Optimizing your blog for fun and profit can be a daunting task. There are secret tricks of the trade that separate newbies from techies but that does not mean you cannot do some of it yourself. This article is one of a series that lifts the curtain on this shadowland of optimization.

If you read my article What Should You Blog About, and I surely hope you did, you should have a blog filled with content you have passionately written. It should be a very interesting grapevine for the community of your chosen niche, as opposed to a lifeless factsheet. So, how do you get your words where others can read them.

No matter how delicious your content is, if nobody knows it exists you ca not generate profit from it. Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. In order to attract readers, you must offer exciting and unique information. Simple enough, right. Common sense Not exactly.

You see, to get traffic onto your site, you have to think backwards. Where do people look when they need information.Yes, they search using search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, to name the more popular ones.

So, to get these people to visit your blog, your blog needs to rank high on results pages of these search engines. When people search for information through the search engines and see your site among the top results, they will naturally click through to your blog.

The art of getting your blog or website high rankings on search results pages is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It is a complex and technical subject to master, but that will not stop you from learning some simple, yet effective techniques, to conquer the search engines for certain keywords. The more complex techniques are usually needed to fight for very competitive and general keywords such as fat loss. Ill teach you how to overcome that later.

For now, lets determine the best keywords to optimize your site for.

For example, your blog talks about tech gadgets. Now, youd want to check in Google whether it is a very competetive keyword. At this time of writing, there are 29, 000 ,000 twenty nine million search results. Think you can beat 29,000,000 sites at your first attempt. I do not think so. In fact, I know absolutely that you cannot.

Lets try to narrow our scope to keywords you can successfully optimize for. Lets look for the keywords technological gadgets. At this time of writing, Google lists 792,000 results. Thats more manageable but still not narrow enough. You would still need to search for more focused keywords. An example is technological lap top gadgets, however, lets optimize your blog for technological gadgets just for the sake of learning.

First, you have to pay attention to the title of your blog. Since youre optimizing for technological gadgets, you need to have that exact phrase in your blog title.

For example, a line like Your Best Technological Gadget Blog would work great.

You can change the title of your blog in the Blogger control panel or the Wordpress blog when youre creating it. If youre proficient with HTML, you can even do that on other blog engines like Moveable Type. Bottom line. Learn a little HTML Note You will find some resources in the sidebar of this site for optimizing your blog.

Other than that, your page heading should also contain the term youre optimizing for. The page heading is the bit of text in your template code that is enclosed within the tags. This is important as it tells the search engines what your page is about in this case, technological gadgets. Since were posting a blog, the tags are usually the post titles, so remember to include the term there whenever relevant. For example, write an article post titled Cheap Technological Gadgets for Everyone. It has your keywords in the headline.

You should also sprinkle the words technological gadgets in your posts whenever possible. The frequent occurrence of that phrase in your blog will hint to the search engines that your blog is really relevant to that topic. But, dont overdo it. Use of the term technological gadgets just a couple of times in your posts is quite enough. More than that and it may appear as spam to the search engines and, more important, your readers will feel the same way. The real downside to over use of the same keywords in a single article is that the search engines may de list your blog and you will be cast out into the internet darkness.

So, keep this in mind Write for humans, not for search engines, using your targeted keywords.

An astronomical number of searches for info are performed online everyday. Polls conducted recently revealed that demand for information over the internet has increased dramatically. Last months tally of online searchers averaged a whopping 72% of American adults, and there is no let up in sight.

Article Marketing, without a doubt remains the best free formula for attracting website traffic. At times though, site design leaves a lot to be desired. Many website designers have been negligent in their comprehensive design strategies.

It is impossible for one area of a successful website to claim total glory for the success of that particular site. For what would that brilliant piece of web designing workmanship be without traffic? It would still be brilliant. It would still be on the web. But without traffic no one would be able to observe that brilliance.

They are looking for information on websites. Their tools of choice are search engines and links. Search engine use is steadily climbing. A massive 85% of American adults are using them to hunt down information online. Their numbers total a staggering 100 million. What share of this traffic do you get to your website?

Article writing saves a ton of time and money. When it comes to promoting your online business do you use article writing? Surely it has no equal when considered from a cost and time perspective. The result of article submission is traffic and lots of it.

Lets look at what you have done so far. Your fantastic site is on the web. It is being fed optimized hot off the press content. The search engines have been duly informed of your presence. To top things off you have an ezine in the pipeline. This website is cracking!

Oddly enough your work of art sadly languishes deep within the shadows of Google ranking; punching in at a dismal 124. As a matter of fact you are not only in the shadows, you are in the dark. No one will find you thirteen pages deep. Everything has been done correct up to this point. Why is it that this site is not ranking higher?

In your quest to unearth the reasons for your expensive website doing so poorly you turn first to linking. Is the problem that no one is linked to your page? I am not talking about a link from any old site either. I mean a link from a site of substance. A site with great search engine ranking. How can you get those high ranking sites to give you a link?

Do a search of the web for a site that is comparable to yours. Introduce yourself via email to the webmaster of your chosen site. Request a link. Generally webmasters do not mind a link exchange. Hopefully, at the end of the exercise you will get a link. You may have to crawl before you can walk though; but at this point any link will do.

Slowly but surely work your way up to the higher ranking sites. The Google sites that rank high will benefit you. Google will notice you if you have links to these high ranking sites. You have to be careful though. Some webmasters are fussy. Especially if they feel that a link to your site will not do anything for them. That is when you may have to bargain.

For instance, lets say you write great articles. Even if you do not, you can buy them. Include a link in the article to the site that you desire to link to. Obviously the article would touch on their website theme. The webmaster requests three articles.

Put the three articles on your website. Each will contain a link to the site that you desire a link from. You can even allow the webmaster to reprint the articles on his website. Great content for him. Include your authors link in the articles. Remember though, you are the one who needs the link, not the webmaster. They have the rank. Get the three articles. It will be a small price to pay.

The podcast transmission uses Real Simple Syndication (RSS) technology. It may seem complicated but, as the name implies, it is actually fairly simple. There are many resources available to help people learn how to record and set up a podcast. The step-by-step instructions are easy to follow. In fact, with just a few easy to learn skills, some low-cost (or free) computer programs, and the basic computer equipment and internet connections that you probably already have, YOU can create a podcast and host your own show.

In addition to setting up a podcast, you’ll also want to provide a written blog that offers helpful, supplemental text for your podcast material. For example, you may briefly mention a topic in your podcast and then tell your listeners: ?For more information on this topic, please see the web site?.? In this way, you can expand the amount of information your subscribers receive from your transmission.

When you have set up a blog and website, anyone with an internet connection can subscribe to your show. Listeners will use an RSS ?aggregator,? such as Doppler or Ipodder. Both of these are FREE downloadable program that allow others to subscribe to any podcast of interest. They’re easy to set up and can be pre-configured to check for new podcast updates at set intervals. In this way, a subscriber doesn’t have to be ?tuned in? to your podcast at a certain time; he can just receive notice of an update that is automatically downloaded to his computer and then listen to it at his leisure. Subscribers listen to these files just like their music files, using Windows Media Player, iTunes, or any other similar audio program that is compatible with MP3 files.

Needless to say, the topics of a podcast are limitless. For example, maybe you have a special interest (even expertise) in fly-fishing. What a great idea to have a podcast devoted to the art and adventures of this great sport! You can share techniques, stories, and even take live calls during pre-set transmission times. Podcasting offers you the opportunity to become a true ?internet personality.?

To make your blog worth reading and revisiting you need to think about the type of content that is suitable for your blog in order to make it readable and, possibly, profitable. First off, I want you to understand that many blogs have no fixed scope, which means many bloggers write about whatever they are interested in. Other bloggers will target specific topics and stick to those. In a minute you will see why topics may be the reason a visitor first comes to your blog but it is not the main reason they will come back, again and again.

The difference between a blog worth revisiting and one that is forgotten about is the way the blog is written. Just imagine, would you prefer to read your university professor?s lecture notes or the latest novel by your favorite author?

I will say you prefer to read the novel because it appeals more to your interest and because it is not as mind-numbing as the lecture notes by your professor. The most important point to remember is people like to read ?light? stuff most of the time. You see, when people log on to your blog, they are not only looking for information ? they are also looking for information they can obtain easily. They want it in a relaxed manner and entertaining if possible.

You might be thinking – “I can’t write that way. Never could get the hang of it”. I assure you, you can write that way.

Here are some key points that will transform your writing style.

Before you write one word of your post, write a compelling headline to grab their attention. For example, the title of the article you are reading right now – “Blog Content Is About You!”. This title must have attracted you to my blog. Why? Because it is about “You”! I also posted it in Article Directories which will attract even more readers, like you. The article in the Article Directories has my blog link in the Author Box which drives traffic to my blogs.

To attract more visitors as well as to keep your current visitors coming back for more, it is very important to add a human touch to your blog posts. This can be done by simply imagining you?re talking about a certain topic with your personal friend. An extra bonus for your readers would be a great sense of humor, so try to add funny comments in your articles where they are suitable. Do avoid using vulgar language unless you don’t care about turning off a major audience of blog readers who will be offended. There are many blogs I will never visit again just for this reason.

Another important key point is to avoid addressing your reader as a plural unit, that is, as – “we”, “us”, etc. Sometimes this is appropriate but most times it is to be avoided. You should not write as if you?re preparing a lecture. Instead, you should write as if you are having a conversation with one person because this will make your visitor think of you more as a personal friend rather than a professional writer or professor. I used this one-to-one technique as a Radio and Television News broadcaster. I imagined I was giving the news to just one friendly person who was interested in what I had to say and who trusted me. I wrote it and voiced it as if I were telling the stories only to them. In other words, I write like I talk.

The most important change in your writing style is to establish your own personality through your words. Because you are reading this article I assume you are a very curious person, just like I am. Based on the headline, you wanted to know what this article was all about. As you read, you likely are thinking – “Who is this writer?”. It follows that your visitors come to your blog to find out as much about you as the information you?re offering them. I hope I am giving you some insight into who I am as a person and how I think because, in reality, I am using all the pointers in this article to demonstrate that they work.

You make your blog distinctive – not the subject of your blog! Having your distinctive personality show through in your blog will make all the difference between your blog about gadgets and all the other blogs about gadgets out there. Get the idea? Let me repeat for emphasis: You make your blog distinctive – not the subject of your blog! This is a lot like creating your own brand name, where people immediately remember your blog?s name when they need to find out information about gadgets, or whatever you regularly write about, in the same way people immediately think of McDonald?s for burgers or Nike for sportswear.

Still think you can’t do it? I challenge you to write just one blog post using the pointers I have given you and see what happens. Call it – “My Personal Opinion about (whatever)!”. And, let your personality out of prison, just once!

So what numbers can you use?

Most of the large corporations use numbers like 1300 & 1800 numbers so that their branding is consistent across all markets they are operating in and customer contact can be centralised. However, even as a small business we can use this to our advantage. For example if you were a printer and you printed business cards as a core business service, you could purchase a 1800 number that you could use in other markets to sell your business card business even if you are located in a regional city. I have seen of late many small businesses market their businesses in the larger cities by using a combination of advertising via the Internet, 1800 numbers and the Yellow Pages.

By taking this approach they can take advantage of working in areas of the country where business leases and wages are lower whilst increasing the market they service.

How Do You Secure 1800 or 1300 Numbers?

In Australia, you can secure these numbers by visiting companies like your local telcos such as Telstra or you can actually participate in the Government Auctions of these numbers. You can secure the 1800 or 1300 numbers from companies like 1300Australia which is a Telstra Partnership.

You can participate in the Government Auctions for these smart numbers by visiting the Australian Government website. The reserve prices for these numbers can be as low as $500 which makes the price affordable even for small business.

Human Beings are being bombarded with monstrous amounts of information every single day. As we drive, we are bombarded by no less than 2,000 message every day from the radio, billboards, our kids, the signage and even signage on aircraft flying above and because of this, business owners must ensure that if they want to be remembers, the numbers on their vehicles and the vehicles that are driving by must be memorable. If your phone number is not, people will simply place your number into the deleted folder in their brain and purge it. This means you will have lost an opportunity and a potential sale.