A keyword focused and well written, keyword rich blog can naturally attract search engine traffic to your site for a variety of reasons.

Most blogs already have an “optimized” site architecture for the search engines, and have clear navigation options and links that go back to the homepage and other main pages of your site. They are also a simple way to keep your website content updated with fresh and relevant information for your readers, as thousands of readers of our Hat Trick Associates blog already know – increasing not only your search traffic, but you conversions and sales revenue, too.

So what are some of the other ways you can the SEO value and effectiveness of your blog?

Blog Directories

Links that “aim” back to your site  can be very valuable to you in the eyes of Google and the other search engines, since they help prove that your content is valuable and relevant to readers. “One way” links, or non reciprocal, are the most valuable…the premise being that “two way” links (from two sites linked to each other) could simply be part of an agreement to boost each other’s SEO score.

One great way to provide some of these great one-way links back to your website is through blog directories. There are thousands of relevant blog directories online, of many different sizes and specialties or importance.

Adding your own blog to the right ones can be a fantastic way to share your web content while raising the search engine visibility score of your website.

Knowing which ones can be difficult for many folks, however, and without the right subscription software, the process of submitting your own blog to each directory can be quite time-intensive.

But not only do we write blogs and write web and social content here at Hat Trick Associates, we also have the automated tools needed to easily submit your blog to the hundreds and thousands of blog and web directories out there that matter, and which can really boost the SEO of your website content.

If you would like to find out more about using this valuable, convenient service for your own website and professional blog, please contact us here at Hat Trick Associates.

But before you head out to start submitting your website, there are steps you should take to optimize your blog even before you promote it. You want your site to get the best keyword placement in the major search engines, but for the right keywords…the ones that not only bring in but convert traffic.

Blogs Keywords

With blog content keywords, you can choose to target a generalized, high-traffic keyword, but you often have little chance of ranking well for this keyword, and might not receive much in the way of additional traffic. The better option is to shoot for a keyword that gets a more moderate level of traffic – targeted traffic – which can result in more subscribers and sales.

These more lucrative keywords are important not because they bring the most eyeballs to your site, but because they bring the most profit to your organization.

You might even be surprised to learn that there often is NOT a great correlation between high traffic and high sales.

Many of the most profitable Internet sites on the globe actually get more modest traffic – but their lucrative keywords result in a much higher ratio of Visitors to Buyers, i.e. they rank for the right terms and keywords for the right subset of people who are suitable customers.

A good example of this phenomenon can be found right here on the Hat Trick Associates website.

We have a particular post on How Many Blogs Are There? This post has become a favorite of Google, Bing and Yahoo search, with thousands of visitors a month who find and read it.

However, much of this traffic comes from educational institutions or from other places in the world. In other words students conducting research or folks on the other side of the globe. High traffic, low conversions.

We are happy to share this information with whoever can use it, but this popularity and web traffic don’t actually bring in business. So focusing on the right, most lucrative keywords is critical for your organization.

If you don’t know what the best keywords for your organization’s website, that is another area that we can help with here at HTA.

Up next: Part II – Length of Search Query and Keyword Placement

Want to learn more? Contact us to ask any questions you may have, or to discuss your current web and social content programs and how we might be able to work together!