A lot of the visitors to my blog arrive through search engines. With that in mind - I’m wondering for those of you that do blog - do you blog with SEO (search engine optimization) in the back of your mind? Or do you just blog without caring about keyword searches?
I think for myself it is natural to think about the keyword aspect of writing a blog mostly because I am a holdover from before the blog really became popular. In writing a personal webpage, it was very important to get the proper keyword saturation in order to have any hope of attracting visitors through search engines.
As I have gotten more familiar with where the visitors to this blog come from - when I write an informative post with keywords that are likely to be searched - then I try to give the people that found the post through a search engine the information they actually came here looking for or at the very least point them to where they can find it.
The last post for instance - in the future someone will find that post by searching for Ruger Single Six or something very similar. Although the post got a little silly I do have some information that would be useful to someone doing a search for that revolver, including the photo.
I don’t always think about keywords when writing unless I’m writing a post that will have a possibility of search engine visitors. In that case I do it without really thinking about it. If I write a post just being silly or a tag or meme or something like that then I think about keyword searches in reverse. I don’t want to put good keywords in a post about nothing.
I think it is important in establishing your authority on any subject if you know when and when not to use SEO.
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A new poll or two…
I have a couple of different stat programs on this site and although they both rank Google search as my main traffic flow, I’m curious to know the diversity of my visitors arrival path.
Please take just a second and participate in the polls. This is information I can use to improve this blog and hopefully turn you into a returning visitor - if you are not already.
Polls Moved To Sidebar
Thanks in advance! 
March 4th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
This is probably pretty horrible for me to admit, being a Marketer and having worked for an SEO firm, but I don’t tend to blog with SEO in mind. I just write and whatever comes out, comes out.
That said, I do try to cover certain subjects, and I try to blog pretty consistently about the company and the product on the theory that it will add weight to those terms.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
I’m definitely not an expert on the subject of SEO but after all the trial and error you tend to pick up a thing or two.
I don’t always write with SEO in mind but sometimes I do depending on the topic. MTR for instance - when I write a post about MTR I mix the letters MTR with the long version - mountaintop removal - for the benefit of search engines. Someone is more likely to find the post searching with the keywords mountaintop removal than they are searching for MTR.
Don’t really know what point I’m trying to make… if any. I guess I do think about it when writing a post. But maybe for me it has turned into a part of the process.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
An FYI comment to no one in particular - the last post with the handgun is already generating traffic from AOL and Google search. The latest search phrase from AOL - best guns for the backwoods. Sometimes there is no predicting keyword search phrases.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I know this is a little late, but figured I’d chime in. I started learning about SEO/SEM a few months ago, which led to me getting some hosting, which led to finally getting my blog going. I had wanted to do a blog for a while, just never invested the time, so getting into marketing ended up getting me into blogging. However, on my blog, I don’t think too much about SEO while I’m writing, but I do try to keep the blog structure search friendly and use the robots.txt to avoid duplicate content.