I’m All For SEO–Should You Be?

Original Article Link.

SEO(Search Engine Optimization) was not in my paradigm when I was laying out the first few articles of this website. In fact all I know about SEO is what it stands for and how to spell it. Then I chanced upon one article on the Net last week, an article on SEO which I forgot to bookmark and can't find to this day. In any case the damage has been done and I woke up one day telling myself that I'm going to try SEO for this site. I'll join in some of the local mini-SEO contests and try little to full-blown experiments of my own. If you've been following my blog, here's the stats that I've got from two of them so far.

For my Pin@y Sc@ndal project - 228 Unique Page Views for 1 Week

Friendster/Freindster Theme project, 82 Unique Page Views for barely 2 days

I'm not anywhere near the top searches for the first one(most of my traffic came from "pinged" websites who are into the pin@y sc@ndal project) but I had some immediate success with the second. For some reason, my blog is now getting a lot of traffic from Google for "friendster themes". Why? I have the littlest idea.

Just these two projects alone tell me already that SEO is a very tricky business. It can work or not work for you. But you know what? I'm more than convinced that this SEO can be big for my blog. If you would like to know why, retrace my steps and figure out for yourself. Since SEO is tricky and I'm not even on the tip of the SEO iceberg, I just can't speak of it the way I can share my knowledge in setting up Wordpress. So whenever I do SEO posts like this one and tell you that I've earned $3 from my 2 projects alone so far, just READ BETWEEN THE LINES.

Ok, that's unfair. But I'll try to quote here one article about SEO I really liked.

...(T)ake linkbaiting for example. Is it SEO? Let's see now...quality content? Check. Attracts links? Check. Promoted through network of friends and to an audience looking for this type of resource? Double check.

Or let's take good site design. Sitemaps, good navigation and internal linking? Check. Short, meaningful URLs? Check. Proper webmastering tactics such as 301 redirects and using .htaccess? Double check. The problem is in the definition and unfortunately this is where people tend to define SEO based on their own agenda. If you're pushing blogging, SEO is snake-oil salesmen pushing 1000s of free directory links.

Here's the thing - SEO is SEO by any other name. You may call it 'new media', or blog marketing, or site optimization, or plain ol' marketing.

It's the same damn thing.

Bloggers need SEO because it offers a single system for managing your blog's marketing. It's a set of guidelines and tools that will push to be a better marketer, a better writer and a better webmaster.

But most of all, Bloggers need SEO because SEO is exactly what they are doing most of the time on their blog.

Let's test that claim. Do you make an effort to write quality, link-worthy content? Isn't that SEO?

Do you network with fellow bloggers in your niche? Isn't networking part of SEO?

Do you launch your blog with a bunch of trusted links from top blogs, friends and a few good directories? Isn't that SEO?

And another article from Yuga. I'll just provide you with the link.

Of course, Marhgil was of big help. and so is Google Trends.

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So know I'm in SEO. Officially. I'll be releasing several articles which will have no relation to the goals of this website--articles which will target traffic coming from search engines and will hopefully bring financial freedom to this blog... But this website is all about helping Filipinos out there, so I've thought of one little way to help you guys with SEO. I'll do my own research for possible keywords you can optimize your blog for, and I'll release them all under a new category called "Keyword For The Day." What should you do with them? Here are three simple steps.

1. Research and write a substantial post about the keyword. Make sure it is in the title.



2. Do a google search for the keyword. For all blogs you can see amongst the top results, leave a comment with a link going to your post. Decide beforehand for how many blogs you will be doing this.



3. Wait. If you get traffic from it, write some new one. Go back to the first step.

I won't be explaining how I come up with the keyword. If you will ask me then I'll be forced to give you my default answer "through instinct." I can promise you though that I will do a lot of my research first before I release the keyword. Also, it may or may not work for you. But if they don't, what's there to lose? :)

P.S. I'm watching Tom Hanks in Cast Away while I'm writing this post. Sorry kung sabog.