Improving the Search Engine Rankings of Your Blog
Bloggers who are interested in reaching a large audience
with their blog should consider paying special attention to search engine
optimization of their blog. Reaching a large audience may be a priority for a
number of different reasons. One of the obvious reasons to attempt to generate
increased traffic to a blog is to generate a profit. Bloggers who rely on high
blog traffic for their revenue are obviously interested in increasing traffic.
However, bloggers who create their blog to promote a cause may also be
interested in increasing traffic simply to allow their message to reach a
larger audience. Regardless of the reason to want to increase traffic, one of
the best ways to do this is by optimizing the blog for search engines. This
article will discuss the importance of search engine rankings and offer tips
for optimizing a blog.
Why Search Engine Rankings are Important

High search engine rankings essentially act as free
advertisement for a blog or website. This is because many website users rely on
popular search engines to assist them in finding useful information on the Internet.
The search engines apply complex algorithms to evaluate websites and rank them
accordingly for specific search terms. As a result Internet users put a great
deal of value on the search results produced and trust these results to lead
them to the best available websites relevant to the keywords they specified in
the search.
Tips for Optimizing a Blog for Search Engines
One of the most common ways to optimize a blog or website
for search engines is through the use of relevant keywords. Specifically the
practice of applying specific keyword densities to the content of the blog is a
common search engine optimization tactic employed. Blog owners and others who
attempt to optimize their websites do not always agree on the optimal density
for keywords but many believe a percentage of approximately 2%-3% is
appropriate.
Another method for optimizing a search engine optimization
is to place relevant keywords into the code of the website. This includes the
title tags and META tags. This is important
because search engines often consider the prominence of keywords when
evaluating a website. This refers to the location in which the keywords first
appear. Placing keywords early in the content of the website is helpful but it
is important to note the search engines view the code first so keywords
appearing before the body of the blog will be crawled first by the search
engines.
Blog owners can also help to increase their search engine
rankings by generating back links to their blog. This can be accomplished in a
number of different ways. One way to do this is to find other websites willing
to place a link to the blog on their website. This is beneficial because many
search engines factor the number of links to a website into their ranking
algorithm because these links are considered to be one website vouching for the
validity of another website. Some website owners may be willing to do this in
return for a link to their website on your blog. This is known as reciprocal
linking and some search engines may not value this link as highly as a link
which is not reciprocated. There are also some link exchange programs but these
links may not be beneficial because many search engines consider the rank of
the website linking to your blog. Therefore, if the website linking to your
blog does not rank well, the back link will not improve search engine rankings
significantly.