Here’s a quick SEO technique for your blog:

SEO Your Blog Post Title

Choose a keyword for your post. Make that keyword, or keyword phrase, the first part of your post title. For instance, for this post assume my keyword is “SEO.” I can write a thousand different titles for that keyword but I want to ensure the search engines realize its value as a keyword. That’s why I put it up front. There are several ways you can do this.

• The first way is as I did above: Craft a phrase that grabs the reader’s attention and utilizes the keyword in the pole position
• Another method is to drop the keyword followed by a colon and a catchy phrase, like so:
  SEO: Break Your Crutches And You’ll Be Crawling
• Another method is to ask a question that implies a common mistake can be fixed by reading your blog post, like this:
  Is Your SEO Style Killing Your Blog?

SEO Your Blog Post With Keywords

Be sure to include your keyword in your blog post often. SEO is predicated upon the use of keyword-rich content. With websites, you have meta tags and other elements not visible on the page to help you. With blogs, it’s just you and your content. That’s why SEO must be on the top of your mind as you write your blog posts. Otherwise, all you’ve got is well written text with no search engine benefit.

Don’t stuff your post with your keywords, however. Let it flow naturally. The best SEO is content that flows so well that the reader isn’t even aware of your keywords. But the search engines will notice.

One SEO Technique Often Forgotten: Choosing A Blog Category

Do you have a list of blog categories? You should. Make them keywords that you rely upon often and every time you use a keyword that falls under that category, check the category corresponding to that keyword. For instance, this blog post is categorized under “SEO.” That’s so that search engines will key in on that keyword the most and crawl the blog post looking for that specific keyword. Not that they can’t find others, but by selecting the keyword category for my blog post that most closely is associated with the keyword in my post - in this case, the keyword “SEO” - I am telling the search engines how to crawl my blog post.

Another thing to keep in mind about your blog categories is to choose only one per blog post. You don’t want to water down your SEO. If you choose three or four categories, the search engines may not be as thorough in crawling your blog post as they will look for each occurrence of those keywords in your blog post. If you select a category with a title that does not correspond with your keyword then the search engine may very well not rank your web page at all. That’s why it is important to make your blog categories keywords in and of themselves and to select the blog category that you are using as your primary keyword. You can’t get any better SEO than that.

SEO Tags: Don’t Limit Yourself To Just One

I highly recommend using tags in your blog posts. A tag is a keyword that you use to notify social bookmarking sites that your blog post is SEOd a certain way. In other words, you are telling the Internet community that your blog post contains those important keywords. You don’t just want to use one, but you don’t want to overdo it either.

Your first tag should be your most important, or primary, keyword. In the case of this blog post, SEO. But I am also SEOing this post with secondary keywords. Can you tell me what they are?

If you guessed “blog” and “keyword” you’d be correct. Those are keywords in this blog post that are important but not quite as important as SEO. So I will select those two keywords as tags for the benefit of the social bookmarking sites and blog directories.

SEO Also Involves Anchor Text

Anchor text is a keyword that serves as a link. Within the body of your text, promote yourself by using your keyword as a text link that connects your blog to a specific web page on your website that pertains to that topic as well. For instance, when you click this SEO link you’ll be taken to the “Search Engine Optimization” page on my website. Yes, SEO really is that simple.

SEO Is The Bold Way To Blog

Another way to notify the search engines of the importance of your keywords is to make them stand out by making them bold. When you bold your keywords, you are emphasizing them with stronger importance than other words in your blog post. Search engines note that and place bolded text as higher importance in their SEO algorithms. This technique will give you a leg up in Googleland.

Subheads Like This Will Make Your SEO A Huge Success

Use subheads to break up long text. This is especially important for long blog posts. Be sure to use your keywords in each subhead and make them bold.

Create Two Or Three Signature Links Using Your Important Keywords

Finally, end every blog post with a signature. Two or three lines, each using your important keywords and linking to a page on your website (anchor text), is just another opportunity to SEO yourself right into search engine heaven.

Conclusion

SEO is a matter of thinking through what you are doing and being patient with yourself. You do not have to sell your soul to the devil to create highly SEOd blog posts. You just have to understand all the elements and how they work together. Here’s a recap of the SEO techniques you can use to create dynamic, interesting and search engine friendly blog posts:

• For better SEO, put your keywords in the blog post title
• SEO requires the heavy use of keywords in your text
• Select one, and only one, blog post category
• Use SEO tags and don’t limit yourself to just one
• SEO your blog post with anchor text
• Be bold, those keywords are more important than you realize
• For the very best SEO, put your keywords in subheads that are bold and noticeable
• End your blog posts with two or three keyworded signature lines

If you use these techniques in every blog post, you’ll create highly SEOd content that will make you stand out in the search engines and among your human readers. Oh, and one more thing: Try to use your primary keyword in every paragraph but alternate your secondary keywords, using one in one paragraph and another in the next paragraph. Your secondary keywords should be used every second or third paragraph. You can use every one of these techniques for your primary and secondary keyword with one exception: Choose only one blog category, the one that corresponds to your primary keyword.

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Affiliate programs are highly misunderstood. To successfully manage an affiliate program you’ve got to have a top-notch product and offer a level of support for your affiliates that they can’t get anywhere else.

Affiliates are your sales force. Most affiliate programs can succeed with just one or two affiliate members actively pursuing a strong marketing plan. Remember, the 80/20 rule applies to affiliate programs as it does anything else. This means that if you have 10 affiliates, 2 of them will likely account for 80% of your affiliate sales. But what do you care? You won’t have to pay any of them a commission until they bring you sales.

Here are a few tips for running a successful affiliate program:

• Make sure your product fills a niche in the marketplace
• Deliver quality in every aspect of your business
• Pay your affiliates well
• Provide affiliates with banner and marketing support
• Make your plan a two-tier plan if possible

If your product or service doesn’t fill a specific niche, no one will want it. Too many Internet entrepreneurs try to sell products that have been in the marketplace for too long. Instead of selling what everyone else selling, try selling something that no one else has. Fill a niche and people will seek you out.

Don’t just deliver a quality product, deliver quality service. People will never turn down quality.

Affiliate programs that succeed pay their affiliates well. You’ve got to make it lucrative for your affiliates or they won’t spend one minute trying to promote your product. Money talks. I recommend at least 30% for most products. Services can get by on less, but if you sell a product then you should offer a hefty commission for your sales associates. If your product is digital you’ll get 100% of the profits, which means you can likely afford 50% commissions for your affiliates. Ask yourself this question: Would you rather have 50% of 100 sales or 100% of 1?

Support your affiliates like you would your customers. Don’t expect them to come up with their own advertising and marketing collateral. Do it for them. The more you give them to succeed with, the more time and energy they will put into promoting your products.

Two-tier affiliate programs are awesome. History shows that they do much better than single tier programs. A two-tier affiliate program pays your affiliates commissions for sales made of affiliates recruited by them. In other words, if I recruit my brother Bob to be an affiliate of your product and he sells 100 more widgets than I do, I still get a commission based on Bob’s performance. This benefits you because you make more sales. It benefits Bob because he makes money. And it benefit me because I get a little scrape off the top as well. Your second tier affiliates shouldn’t make as much as your first tier affiliates. Make the commission somewhere in the 2-5% range. Some affiliates are actually better at recruiting good sales people than selling themselves so a good recruiter can make a decent income just by recruiting a handful of top-notch sales people for you. Pay them a little something to show your appreciation.

Affiliate programs are a great way to expand your business. In fact, many entrepreneurs say they make more sales through their affiliate program than they do through any other method of marketing.

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Two days ago, Search Engine Land blogged on the plight of SEO websites at Digg. The thesis was that Diggers don’t like us and one of the dead give aways, it seems, is the website domain name. Another is the title and description of the post itself. Well, I guess I’m as good as dead.

I don’t know why, but I’ve got an eerie feeling on this one. New kid on the block, SEO written all over my face, and basically shooting the finger at Diggers like they are the problem and not the solution. Well, I hate to play hard ball, but call me Sandy Kofax.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about social marketing, bookmarking sites like Digg and the whole viral framework of blog and let blog. Personally, I think most of it is just plain hogwash.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Digg. Blogging is here to stay. And viral marketing? Well, you can’t argue with penicillin. The part that I’m having issues with is the fact that Diggers discriminate on the basis of a prejudice, but I do understand it.

There has been a lot of fluff associated with SEO lately. Everyone think he knows what it is and everyone fancies himself an expert. The truth is, there are no experts. The changing landscape on a periodic basis prevents anyone from having a monopoly on the best SEO techniques all the time. Nevertheless, there are principles that, if adhered to, can get you noticed at the search engines and, well, yes, even at Digg - no matter what your profession.

First, you must understand that SEO is more than just a few meta tags tucked into your HTML code. The real SEO is content. Whether you’re writing an article, a web page or a blog entry, what will get you noticed all over the Web is the sweat you put into your work. It isn’t easy. But it’s not rocket science either. And I won’t insult your intelligence by saying, “Anyone can do it.” Not just anyone can.

Those who are successful at getting their blog posts Dugg, their websites ranked well at the search engines and their articles picked up by all the important ezines within their industry are people who provide original and valuable content in whatever medium they use. When you give people a little bit of yourself, they endeavor to give a little bit back. It’s called the law of reciprocity and it’s been around a long time. Long before Google or Digg, long before SEO and, yes, long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

Viral marketing is all about getting noticed and sometimes you’ve got to do whatever it takes, SEO and all. Bottom line: If you want to get noticed by all the boys (and some of the girls), you’ve got to wear a short skirt and let your hair down. And don’t forget the red lipstick. You Digg?

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E-mail marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a Web business. By communicating with your prospects through e-mail you cut costs and make your marketing efforts more efficient. There is an art and a science to effective e-mail marketing, however. You can’t just start sending e-mails and hoping for the best.

For one thing, spam laws could get you into trouble. There are specific guidelines that you must follow in obtaining permission to send marketing messages by e-mail. Failure to comply with these legal requirements could get your website shut down. Going out of business is no way to attract customers.

Other important details to consider in any e-mail marketing campaign is the frequency of your messages, the content of your messages, grabbing attention with powerful titles and subject lines and employment of effective linking strategies within your e-mails. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Get any part of it wrong and you could be shooting yourself in the foot. It could be a costly way to do business - costly in the sense that any results not realized is business lost. Don’t do that to yourself. Hire a professional.

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