This is a guest post by Mark Johnson.
Anybody writing blogs for business purposes will be keen to build a sizeable readership and achieve higher rankings in the major search engines. However, given the amount of online competition it will take some time and effort to realize both of these goals. The tips outlined in this article should give you a head-start when it comes to the online marketing of your valuable content.
Photo Credit: Matthew Hodgson on Flickr.
Focus On The Long Tail
You may well have heard that it’s important to deploy keywords in any written pieces that you produce. It may be tempting to use the first terms that come to mind. However it is actually worth concentrating on those relevant phrases which have relatively low rates of competition and search frequency. By sprinkling these keywords moderately throughout your blogs, it is possible to achieve a rapid search engine and web traffic boost. Online tools such as the Google Keyword Tool and Uber Suggest will prove helpful when it comes to the compilation of a comprehensive list. This should be referred to whenever you are generating blog posts in the future.
Optimize For Search Engines And Human Readers
After taking the time to identify a group of suitable keywords you’ll be ready to move on to the writing phase. Although you may be eager to use the industry buzz words, it is essential that you create pieces that read naturally. Keep to one or two of the key-phrases per blog post and employ them moderately in the meta tags and body copy. Anybody who fails to heed this advice is running the risk of search engine penalization and negative reception by the online community.
Top bloggers will take the time to check their posts for grammatical errors and factual inconsistencies before clicking on the ‘publish’ button. They will also create a unique description, including just enough information to capture the interest of potential readers. And it is also advisable to publish posts under specific categories for the purpose of indexing by the search engines.
Use WordPress Plugins
Although there are a large number of blogging platforms, it is highly likely that you will be using WordPress for your business website. This highly effective package comes with a number of features, designed to aid in the process of optimization. The All In One SEO Pack is a fine example which allows you to enhance a post with special tags and titles. You are also encouraged to make use of plug-ins, such as the SEO rank reporter, which enables the tracking of any keywords that you have employed. The SEO Content Control add-on may also prove helpful in the identification of website areas that aren’t fully optimized.
Embrace The Ethos Of Sharing
If you’ve written an absolutely cracking blog crammed with up to the minute information then you’ll want people to read it. You could sit back and wait for loyal return visitors to pay a visit. On the other hand you may harness the immense power of social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Write a short message that generates interest in your post and encourage re-tweets and ‘via’ attributions, for top results.
Switched-on marketers will also use LinkedIn and Google + to publicize their content. These networks are quite business oriented at the moment, and so are ideal for blogs and articles about industry developments. Remember that by using a large number of networking sites you will be able to generate a great amount of link juice. You will also be increasing the chances of online click-through!
Use Pings And Bookmarks To Full Effect
It is likely that you are uploading blogs as a means of increasing the search engine ranking of your website. However, it can take a good deal of time for the Google Bot to make a visit and identify any updates that have been made. Fortunately content curators can alert the search engines to each new post by using a pinging service. However, it is worth installing a special ping optimizer to ensure that Google doesn’t penalize you for making contact each time a post update is made.
In order to increase the exposure of your blog it is also a good idea to make use of bookmarking websites such as Blog Engage, BizSugar, Delicious, and similar networks. These sites will accept all of your submissions, provided they are made in moderation. And if fellow members of the blogging community notice that your posts are being dug, they may well establish one-way website links, which are extremely good for SEO.
About Mark Johnson
Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers to succeed in search and social media marketing. Kristi Hines is a 
Thanks Mark for the post!
Another way to bring traffic to your site is to submit guest post. Instead of writing on your post you can submit some of your post to other bloggers who might in turn can send you good traffic if your post is accepted. From there on we can see a rise in our traffic as people will not only visit our site it but also share the same to their peers & colleagues.
Don’t forget to use proper header tags H1, H2 and H3 in your post. Also use bold and italics for your keywords. That should further help search engine discover your post. And maintain a good keyword ratio. I usually use 1%-1.5% keyword ratio for a single post.
Jeff recently posted Sword Art Online 16: Land of the Fairies (Spoiler Included)
Hi Mark,
I know you shared this with me at Google+, so I wanted to give you my feedback. This is an excellent post and it is nice to read content that digests well in my brain. Easy to follow tips and awesome resources to optimize blog traffic. Anyone that reads this post should heed to your advice. I look forward to reading more of your content in the future.
To Your Success,
Stacie Walker
Stacie Walker recently posted Marketing Advice: 4 Easy Online Marketing Techniques to Rapidly Grow Your Small Business by Julie Robert
Hi Mark,
This is an excellent post and it is nice to read content that digests well in my brain. Easy to follow tips and awesome resources to optimize blog traffic. Anyone that reads this post should heed to your advice. I look forward to reading more of your content in the future.
To Your Success,
Stacie Walker
Stacie Walker recently posted Marketing Advice: 4 Easy Online Marketing Techniques to Rapidly Grow Your Small Business by Julie Robert
Excellent post, Mark.
Using WordPress SEO plugins is great way to optimize your blog posts. I’m currently using WordPress SEO by Yoast for most of my blogs and it works really well.
Another great example of WordPress SEO plugin is ScribeContent (by copyblogger media).
Few more social bookmarking sites – Blokube.com, MySEOCommunity.com & BlogInteract.com
Devesh recently posted What is the Best Permalinks Structure for WordPress?
Lots of good tips here! Allow me to add another tips: Use for instance Powerpoint and create both a PP-file and a video out of your blog post. Upload the PP to some slide sharing sites like issuu and slideshare.net. The video can be uploaded to youtube or any other video sharing site. Link back to your blog post from these sites.
Rick recently posted 8 Tips That Will Help You Get More Traffic To Any Website
Ubersuggest is great. Targeting long tails not only gives us a good SERP boost but also takes us very close to real people. After all, the long tails are the most specific ones they type in to the search box when looking for something!
Good post!
Jane recently posted Optimize Your Images for Search Engines: Don’t Get Missed Out In Image Search!
Great advice Jane! Long tails convert much better too.
Another great alternative keyword research tool is – Soovle. And if you want to find hot topics and trending content in your niche there is a great new tool called Bottlenose
Mark Johnson recently posted Google Announces New Tool to Disavow Links
Hey Mark,
First off great article!
I recently started to really focus on Long Tail Keywords for my posts and have been receiving good traffic from that.
All of your points make perfect sense and one should follow them. Thanks!
Samuel recently posted Get More Facebook Likes For Your Facebook Page!
Thanks so much for some additional site to get onto and get my blog more visible. These are great recommendations!
Francesca recently posted Do you Burn Fat during Resistance Training?
Well I agree with your point of using long tail keywords coz i’ve seen comprehensive results after using them.
I always ping my blogs after updating it, but rarely used bookmarking sites. Gonna try it out. Thanks for the useful advice.
Gaurang Joshi recently posted How to Use Pinterest For Business
This the best SEO article I have read for a long time. It covers what you need to do and how to target the search engines. I also think targeting long keywords is the key to ranking high. Bit by bit, you can then rank for shorter keywords and eventually start to dominate.
Sharing is the new mantra, things have changed in the SEO world and embracing sharing is the way to go.
Shalu Sharma recently posted Essential Hindi for foreign travellers
Long tail keywords and bookmarks always helps in getting visitors. I always use this for my blog. Thanks for sharing.
Yogesh recently posted 5 iPhone Apps for Online Shoppers | Online shopping
Jane made a really great point in her comment above about Long-Tailed Keywords and how, by targeting them, you become more connected with those that are actually seeking out your service or product specifically. I saw that no one had replied to her comment and I really wanted to just take a moment to illustrate what a fantastic thought I believed that to be. While many might see LTKs as an ‘easier get,’ looking at them as a way of attracting laser-targeted traffic to your site is a must more constructive way to go about your link building!
Jack recently posted Hello world!
hello mark,
nice post. i am blogging since 7 months and i am still trying to learn new things everyday. and this post is a great info for me. and yes targetting long tail keywords is a nice trick if you don’t have much advantage like PR.and backlinks.thanks for this post
prabhat recently posted Apple iPad Mini Release, Specifications And Price
Hi Prabhat,
Many thanks, Glad I could be of assistance. If you or anyone here would like to suggest a topic for my next post I would be glad to take requests.
Mark Johnson recently posted Facebook’s Halving of Reach and How to Deal with It
Nice Mark,
I am regular reader of this blog and big fan of Kristi, I never miss any post of this blog, you are one of the my favorite guest blogger, I appreciate for your all tricks and tool which you discussed in this post and some time I implement in my blogging, Keep sharing such a nice stuff and engage more fans.
Thanks for sharing …..
Brainpulse recently posted Be Prepared Before Going Global