Many people often ask how I get so high in the search rankings for terms like “Flash Errors”, “Flex Errors”, and “Actionscript Errors”.  I have been posting Flash and Flex errors for a while now and have steadily seen my traffic rise.  To answer the question on search engine optimization – here are the seven things I do with every blog post.

1. Determine beforehand the one to three keywords I want Google to find.
   Before you type a single line, determine which keywords you will target with your post.  In other words, what do you want people to type into Google to find your blog post. Once the keywords are decided move on to step 2 for high SEO.
2. Put at least one of the three keywords in the title.
   If you want great search engine optimization and Google to list you with a high ranking for the word “Leadership“, an appropriate title would be, “Leadership for the Next Century.“
3. Make sure that WordPress is setup to create each new link as the title.(or whichever blog platform you use)
   In WordPress (the most common blogging tool which this site is using) Go to Settings >> Permalinks >> and choose either “Day and Name” or “Month and Name”. The URL is critical to search engines.
   If the link says www.myblog.com/Google-Food vs. www.myblog.com/?p=123  it will be Google Food and Google will eat it up.
   

   Wordpress Permalinks Make Google Food

   

   Making your links into Google Food

4. Caption all images with the keywords chosen.
   If your term is “Google Rankings” then insert an image that portrays how to get on the first page of Google and then give it a title and caption such as “Google Food” in it. Notice the caption of the image above.  The title reads nearly identical.
5. Make sure that your Categories, Tags, Excerpt and Metadata are in line with your keyword terms.
   Include several variations of the keyword terms in the tags, categories, and excerpts.  For example – Leadership in Action, Corporate Leadership, Organizational Leadership, etc…
   
6. Keep to a theme
   Give your blog a theme and keep things organized within that theme.  Don’t write about your dog one day, your favorite recipe the next and U.N. Diplomacy another day.  Make sure that you are consistent in what you post. It is OK to have a few related themes but no more.
   
7. Post a link from at least three other blogs
   Do a Google search on the keywords that you are trying to target and start clicking.  Find a way to comment on each of the top sites in a meaningful way and make sure to include a link back to your blog. Search engine optimization includes more than just your site.  Google measures how many meaningful links there are to your blog.

Thanks and Happy blogging.

Curtis J. Morley