The whole point of Search Engine Optimization is to aid potential readers in finding the information you’re providing that will help answer their questions. One way to bolster your rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is to gain links from other bloggers and websites. If your site is hard to read, navigate, or look at, you won’t be getting any link love.

Today’s post is a throw-back to my years spent as a newspaper copywriter, and covers some presentation and formatting basics that will hopefully help each of us maintain an easy-to-understand, easy-on-the-eyes blog.

Give you blog a quick once over by checking the following:

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Today we’re starting a new SEO Saturday series on conducting keyword research. The goal of this series is not to train about monetizing your blog using keywords, as that will be covered in depth in The Ultimate Guide to Blogging Well. On this blog, we’ll focus on how using the proper keywords can boost your blog’s rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), and therefore increase organic traffic to your blog.

Even though Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns are more competitive than in years past, which makes many beginners balk at the idea, keywords are still a vital part of developing your blog. Those words and phrases are, after all, the actual search strings potential readers use when looking for information on the Internet.

You may have heard about the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Some keyword researchers make the mistake of using only the basic functions of that site. This series will teach you not only how to maximize your usage of this amazing free tool, but how to partner your Google Adwords research with top consumer sites that many keyword researchers overlook. We’ll start with Amazon.com.

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When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, all website themes aren’t created equal. There are several criteria to consider when selecting a theme to display your blog, the main thing being, if spiders can’t crawl through your site, they can’t index it. A site with a large percentage of non-indexed pages, also called orphans or stragglers, can suffer in the search engine rankings.

What type of designs do spiders like?

Sites rich in relevant text do well with search engines. Search bots can’t “see” flash, scripts, or images, so if you must include those, first of all, do it sparingly because the higher the code to content ration, the more diluted the site’s text becomes. And if you use a javascript navigation system, include text nav links elsewhere on your page, such as at the bottom. For images, using keyword-rich “alt” text and captions will help. Flash is cool, but consider the purpose of your site — is coolness a fair trade-off for better optimization? (Flash also increases page loading times, but that’s another topic.)

What else should I consider when designing my blog?

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A reader recently posed a question about the importance of Digg, etc., in the comments, and I told her I’d write an article about Social Bookmarking. I’m glad she asked, because I learned a lot while researching this post.

If you’re old enough to remember the movie, Mr. Mom, think back to the scene where Jack (played by Michael Keaton) is attempting to carpool the kids — lots of horn honking, fist waving, and moms & kids alike yelling, “You’re doing it wrong!” When it comes to Social Bookmarking — I’ve been doing it wrong.

Hopefully this post will help us all learn how to do it right!

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Today we move to part two of our series “Six Quick & Easy SEO Tactics Anyone Can Do.”

If you’ve ever seen Star Wars, you probably remember all the smaller ships flying to and from the Mother Ship. That ship was “anchored,” tasking the smaller vessels with carrying passengers and information around whatever quadrant of the galaxy the scene was set in.

The World Wide Web operates in a similar manner. Continue reading →