Internal links can be just as important as backlinks when it comes to blog SEO, the big difference being the amount of control you have over your internal links. You can install a plugin that will add links to related post automatically; however, you have little control over these links.

If you have the time, and if you have a good handle on where you blog has been in the past, it can be a much better idea to add links to your previous posts yourself. If possible, place the links within the content of the post rather than just tacking them onto the end of the post.

As time goes by, don’t be afraid to review some of your older posts with links forward to new posts with relevant content. This can be particularly useful when later posts contain more up-to-date information. The older post is likely to show up in search results so any traffic that flows from those results should find a link to the post with up-to-date information in a prominent place.

Controlling your internal links means you can control where the ‘link juice’ flows. Do this as naturally as possible.

What is the purpose of a blog? More importantly, what is your purpose in hosting a blog? If your answer is purely SEO then I suggest you think again. Blogs can and do help with the overall search ranking of a site when optimized effectively, they are however far more powerful than simple SEO.

Blogs designed for pure SEO are often not terribly user friendly. In fact, whilst they may rate well early, overtime they will struggle to maintain high ratings. Because they are not user friendly, they can scare away more potential business than they attract.

You can often look at a blog as being your receptionist in your business. Most businesses look to hire an attractive yet very efficient person for this role. They are the first and often last person a visitor will see when they visit your business. They are certainly the first person they hear when they telephone.

Your blog is no different. Yes, you optimize it to rank well in the search engines. That is what SEO is all about. Because it ranks well it will receive endless traffic and where is that traffic going, to your blog. The first face the internet visitor is going to see is your blogs. Is it ready? Is it user friendly? Does it say “hi, welcome to …… what can I do for you?”

From your blog, you need to funnel your traffic to your website where the final act can be delivered, be it a sale, newsletter signup or contact form. How your blog is presented will determine whether or not your traffic is funneled to your blog, or back to Google for another search option.

If there is one fact that is hard to dispute, it is that blogs are easier to optimize for search result placement. Done effectively, search engine optimization can take a blog to the top of the search results fairly quickly which results in increases in traffic.

One argument I hear is that this traffic is going to the blog, not to the website and it is through the website that sales are made. This can actually be an error in thinking. Blogs can actually make the sale and the website becomes the portal to complete that sale.

If you can approach blogs as being a part of your sales team and not just an advertising vehicle, your sales will increase and with it your customer loyalty. The interactive nature of blogs helps a website to build relationships with customers and potential customers. If your product or service is of an acceptable standard then you find those customers returning time after time.

Undertaking a good search engine optimization program on a blog is not difficult. Using software such as WordPress, together with plugins desinged to make SEO easier, your blog can start to climb the search rankings fairly quickly. The more pages of good content you provide, the easier it can become. Gaining a ranking does lead to increases in traffic, traffic that is free.

Do blogs help to deliver more traffic to your website? Blogs will only deliver more traffic to your website if your content draws them to it. Having good content with a professional page, a suitable placed call to action and a product/service that is related to your blogs pages will increase your traffic.

What should be looked at is not the increase in traffic. It is the increase in sales that is the most important metric. The extra traffic to your website may only increase marginally compared to the amount of traffic your blog receives. However, that traffic going to your website is often there to close the deal. You can achieve conversions well over 50% from blog traffic. Compare this to the 5-10% conversion from direct search traffic to your website, and your blog is paying for itself very quickly.

Make your blog a part of your sales team and let it do the selling for you – after all, your blog is receiving the extra traffic – make it count.

Some bloggers are quite precise in the way they handle their blogs. They perform very tight blog SEO strategies to ensure their blogs rank as highly as possible in the search engines. Sometimes you can go to extremes and find you are harming you blog or your blogs reputation.

One tactic I have seen used is to turn comments off on certain posts. The reason? They have crafted their post with carefully placed  keywords and they feel that comments will dilute the keyword ratio.

Let’s be clear about one myth about keywords, there is no specific keyword ratio that works better than another. Obviously your keywords do need to appear regularly.  However, to say 10%, or 5% or 7.5% is not accurate. Keywords should appear naturally within the content. Effective blog SEO places keywords in the title, in any headings and then throughout the post.

Will comments dilute this keyword ratio? Probably not. If you feel that comments may dilute your keyword ratio, rather than turning comments off, you can respond to comments using keywords within your response. This can help to maintain your keyword ratio if you insist on using one.

Comments are a valuable component of any blog. It is throught he comment interaction that you can develop relationships with other bloggers. This invariably leads to increases in links,  one of the most important aspects of blog SEO.

Don’t switch off your comments, use them to help your blog SEO program and ultimately boost your rankings.

Most blog SEO articles concentrate on the on-page or on-site SEO activities that can be undertaken to increase rankings and visitors. There are off-site activities that can also help.

One of the best tools for off-site blog SEO is Google’s very own Blog Search.  You can use Blog Search to find other blogs that are ranking for the keywords you are using. Before going any further, there is a downside to using Blog Search. Don’t expect to enter a keyword and find a nice listing of blogs that rank for that search term. Blog search will often return web pages that are not from blogs so you will need to do a little filtering.

Find blogs with posts that are on similar topics to your own and work them. By working them I mean link to them where it will benefit your reader and comment on their posts.

There are two blog SEO effects of commenting. Comments can often (not always with auto nofollow of  many comments) provide links to your pages.  If you comment on enough blogs with comments that are meaningful and add to the conversation, you will find that other readers will come to recognise your name. They will get curious and follow back to your blog.  If they like what they see they will start to comment on your posts and perhaps even link back.  Visitors and Links – that is exactly what blog SEO is all about.

Commenting can be one of the most powerful off-site blog SEO strategies avaiable. The effect of commenting can far outweigh social marketing or social bookmarking especially if you do a time comparison on the two strategies.