If you are writing your own blog copy, here are a few steps you can take to optimize your content for search engines. This process is called SEO, or search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the important process making your copy is for the search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others easy to read and judge the relevance to each keyword.

One of the first steps is to layout your article in good order. Go from overall topic, down to smaller, more specific topics, and so on. This will make for a good reader flow and sound Search Engine Optimization sense.

Next, make sure you have Title tags, H1 tags and H2 tags. This signals to the search engines the importance of these and makes it easy to follow.

After that, BOLD any text that is important and link to relevant content. Links to outside content are good but inside links (links to other articles in your blog) are a good way to keep readers at your site longer and this will help increase your ranking…. oh yea…. always link back to your home page.

Next, find a photograph that relates to your content and use the keyword in the photo description tag. The image also provides visual interest for readers and you can say a lot about where you are coming from with the picture you place within an article.

Creating a site map is fairly easy and makes sites easier to navigate both for users and search engine robots.

Create different Title and META tags on every page. This allows each page to be included in a search.

Learning how search engine robots work is key in optimizing your page. Read the resources below to learn more about individual spiders.

Knowledge of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is critical when you write articles online. Your articles need to be found by the search engines, but without optimal SEO principals it will never happen.

Learn what SEO does. Search engine optimization increases the traffic to a web site by moving the site up the ranks within a search engine. The higher a web site ranks in the results from a search engine, the more likely a user will visit that web site.

A good tip for people with local products or services is to remember to use keywords for your specific area or region if that applies to your product or service.

Select the right keywords. Keywords should be specific and not general phrases. For example, if you are selling handbags, Italian leather handbags would be a better keyword phrase to use than simply handbags. Especially if you want to attract buyers. The more specific the better.

Do not duplicate your SEO content and submit it multiple times. Search engines will recognize this as spam and ban you. That could be the kiss of death for your site if this happens so be very careful.

Write at least 200 words of  copy. This is the bare minimum amount that most search engines look for when ranking pages. Most of your articles should be 400-500 words. Combine a couple shorter articles to create an article with a broader reach and more words to get to this threshold.

Stuffing keywords (usually at a percentage higher than 4-6% ) can make your articles be banned by Google. If it looks like SPAM, Google will remove it from their system and stop sending traffic to your site. You want your article to be keyword rich…. but don’t go overboard.

SEO is not an exact science. A little attention to this area is better than none, however, make sure you are ultimately writing for your readers and not he search engines. All the traffic in the world won’t do you any good if no one returns once they visit. Make your content interesting and helpful and you will build a loyal following.

Jeff and team are testing an updated version of the Traffic Getting SEO Plugin for WordPress. This is an excellent tool and one I highly recommend you use. It fully optimizes your WordPress blog for the search engines so you don’t have to worry about SEO (search engine optimization). The trade off is Jeff can advertise his and affiliate products to you in the back end of WordPress. In my opinion, it is a trade off well worth it. Click here to get it for FREE.

The Lab has also assembled a list of Quick Start Guides of different categories. We will be reviewing these individually at a later date so keep checking back.

Finally is a section on Getting traffic from Pay Per Click advertising with Google. Jeff solicited input from Guru’s Perry Belcher, Frank Kern, and Trey Smith. Each have made millions with PPC and their advise is rock solid. Most of this information is already reviewed in here but if we find anything new we will post it.

Recommended Resource: Traffic Getting SEO Plugin

How to Install WordPress Plugins – Part 1

WordPress plugins extend the functionality of your WordPress blog. They are easy to install and make adding new functionality very simple.

The best series of plugins that I have found is from Jeff Johnson’s Underground Training Lab. This download guides you through the install process and recommends a list of plugins that will maximize your blog for SEO (search engine optimization). You can get it free here.

Recommended Resource: Jeff Johnson’s Underground Training Lab

How to Install WordPress Plugins – Part 2

This is the second in the series of videos on how to install a WordPress plugin.

WordPress plugins extend the functionality of your WordPress blog. They are easy to install and make adding new functionality very simple.

The best series of plugins that I have found is from Jeff Johnson’s Underground Training Lab. This download guides you through the install process and recommends a list of plugins that will maximize your blog for SEO (search engine optimization). You can get it free here.

Recommended Resource: Jeff Johnson’s Underground Training Lab

How to Install or Change a WordPress Theme

One of the cool features about using WordPress for your website is how easy it is to use. You can literally change the look and feel of all the pages of your site in minutes no matter how many pages you have. Plus the SEO (search engine optimization) benefits built in.

I mentioned the OZH Admin Drop Down Menu plugin but I forgot to mention the free statistics plugin that I use. It is called Cystats. Just type that into the search box and hit enter and you should be able to locate it.

Try out different themes until you find the one that works the best for you. Now that you know how easy it is to change them find a free theme that will work shouldn’t be a problem.

Recommended Resource: WordPress Themes