroll. If you are worrying that sites you link to are benefiting by feeding off your page rank and this is bothering you, then you can use this plugin to stop it. You can separate sections for the groupings of links with an unlimited number in each, and you can give each of them the “nofollow” attribute. That will do it!

SEO for paged comments. This plugin in applies to more to users of version 2.7 as it tidies up duplicate content so it does not appear on each page. Pretty nifty when you think about it.

These SEO plugins should help you bring traffic and attention to your site. It is always good to share the love, and these should help you do exactly that. If you do not SEO your blog then you could be wasting your genius, and that would be very, very, sad.

Search engine Optimization or SEO is vital for the success of every blog or web site. Unique content on a well optimized blog leads to better exposure. The best thing about blogging on WordPress is that it is very easy to use, and highly customizable. This article will give you some tips for making WordPress SEO friendly.

Let’s start with some hard facts: there are 55 million blogs and you have to make yours stand out for you to have a chance. The main traffic should come inside the blog, and not be on the blog homepage. The first second of a visitor’s attention is crucial. Search engine rankings rely heavily upon the quality and quantity of links to your blog and the best way to get links is by recommendation from other bloggers and site owners.

Here are few tricks and tips for making your WordPress blog SEO friendly.

Usually WordPress themes are well designed and structured. However there are a number of things that should be taken into consideration for better optimization for search engines. These are:

• Using the best URLS: Enable the permalinks by going to Options -> Permalinks in the admin panel. Choose a simple and versatile URL because this URL should not change in the future even if the content of the blog changes. If your blog is old and if you think you have used the wrong format, do not change it now. Use the information for future blogs that you may create.

• Handling URL canonization: WordPress blogs have a problem in which four URLs are used for the same post and this should be fixed to prevent the intensity.

For the best title tag, install and use the SEO Title tag plug-in.

Headings are defined by HTML with H1 (largest) to H6 (smallest) which need to be used in articles.

Most of the link traffic comes to the homepage and then gets distributed to the links on the blog page. Therefore an efficient navigation structure is needed. For this, you should have the most important links on your home page so that they can be easily viewed. This can be done by using WordPress Category Post plug-in. Once installed, the Related Posts plug-in to link similar articles. You should not have too many external links on the home page of the blog, and if you want to have them it is best to have them on another separate page.

A site map helps search engines find links to all your pages on the blog. Moreover it helps visitors to navigate and find specific articles and posts. A common myth is: Google Sitemap helps in improving ranking. This is not true. Google Sitemap is great for submitting information.

• Various WordPress plug – in create meta tags. However they are of no use anymore. The meta keyword tags are hardly used nowadays in the calculation of the ranking by search engines.

• It is good practice to have the important content in the source code, as it will make a positive difference in the search engine ranking.

• The last tip for making your WordPress SEO friendly is by designing your blog or web page efficiently and effectively. Everyone has different and varied choices and tastes which would influence the design of their page. These tips are only generalized tips that could help in better search engine optimization.

The key to a good blog is keeping it simple.

The body text font should be clear and big.

Clear and easily visible headings and title pages are important.

Make sure the colors, patterns and schemes used on your blog do not steal the uniqueness of the content.

The text width should not be bigger than one and a half alphabet.

When visitors reach your blog the text should be seen right away. Make sure the visitor should not have to search to reach the content he is looking for.

If you are not making decent money with advertisements on the blog or web page, we strongly advise you to erase all adverts that you have on the blog, as these can be off putting to visitors.