There are many different schools of thought when it comes to SEO, and things are changing all the time too. The Best way to get traffic to a blog is to optimise it on the Search Engines. But how? I will tell you here

Content
Keywords
Ping the Web Servers
Link to other Blogs
Technorati
Google Adsense
FURL and del.ic.ious
Webrings
Link Exchanges
Submit a Press Release

1. Content

The most important thing for SEO (Search Engine Optimizaion) is the content. Search Engines love content that is updated frequently. So, your first priority is to write and write and write….

Use RSS and an Aggregator to Search for content Automatically.

Find content from other blogs { you can edit or write other }. Google search has ordered website by their page rank

Page rank is a numeric value that Google uses to determine how important a page is on the Web. So, this list from Google shows the most important search engines from Googles’ point of view. And, Google is the top search engine itself.

2. Keywords

Keywords are important to Search Engines, and some keywords are more important than others. Make sure and use keywords that are being searched for by Internet readers. For example, I wanted my Website Likeweblogs to be high on the Search Engines when people searched for the keywords “weblogs”.

Being high for “weblogs” is highly competitive, so I’ve now chosen niches within weblogs, such as “like weblogs”, “free weblogs wordpress”, “free weblogs make money”. It’s much easier to get high for those keywords, and Google is now moving my web pages up higher for “weblogs” too.

To get Keywords ranked highly:

* Use the main Keywords in the Title of your blog, if possible.
* Use the keywords in the title of every post.
* Use the keywords throughout your blog post.
* Buy a Domain Name with the keywords in it, and point that domain name to your Blog.
* Use the keywords in the “description” of your URLs for Images (pictures).

3. Submit Blog to Search Engines

By submitting your Blog URL and/or RSS feed to a large collection of search engines and news services, they will be seen by people looking for breaking news and professional expertise.

Make sure and prepare the following information before starting to submit a Blog or RSS feed.

1) List of Blogs/RSS feeds that you want to submit
2) Name of each blog/RSS feed (title)
3) URL of the blog and URL of the RSS feed
4) Description
5) Language
6) Possible categories
7) Author name

Submit to the following Blog Search Engines.

There are a lot more blog search engines you could submit to.

Feedshot is a Blog Submission Service. It submits to the following search engines for free, and charges a few dollars to submit to other engines.

http://www.feedshot.com/

Bitacle:
blo.gs:
Bloogz:
Bulkfeeds:
DayPop:
Fastbuzz:
My Yahoo!:
RubHub:
Technorati:

Submit to http://www.blogsearchengine.com

Chordata is a RSS feed directory. You will be required to obtain a log in ID and password. Find a category for your blog, then submit the RSS feed. http://chordata.info

http://www.blogcatalog.com

Sign up for Feedster, Add your RSS Feed to Feedster, then claim it. There is a Tutorial at Feedster with instructions
http://www.feedster.com

This one’s quick and easy
http://www.icerocket.com

At BlogStreet, click on “Add” at the bottom of the website
http://www.blogstreet.com

Click on the Left Sidebar of Blogwise, where it says “Submit Your Blog”
http://www.blogwise.com

At Blogorama, click where it says “Add yours now”.
http://www.blogarama.com/

At BlogHop, click where it says: “Add your blog here” (towards top of page) http://www.bloghop.com/

From GlobeofBlogs, Click where it says “Register your Blog”
http://www.globeofblogs.com/

Click on BlogUniverse, where it says “Add a Site”
http://www.bloguniverse.com/

3) Ping the Web Servers

Whenever you post on a blog, go to a server and “Ping” it. This will alert the “ping” server that your blog has been updated. Many of these ping servers require an initial, manual submission of your feed, which is what you’ve already taken care of by submitting them to the search engines.

Pingoat.com “pings” a number of search engines at the same time, so it’s easy to just go there each time you post on your blog.

4) Link to other blogs

Find other blogs in your Niche and make comments on their blogs. Most of them will allow a Signature file (a few lines with a link to your blog) at the end of your comments.

Link to other blogs in your posts, and write about them a little.

5) Technorati

Join Technorati and put tags (keywords) at the end of each of your posts.
Many people say that relevant Technorati tags will get you highly ranked in the Search Engines. It also makes it easy for people to find your blog at Technorati.

For example, I place the following tag at the end of my Weblogs blog posts:
http://technorati.com/tag/likeweblogs

Go to the above tag, and you will probably see some (or many) of my weblogs blog posts. The “ping” tells the Web Server that I’ve updated.

6) Insert Google Adsense on your Blog

- the content in the adverts updates all the time, and this assists in becoming highly ranked.

7) Furl it, del.ic.ious

* Go to http://www.furl.net. Get a Free account at FURL, put Furl in your Toolbar (there are detailed instructions at the FURL website.

Once you have FURL in your toolbar, click on the “FURL” button for all your web pages, and any others that you wish to remember.

* FURL will give you a User page of your own.

Here’s mine as an example:

http://www.furl.net/members/JulieannevZ

* Now, put the URL to your FURL user page on the sidebar of your Blog, and at the end of each blog post.

I did this about 3 months ago, and the following page is showing up on Google when I type in the keywords “Weblogs”

http://www.furl.net/furled.jsp?topic=weblogs

As you can see, when people click on that URL, they see all my saved hyperlinks (lots on weblogs).

Get a Free account at http://del.icio.us

del.icio.us is similar to FURL, so repeat the above steps as for FURL.

8) Web Rings

A webring is a group of web sites related to the same topic.

Similar sites are grouped together in rings, with each site linked to another by a navigation bar. Rings form a concentration of sites, allowing visitors to navigate through them easily. Visitors can go on a circular “tour” within the web sites.

When the webring is displayed on a web page, “Forward”, “Backward” and “Random” links are usually displayed for navigation between each of the sites in the webring. Each WebRing is maintained by an Owner - named the RingMaster.

A webring is normally hosted by a ring server. The most popular ring server is WebRing. The webring host or server keeps track of the web sites in the ring, so that a user can click on one of the links in the webring box, and be taken to the next web site in the web ring.

The reasoning behind a webring is that people who are interested in the topic of one web site might also be interested in another web site on the same topic.

A webring is also a VERY effective way to accumulate links to your site. This is important for moving up in the search engines. Even if a webring sent you no traffic from people “surfing” the webring- you’d still want to be a member! The more sites that link to your site the higher the search engines will rank you.

Find out more about Web Rings. WebRings seemed really tricky to me at first, and now they’re super easy. I think they were tricky for me because I didn’t read the instructions properly:-)

Go to WebRing search for a Webring in your niche and join it.

Place the Webring in the Sidebar of your Blog, plus on the bottom of all pages. Here’s an example of a Webring in the Sidebar (bottom right hand side ). LikeWeblogs Blog

9) Link Exchanges

Search for highly ranked websites for your keywords, and see if they offer a link exchange. So, if your keywords are “Google Adsense”, go to http://www.google.com and search on Google Adsense. Have a look at the first 20 or so sites, to see if they have a Link Exchange. You could also do a search on “Link Exchanges Google Adsense”.

Search for the top 10 websites for your Keywords and Visit other people’s blogs and forums and leave your Signature file with your Keywords contained within.

10) Press Release

Submitting a Press Release and publishing Articles on the Web have huge advantages. They both enable links back to your site, which will last for years, and could turn up anywhere on the Net.

Here’s an example of my
Scuba Diving Press Release.

This is a good place to submit a Press Release

Here are some Press Release Tips

Here are some Common Press Release Errors

There are quite a lot of things to do here, so just start from the beginning and do as much as you can.