Business Blogger

What does this post have to do with circus poodles? We’ll get to that later. The points that I really want to talk about here are blogging and the comments that readers post on blogs. Blogging for me is a hobby of sorts, something that I do because I enjoy blogging and the relationships that it can build. I also enjoy the business side, sharing business ideas with others, the providing and sharing of information, etc.

The point that I’m trying to make here is that blogging itself is a natural exchange of ideas and information between individuals with similar interests. Should it be left to that natural state or should it be altered? Some bloggers, especially those that do it from a profit standpoint are very concerned with what’s on their blog. You can comment on some blogs, go back the next day, only to see that your comment has been altered or removed. This can be a little frustrating from a commenter standpoint, considering you have put time and thought into what you had to say. Would you feel ripped off if your spam free comment was deleted from a post or would you be able to understand the situation that the blogger is in?

I personally feel that blogging should be left in it’s natural state, comments and all. I am one sided on this mostly because I think that blogging is not the best way to make money online. For those of you that feel the other way I understand that blogging is your livelihood and that comments can have an impact on rankings, optimization, etc. I just really want to know how others feel on this topic.

To show the readers here how comments can have an impact on your blog and your blog rankings, do a search for circus poodles on Google. If you look closely, this blog happens to be near the top of the search results. Thanks to Charles over at Open Source Marketer I now rank quite well for the search term circus poodles, it’s too bad I don’t breed them on the side.

Have you invested time into search engine optimization (SEO)? One of the most important aspects of traffic generation on the web is how you optimize your pages for the search engines. Whether it’s learning it yourself or paying a pro, search engine optimization is very important to your traffic stats and can be even more important if you choose to monetize your site. I’m not saying that search engines own the web and that they should be your sole source of traffic, in fact I’ve been avoiding optimization other than for the term “business blogger” up to this point and focusing on content.

When I say that SEO is important I’m not going to provide you with the names of people that I think are great SEO’s; that’s not the point of this post. The SEO business is highly competitive and there are plenty of great firms out there to choose from. Should you choose to go that route, my suggestion would be to do a search on “SEO” or “search engine optimization” and see what resources show up close to the top of the serps, then use them to your advantage.

SEO can enable your online business to flourish. The majority of web users open up their browsers and go directory to their favorite search engine to find what they’re looking for. I realize that I’m not the average web surfer, but I have watched my “web ignorant” friends search the web and it’s a totally different experience. This is why SEO and business are important friends, especially if you monetize. Search engines matter to the average user. Not to mention most of them have no clue that they just clicked on a Google ad let alone have a clue how websites earn their money. I don’t expect them to know this, that’s my job.

There are other problems that can be brought on by the lack of knowledge you or your business have about SEO. If you don’t know SEO and your business is trying to brand itself with a certain phrase then you’re probably not going to have a strong brand. In fact I do own the #1 spot on Google as of right now for the term “business blogger.” Now if you’ve been marketing yourself as the “business blogger” for years and you don’t show up for that term near the top or at the top of the search results then you might have a branding/marketing/web development/traffic/SEO/business problem. If you take pride in your business then SEO should be an investment that you make.

Just two days ago I was discussing the subtle changes I was getting ready to implement on my blog to try and rank better for a particular keyword term. Well it’s official, we have gotten much closer to the top of the serps. The tweaks have taken Business Blogger to the number three position in the Google serps for the keyword phrase “business blogger.”

Without too much hassle and just a little tweaking on the meta tags and title tags we can go back and see exactly what happened. Business Blogger has gone all the way from page “nothing” to page one at the number three position. These are basic tweaks that bloggers should implement if they are concerned about ranking for a particular keyword or phrase. There are many more recipes in my book, but I don’t think I will be implementing them for this keyword phrase.

Please keep in mind that this is a young blog and that older blogs with more weight can push their way through the rankings easier. I did leave one thing out of my earlier blog posts that is very important. Please, keep in mind that before you make these tweaks to your blog you must provide quality content that is unique. Without unique and quality content the keyword shuffle won’t do you much good.

Now I have to figure out what I want to rank for next. We will see what happens as the blog continues to grow and develop a larger audience. For the time being I am going to lay off of the keywords and see where this blog takes me. Next on my to do list is the many blogging communities that are available for everyone to use.

One of my goals for this blog was to rank for the search term Business Blogger. By accomplishing this I will at least be at the top of Google if someone were to remember my blog and go looking for me. Well I am happy to announce that I am on the first page of the serps for the search phrase business blogger. I have been fluctuating between three spots depending on how many pages Google decides to index for me that day. I’m just happy I’m not in the sandbox. I talked earlier about internal linking and how important it was to link to your posts internally. If you don’t currently make a habit of this you should start.

I started out unranked then I found myself on page four of the serps. By using the internal linking strategy for my term I quickly went to page two. It’s not like “Business Blogger” is a highly sought after search term and that’s why it’s so easy to pull rank, but I’m just trying to point out some basic SEO principles that most bloggers don’t take the time or may not know how to use.

I then adjusted the title tag, taking me from page two to page one in the serps. Until today I had intentionally left the “keywords” and “description” meta tags along with the link title tags in my posts blank to see what type of results adjusting them may have on my Google ranking. I will keep you posted.

Be sure to keep in mind that this is a very new blog. Even for a new blog you can see how these small tweaks can change the serps for a particular keyword phrase. For those bloggers out there with established blogs and tons of content, a little tweaking will get you some great results on the road to improving your serps. Lets see if these new tweaks manufacture any results.