If you are a Blogger then there is every chance that you are familiar with the term Search Engine Optimization or SEO. From the term itself, you can understand that it can be helpful for you to get good position in search engine results and as a result it will bring more traffic for you and you can earn more money. So, many people are interested about this field and sometimes many spammers want to take advantage by applying the rules. Of course the spammers do not apply the rules but abuse them.

The Goals

Before giving you the tips let us try to figure out what are the goals for you when you want to optimize your website for the search engine. The first thing you want perhaps is to have good Google page rank. For example, this blog is new and is yet to get any page rank but I am hopping that in the next page rank update, it will get page rank of 3 or 4 according to Google. I have a blog called South Asia Blog with page rank six and I got this rank within six months.

Link popularity is another factor that you want good success. We all want our blog or website to get a lot of back links from Google. The more back links your blog has the stronger it becomes.

SERP is called as Search Engine Result Page. You see that people are searching all the time and when you search something on a particular thing related to your blog then your dream is always that you are in the first three positions of search engine result.

Search engine traffic is another thing that we all want because the more search engine traffic we can get our income can increase. It is a general maxim that search engine traffic will bring more revenue for you from advertisement programas like Adsence or Chitika compared to non-search engine traffic.

Ok, we now know the goals. Now, I am going to give some very simple tips about search engine optimization. Of course, I do not want to claim that I am an expert in this field. The tips are mainly for informational and reading purpose. Before applying them you should be very careful because if you apply them in the wrong way then it can harm your blog instead of bringing any good result.

1. Title: Title is a very important factor because when you search something in Google then the first thing that you notice is title of any search result. For example, suppose you are searching about “South Asia” and in the title of a website you find the phrase “South Asia” then it is more likely that you will visit that web page. The same way, search engines give a lot of importance to the title while displaying your search results. One basic rule is to put your key word in the title. However, do not try to fool Google. For example, if in your title you write about ‘live score’ of a cricket or football match and then in your article you don’t give live score or link to a webpage that is giving live score then you are trying to fool Google. Just remember that Google will catch you sooner or later and you will be in trouble.

2. Design: Design of your blog is important because if the design is beautiful and easy to browse and navigate then it is obvious that people will browse more pages. If they like your content then they will happily give more like to you.

3. Social Bookmarking: I want to give importance of this factor because when you write something then in the initial days, it is very difficult to get search engine traffic. Promoting becomes very difficult but if you can make good use of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Redit, fark etc then you can find new visitors very easily. Not only that when an entry hits the main page of Digg or Redit then many other websites or blogs give link to it. It helps a lot in making your blog strong to the search engines. However, don’t overdo it because you may get banned.

4. Networking in your Niche: When you are writing about a particular topic then it is very important that you know what others are doing in that field. Never think that your competitors are your enemy. Just think that they are your companions and they are working in the same field. Try to make good relationship with them and it will help you a lot. When you write a good entry then if possible email the link to them so that they can take a look. On the other hand, if you find a good entry in your competitors blog never hesitate to inform your readers about it.

5. Original content: it is something that every Blogger must do. You should not copy paste and you should not write poor content. Always try to write quality and original content. Original content is liked by everyone including the search engines. When you copy paste from other websites or blogs then naturally people will discover it sooner or later and will dislike you. Never be selfish in giving link to quality content.

6. Follow Google webmaster guidelines: One of the best things that Google has done is to create a Google webmaster guidelines. You should also submit your sitemap and website by creating a Google webmaster tools account. You should read the Google webmaster content guideline and design guide line very carefully and try to follow them as much as possible.

7. Link wisely and avoid bad neighborhood: I wish that every Blogger follow this lesson. I can tell you the story of a Blogger whom I know. He gave link to a junk blog and got severely punished by Google. His traffic has dropped sharply and does not increase no matter what he tries. He did not do anything bad but as I told you he gave link to a blog that is full of junk content and has violated all kind of copyright law. Within one month his Google backlinks dropped significantly and any person who knows about SEO will easily understand that his blog has been punished by Google. As a result, it will be very difficult for him to get new links from established bloggers because if they link to him then they may also suffer from bad neighborhood problem.

From Google Webmaster Guidelines:

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

8. Read: The best way to learn about search engine optimization is actually to read about it. There is a lot of information about it in Internet and almost everything is free.

9. Don’t depend on others for SEO: To be honest with you, I get a lot of emails every day from so called SEO experts who say to me that they can improve my ranking. The funny thing is that when I check their websites most of the time I see that their page rank or Google back links are much lower than most of my blogs. So, I say to myself that if really they are expert then how come they don’t have any website or blog with page rank 6 or 7.

10. Don’t try to Fool Google: Yes, please never try to find a shortcut in SEO. Google has become so successful because when we search something it brings out the most relevant webpages related to the topic that we are looking for.