5 Tricks to Use Keywords in Your Blog Posts

One of the biggest sources of traffic to your blog will be search engines, particularly Google.  You can boost the traffic that comes to your blogs from search engines by implementing search engine optimization (SEO) tricks into your blog layout and writing.  You can get started by doing some keyword research and determining which keywords are likely to drive the most traffic to your blog.  Then focus on incorporating those keywords into your blog posts using the tricks below.

1. Use keywords in your blog post title.

One of the best ways to incorporate keywords into your blog posts is to use them in your blog post titles.  However, don't sacrifice a title's ability to motivate people to click through and read your entire blog post.  Learn 3 tips to write great blog post titles.

2. Focus on using just one or two keyword phrases in each blog post.

To maximize the traffic that comes to your blog via search engines, focus on optimizating each of your blog posts for just one or two keyword phrases.  Too many keyword phrases dilutes the content of your post for readers and can look like spam to both readers and search engines.  You can learn more about using specific keywords to maximize search traffic by reading about long tail search engine optimization.

3. Use keywords throughout your blog posts.

Try to use your keywords (without keyword stuffing) multiple times in your blog post.  For best results, use your keywords within the first 200 characters of your blog post, several times throughout your post, and near the end of the post.  Take some time to learn more aboutkeyword stuffing and other search engine optimization don'ts.

4. Use keywords in and around links in your blog post.

Search engine optimzation experts believe that search engines like Google place more weight on linked text than unlinked text when ranking search engine results.  Therefore, it's a good idea to include your keywords in or next to the links within your blog posts when it's relevant to do so.  Be sure to read about how many links are too many for SEO before you start adding links to your posts.

5. Use keywords in image Alt-tags.

When you upload an image to your blog to use in your blog post, you usually have the option of adding alternate text for that image which appears if a visitor cannot load your images in their Web browsers.  However, this alternate text, can also help your search engine optimization efforts.  That's because the alternate text appears within the HTML of your blog post content as something called an Alt-tag.  Google and other search engines crawl that tag and use it in providing results for keyword searches.  Take the time to add keywords that are relevant to the image and post in the Alt-tag for each image you upload and publish on your blog.

How to Increase Traffic to Your Corporate Blog

Increasing traffic to your corporate blog helps you raise awareness of your company and its products and services. You do have to be committed to your blog to make it successful, though. 

Using your company blog in your public relations campaign is not as easy as slapping some copy on your website and hoping people will read your brilliant posts. There are several ways you can increase traffic to your corporate blog and take advantage of the blogging craze so you can attract new customers. 

Update Your Blog Frequently
Your company blog is not your personal diary that you can update when it's convenient for you. There's nothing more deadly to any blog than one that hasn't been updated or a post that reads, "It's been a while since I last wrote..." 

Set a schedule and stick to it. Not only does this help you blog frequently, your visitors will know when to expect updates on your blog. 

Use Your Blog for Info, Not a Sales Tool
You can indirectly promote your company and products through your blog but don't use your blog as a direct sales tool. Keep your content genuine and don't use the space as a blatant advertisement for what you're selling. 

Your goal is to build repeat visitors. Using your blog as commercial space will do the opposite. Your blog is a powerful public relations tool, which means it's not a giant billboard for you to spread your advertising message. 

Find Your Niche, Don't Generalize
People blogging about their personal lives can be all over the place in their blog. One day they may blog about their favorite TV show and the next day they share their story of how they couldn't decide between a frozen pepperoni pizza or a TV dinner at the grocery store. 

That's fine for them. They're not you, a company trying to make a living selling your products. 

Do people really want to know what you're up to in your daily life? Unless you're a big name, think Bill Gates or George Clooney, then the answer is going to be no. 

Your blog will better serve your potential customers and your business if you use it to blog about topics relevant to your industry. If you own a hardware company, for example, a blog focusing on home improvement projects will help increase traffic. Even following up with your customers about their own home improvement projects through pictures and interviews will also make your blog more popular. 

Engage Users
Your blog readers have opinions. You can encourage people to keep coming back and get involved by engaging your users. Type your blog post and then ask readers for their comments on the story or what they think about a certain topic. 

Use polls and your message board posts to get people communicating. If you accept reader questions, answer those questions on your blog and open up the floor to others to give their own answers on what the reader has asked. 

Spin Searched Subjects Into Relevant Content
What's hot right now? Are these subjects something you can spin into your own blog's topic? 

Using our hardware store as an example, hurricane season results in a lot of searches. Spin those searched subjects into content for your blog. Tips on preparing your home for a hurricane or even following a city's rebuilding through your industry's eyes can be excellent content that drives visitors to your site. 

Look at the most searched content carefully and be creative when coming up with ideas related to those popular searches. You don't want to go too far overboard but you can spin a lot of subjects you wouldn't normally think to cover. Look to Google Trends and Yahoo Buzz to see what the top search words are this week. 

Network
Just as you have to network for your business in your daily life, you also need to network online to increase traffic to your blog. Find other blogs that cover your industry and start participating. 

Look for blogs that have a lot of comments and leave comments with your name and blog link. Contact the blogger and see if they would be interested in putting your link on their blog and vice versa. Bloggers who network can increase their traffic and cross-link to each other's posts as well. 

RSS Feed
Offer your visitors a way to subscribe via RSS feed to your blog. This means they don't have to remember to come back and check on your blog. 

You want to give visitors every opportunity to keep reading. There are a lot of blogs out there and an RSS feed just gives you one more way to make sure your readers don't forget about you. 

Search Engine Optimization
It's natural to want to create post headlines and copy that's very creative. A post about how to fix a leaky faucet may make you want to create a headline like, "Down the Drain with that Drip, Drip, Drip in the Night." 

A better headline that search engines are going to pick up is, "How to Fix a Leaky Faucet." That's the search term more people are likely to enter rather than the long one that doesn't explain exactly what it is your post will be covering. 

To optimize your blog post even further, be sure to use keywords throughout your post. The more descriptive your post is, rather than being over the top creative with wordplay, the better your chances are that your blog post will rank higher in search results. 

One last quick tip on search engine optimization for your blog post. When linking to your other posts, use descriptive text as your link and not just "click here." Most people know by now "click here" isn't reader-friendly and it doesn't help your search results at all. However, making your link text descriptive can help optimize your entire post and attract even more readers to your blog.

Overview of a Blog Post

Introduction to a Blog Post

A blog post is the most important part of your blog. Your posts are the entries that take up at least 75% of the screen space on your blog's site. Blog posts appear in reverse chronological order, so your blog stays timely, fresh and meaningful to visitors. It's your current content (in the form of blog posts) that will keep readers coming back to your blog again and again to read what you have to say about your blog's topic.

The Blog Post Title:

The title of your post is basically a headline. It is meant to lure readers in and entice them to read more. At the same time, blog titles are a useful tool in terms of search engine optimization. Search engines value titles strongly in ranking results and using popular keywords in your blog titles can help drive traffic to your blog. Just be careful to use keywords that are relevant to your blog post's content else your title could be considered spam by search engines and negatively affect the traffic sent to your blog.

Blog Post Publication Date:

Since blogs are most successful when they are updated frequently and provide timely content, readers will check the publication dates of your posts to determine the value of your blog. Blog posts that are published erratically with long gaps of time between posts are typically considered to be less valuable than blogs that offer more current and consistent posts.

Blog Post Author Byline:

The blog post's author byline is important to identify who wrote each post and is particularly important for blogs that are written by multiple authors. Furthermore, the author byline typically provides a link to your About Me page, which provides additional promotion for you and your blog.

Images in Blog Posts:

Images provide more than just color and visual relief from text heavy web pages on a blog. They also act as another way you can drive traffic to your blog. Many people perform keyword searches through search engines for the purpose of finding images and pictures online. By strategically naming the images you use in your blog posts to match relevant keyword searches, you can drive some of that image search traffic to your blog. Just make sure the images you use enhance your blog rather than detract from your blog and confuse your readers.

Links and Trackbacks in Blog Posts:

Most blog posts include links within the content of the post. Those links are used for two purposes. First, links are used to cite an original source of information or an idea used in a blog post or to provide additional information beyond the scope of your post. Second, they provide a breadcrumb trail and a tap on the shoulder to bloggers whose posts you are linking to in the form of a trackback. A trackback generates a link on the blog you're linking to in your post, which acts as an additional source of traffic to your blog as readers on that blog are likely to click on the trackback link and find your blog.

Blog Post Comment Section:

Aside from your blog post content, blog comments are the most important part of your blog. Comments are where your readers have an opportunity to join the conversation. It's essential to the success of your blog that you respond to the comments left by your readers to show you value them and to further build the two-way conversation on your blog and the sense of community your blog creates.

15 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

The blogosphere is a big and busy world with over 100 million blogs and growing. How do you attract visitors to your blog? Follow these simple tips to drive traffic to your blog.

1. Write Well and Write Often

Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog's audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more. Make sure you have something meaningful to say to them and say it often to maintain their interest and keep them loyal.

Furthermore, post frequently to increase the number of chances you have for your blog's content to be noticed by search engines such as Google or Technorati.

2. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines

Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! bysubmitting your blog's URL to them. Most search engines provide a 'Submit' link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.

It's important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn't mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.

3. Use and Update Your Blogroll

By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It's an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs' blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.

4. Harness the Power of Comments

Commenting is a simple and essential tool to increase your blog's traffic. First, respond to comments left on your blog to show your readers that you value their opinions and draw them into a two-way conversation. This will increase reader loyalty.

Second, leave comments on other blogs to drive new traffic. Make sure you leave your blog'sURL in your comment, so you create a link back to your own blog. Many people will read the comments left on a blog post. If they read a particularly interesting comment, they are highly likely to click on the link to visit the commentor's website. It's important to make sure you leave meaningful comments that are likely to invite people to click on your link to read more.

5. Syndicate Your Blog's Content with an RSS Feed

Setting up an RSS feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.

6. Use Links and Trackbacks

Links are one of the most powerful parts of your blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get you noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs.

You can take links to other blogs a step further by leaving a trackback on the other blog to let them know you've linked to them. Blogs that allow trackbacks will include a link back to your blog in the comments section of the post that you originally linked to. People do click on trackback links!

7. Tag Your Posts

It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it's worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They're also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.

8. Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites

Taking the time to submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg,StumbleUpon, Reddit and more can be a simple way to quickly boost traffic to your blog.

9. Remember Search Engine Optimization

When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don't overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google's search entirely.

10. Don't Forget Images

Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.

11. Consider Guest Blogging

Guest blogging can be done when you write a guest post on another blogger's blog or when another blogger writes a guest post on your blog. Both methods are likely to increase traffic as your blog will be exposed to the other blogger's audience. Many of the other blogger's readers will visit your blog to see what you have to say.

12. Join Forums, Web Rings or Online Groups

Find online forums, web rings, groups or social networking sites such as Facebook andLinkedIn where you can share ideas and ask questions of like-minded individuals. Add a link to your blog in your signature line or profile, so each time you post on a forum or participate in another online network, you're indirectly promoting your blog. Chances are many people will click on that link to learn more about you.

13. Promote Outside Your Blog

Promoting your blog shouldn't stop when you step outside the blogosphere. Add your blog's URL to your email signature and business cards. Talk about it in offline conversations. It's important to get your name and your blog's URL noticed offline, too.

14. Nominate Yourself and Other Blogs for Blog Awards

There are a number of blog awards given out throughout the year. Nominating yourself and other blogs and bloggers can draw attention to your blog and drive traffic to it.

15. Don't Be Shy

The most important part of the blogosphere is its community and much of your success as a blogger will be tied to your willingness to network with that community. Don't be afraid to ask questions, join conversations or just say hi and introduce yourself. Don't sit back and hope the online world will find you. Speak out and get yourself noticed. Let the blogosphere know you've arrived and have something to say!

How to Change the Title Tags in Blogger for More Search Engine Traffic

By default Blogger displays the blog title first, followed by the name of the post. As you might notice this is not good when it comes to SEO. It's important for the name of the post to come before the name of your blog, especially when it comes to google search results. Learn how to make your post title show up first so that you can reel in more traffic from the search engines.

WHY CHANGE THE TITLES?

It's quite important to have the Post Title + Blog Title arranged accordingly because this is how you would want your blog to be displayed on google's search results. This way more people will click on your link when searching google because the post title is more relevant than your post name.
Example Google Search Results:
You are most likely to click on the bottom image when searching google for the keywords "image reflection generator". The reason being is that your mind reads text from left to right. So it makes sense to have the more important title on the left.

HOW TO CHANGE THE TITLES:

1. Go to Layout>edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.
2. Search for this tag: <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
3. Replace this tag with the following code:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title> </b:if>

4. Save your template and you should see the results in your web browser as depicted in the images below.
5. It may take a few days for the changes to show up on the google search results. I guarantee you that you will start receiving more traffic from google once you are re-indexed!

Most of the bloggers add more sidebar widgets to increase pageviews. You can find Recent Post, Popular Post and Related Post widgets in almost all blogs. Now lets see displaying Random Post widget in blogger sidebar. Its a very useful widget because it lets you to show all older posts randomly fashion.   

Abdul-Hakeem.com is powered by Blogger. I use many widgets to improve page impression. The number of posts links in Random post widget to be displayed can be controlled by the webmaster. Now getting back to our topic,

Steps to Show Random Posts in Blogger:

1. Login to Blogger Account.
2. Go to Design –>Add a Gadget, and select it as “HTML/JavaScript” widget.
3. Now Copy and Paste this code in to it:


<script type='text/javascript'>
var randarray = new Array();var l=0;var flag;
var numofpost=5;function randomposts(json){
var total = parseInt(json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t,10);
for(i=0;i < numofpost;){flag=0;randarray.length=numofpost;l=Math.floor(Math.random()*total);for(j in randarray){if(l==randarray[j]){ flag=1;}}
if(flag==0&&l!=0){randarray[i++]=l;}}document.write('<ul>');
for(n in randarray){ var p=randarray[n];var entry=json.feed.entry[p-1];
for(k=0; k < entry.link.length; k++){if(entry.link[k].rel=='alternate'){var item = "<li>" + "<a href=" + entry.link[k].href + ">" + entry.title.$t + "</a> </li>";
document.write(item);}}
 }document.write('</ul>');}
</script>
<script type='text/javascript' src='/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&start-index=1&max-results=1000&callback=randomposts'></script>
<span style='font-size: 80%'>Widget by <a href='http://www.bloggerehow.blogspot.com'>Blogger eHow </a></span>
Note:
If you which to change number of post displayed.Change the no 5 marked as red in this code numofpost=5
Credits:
This widget script was developed by Field of Dreams

Enjoy!

How to add subscription email form

A Subscription Email form is more important than a RSS feed Icon itself. People often love to receive your post Updates in their email inbox rather than in a reader. So make sure you make your Email From as eye appealing and eye catching as possible. So today we will again learn how to add an Email form, so lets get to work!

Follow these steps,

• Log into your feedburner account
• Click on the Publicize button and then click on Email Subscriptions link as shown below,

• Then drag down the page until you see a HTML code, as shown below

Copy the HTML code for the email form and paste it in a WordPad or Notepad. The code may look like the one below,

<form style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:3px;text-align:center;" action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" method="post" target="popupwindow" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TntByStc', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=520');return true"><p>Enter your email address:</p><p><input type="text" style="width:140px" name="email"/></p><input type="hidden" value="TntByStc" name="uri"/><input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/><input type="submit" value="Subscribe" /><p>Delivered by <a href="http://feedburner.google.com" target="_blank">FeedBurner</a></p></form>


Please search for the Green and Red texts as shown above in the HTML code that you just pasted in a notepad or WordPad.

Note that the red text in your code will be something like this,

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Your-FeeD-Title

The end part of the URL above will contain your feed title, so look carefully for this URL in the code that you pasted in notePad

Now Log into your Blogger account and go to Layout > Page Elements

Then Click on Add a Gadget

Then Choose HTML/JavaScript

Now Copy and paste the code below into HTML/JavaScript widget.

<div style="border: 1px solid DodgerBlue; padding: 5mm;">
<center><img src="URL of Email Icon"/></center>
<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:small;">Subscribe by E-mail & receive free updates of these cool Blogger eHow straight to your inbox!</span>

<form action="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify" style="padding: 3px; text-align: center;" target="popupwindow" method="post" onsubmit="window.open('http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TntByStc', 'popupwindow', 'scrollbars=yes,width=550,height=520');return true"><center style="font-weight: normal">Enter your email address:</center><p><center><input type="text" style="width:140px" name="email"/></p></center><center><input type="hidden" value="TntByStc" name="uri"/><input type="hidden" name="loc" value="en_US"/><input type="submit" value="Subscribe" /></form></center>

NT:- The Code in your notepad will be used only to get some info out of it. Our main code is the code above.

Please adjust the code according to your preferences in the following way,

1. DodgerBlue : This refers to the colour of the frame/outline surrounding the Email form, You can change it to any colour. For example, White, Black, Red , Green etc.
2. URL of Email Icon : This refers to the URL of your Email Icon. Please first choose a Email Icon of your choice by clicking here Once you have download your Email Icon, upload it to Photobucket and get the URL for it. Then simply replace the text URL of Email Icon with your Email Icon URL.
3. http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify : Replace this text with a similar URL in your code that you had copied in a notepad.
4. http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=TntByStc : Replace this URL with the URL in the notepad code.
5. The bolded Black Text refers to the text that appears below your Email Icon and above Email form. You can change it to anything that suits your blog topic.
6. TntByStc: Replace this text with your Feed Title. 
7. Subscribe : This is the text that appears on the Email button. You can change it to anything you like. For Instance: Submit, Hit Me!, Join Me! etc.

Once you have adjusted the code according to your preferences, simply click the Save button in the HTML/JavaScript Widget.

Now visit your blog to see a pro looking Subscription Email Form hanging on your sidebar :)

Just like the one below,

I hope it works for you. Enjoy!

How to make multi-tabbed widget for blogger

Tabbed content box or tab view is a great way to maximize the usage of precious screen real estate on your blog.

There are quite a few tutorials out there that show how to create tabs with CSS and jQuery. However, most of them require you to modify your blog template codes. On top of that you also have to manually add the content of each tab.
Fortunately, with this tutorial you don’t have to go to all that troubles. All you have to do is add our tabber code into a HTML/Javascript widget. Once added, it will transform your Blogger blog’s existing widgets into tabs, automatically!

See the demo here.

1. Below are some of the features of the tab content box:
2. Accommodates unlimited number of widgets.
3. Keeps the tabbed widgets’ original appearance.
4. Fully widgetized for ease of installation and removal. If you don’t like what it does, simply remove the HTML/Javascript gadget.

Installation

1. Go to Design > Page Elements and click Add A Gadget.
2. Select HTML/Javascript widget.
3. Leave the title box blank.
4. Copy the code below and paste it inside the content box.

<style type="text/css">
.tabber {
 padding: 0px !important;
 border: 0 solid #bbb;
}
.tabber h2 {
 float: left;
 margin: 0 1px 0 0;
 font-size: 12px;
 padding: 3px 5px;
 border: 1px solid #bbb;
 margin-bottom: -1px; /*--Pull tab down 1px--*/
 overflow: hidden;
 position: relative;
 background: #e0e0e0;
 cursor:pointer;
 -moz-border-radius:5px 5px 0 0;
 border-radius:5px 5px 0 0;
}
html .tabber h2.active {
 background: #fff;
 border-bottom: 1px solid #fff; /*--"Connect" active tab to its content--*/
}
.tabber .widget-content {
 border: 1px solid #bbb;
 padding: 10px;
 background: #fff;
 clear:both;
 margin:0;
}
.codewidget, #codeholder {
 display:none;
}
</style>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://greenlava-code.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/publicscripts/bloggertabs0.1_min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
 $('#codeholder').bloggerTabber ({
  tabCount : 3
 });
});
</script>

<!-- to make sure the widget works, do not alter the code below -->
<div id='codeholder'><p>Get this <a href="http://bloggerehow.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-make-multi-tabbed-widget-for.html" target="_blank">Widget </a></p></div>

• Red color line is for loading jQuery library. Remove this line if you’ve already loaded it somewhere else in your blog. Hint: If your blog has a slider, cycler or something with fading effect running, chances are it is powered by jQuery.
• Specify the number of widgets that you want to turn into tabs in Green color line.
• The default box background color is white (#fff). You can change it inBlue color line. Apply the same color for the active tab’s background and bottom border.

5. Position the HTML/Javascript gadget above the gadgets that you want to tabify.

6. Click Save and view your blog.

Post-installation

• Make sure you title each widget that you want to tabify. Tabber won’t work properly without widget titles.
• Reduce tab widths so that all tabs fit into a single row. This can be achieved by using short widget titles.
• You may need to reduce the widths of the tabified widgets to fit them into the box.
• Don’t forget to test in Internet Explorer. This widget may cause “Operation aborted” error in IE for some non-designer templates. If that’s the case, this widget is not for you :(

Enjoy!