Search engine optimization is a subject many web site owners and blog publishers either completely ignore or become obsessed with. The smart ones find a middle ground and then concentrate on other aspects of their business, and that’s the approach I recommend you take.
In this article we will cover some simple things you should do now to let the search engines know you exist and then offer some additional ideas you can implement long term if you feel the need. Also, rather then make this extremely lengthy, I’m going to be offering a lot of links to information on Darren Rowse’s excellent ProBlogger blog. Darren is an extremely successful blogger and a lot more knowledgeable about this subject than I am. Most of the search engine optimization techniques offered here are free and all they take is a little time to implement.
Some basic search engine optimization steps you should take when you first set up your blog are:
Make sure you have the Google SiteMap plugin installed and activated - How to do this was covered in a previous post - Adding Plugins To An eBay Blog.
Make sure your blog page titles are search engine friendly - How to do this was covered in a previous post - Selecting A Template And Setting Up An eBay Blog.
Submit your RSS feed to MyYahoo - submitting your RSS feed to MyYahoo should help your blog get indexed in Yahoo quickly. If you don’t have a MyYahoo account open one and then add your RSS feed to your own account. Opening a My MSN account and adding your RSS feed to your account will accomplish the same thing with MSN.
Ping other sites whenever you add new content - This is done by using a service such as Pingomatic which can be activated from you WordPress Dashboard by clicking “Options” and then “Writing” from the submenu. Scroll to the bottom of the page and make sure that Pingomatic’s ULR - http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ - is included in the box under “Update Services”.
Use keywords in your post titles - Read Darren’s post about using keywords in post titles.
Write about only one topic per post - Limit each blog post to one item you are selling. If you plan to talk about two or more items, use different posts for each of them.
Doing these things right away will get you off to a good start with search engine optimization. Then, over time, you should consider the following:
List your blog on blog indexes and directories - Technorati is probably the most important of these. Darren walks you through how to do this with Technorati Juice. It’s also a good idea to submit your blog to some of the blog directories. Ari Paparo provides a list of some directories you can start with.
Other on and off line methods of attracting readers - Darren provides a lot of other ideas and techniques that will build your readership and help potential buyers find your blog. An hour or two spent browsing ProBlogger will give you several ideas but you can start with:
Tomorrow we will wrap up this series of posts and talk about adding content to your eBay blog.
Popularity: 16% [?]
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
