7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases chance that 1 of your blogs will be in search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, content of blog is most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to topic of your blog entry. Stay away from business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss speech and give your opinion after speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

At level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target blog topic and keeping blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all royalties of blogging.

Heavy graphics - Slows load time.

Low quality graphics - editors will be very critical of this.

Sound - Slows load time and can be annoying to visitors and editors.

Dynamic features - Spiders can not crawly dynamic features such as a drop down menu.

Java Script - Spiders can't read JS and it gets in their way. Spiders can become confused by JS and it can make your important text appear to be less relevant. If you must use JS, move it to an external .js file.

Java Script Links - Spiders can not crawl links in Java Script.

Image Maps - Spiders can not crawl links within image maps.

Spelling errors - Directory editors will be very critical of this.

Broken links - Spiders and editors will be very critical of this. Check this regularly.

Pop-ups - The will slow load time, confuse spiders and annoy editors and visitors.

HTML errors - Bad HTML will confuse spiders and cause browser compatibility issues.

Never:

Submit an unfinished site.

Submit a site that includes words such as "Under Construction".

Include text on your home page that says something like "report broken links here". Include a phrase such as this on your contact page. Never on your home page.

Include illegal content within your site.

Use hidden text/links, tiny text/links, same color text/links as background - this is considered spam and you can be banned from major engines and/or directories if you do this.

Use clear or transparent images.

Now What?

Now that you have designed your web site with search engine spider criteria in mind, you have taken first steps to prepare your site for higher rankings but don't stop here! This is just beginning. Next, you will want to thoroughly research search terms that you are going to target -- afterall, you don't want to choose keyword phrases that no one is ever going to search for! Then, you will need to work on a link building campaign so that you can gain some publicity to your site and begin generating some traffic while making your site more and more popular each day. Move on to developing you content so that it revolves around your search terms and target market and then onto your meta tags, titles and descriptions. Finally, you may be ready for your final submission date and begin to see your efforts pay off! ====================================================== Dawn Rowlett is a search engine marketing consultant and positioning specialist with Web Submission Services. Over last few years, she has been researching search engines with her partner Michael Hargrove, who has over eight years of SEO experience, working with clients and developing a Search Engine Marketing Membership to help web masters and designers understand how to properly prepare a web site for top search engine rankings. Dawn can be contacted at webservices@seo101.com