Socialize your content.

Content is King, but it's not everything.

I'm not sure who said it first, but although it is true, it isn't the whole truth. You can have the best content in the world, but if there is no one reading it, it won't do anyone any good.

When I first started my online business, I knew I had to create original content about a subject I believe in. Of course,creating original content takes time, but if done properly it will draw traffic from the search engines - some traffic. This is organic traffic, it grows on its own, but it grows slowly as your content grows. Traffic of this nature is based on keyword searches -- people searching for a particular keyword will find the pages that have that keyword sprinkled throughout their pages. The more popular the keyword, and the more relevant your content is to that keyword, the more traffic those pages will receive from the search engines. I have seen results of this nature -- in one month, traffic to my website has doubled coming from search engines such as google, yahoo and bing.

It seems quite simple, right? Maybe for some. However, for most of us, it isn't enough. First of all, there is the hurdle of knowing what to write about. What are people searching for? Once you figure that out, then you have to get over your writer's block to write about it.

There is help.

There are a number of websites that can help you find topical keywords to write about. One of these is http://www.keywordgem.com/.

This software supports google, yahoo and bing, but will show you 10 times more keywords than you will see on the google keyword tool. It will also show you how these keywords rank for popularity.

There are other tools of this sort as well. I will review these at a later date.

Once you have decided on a keyword to write about, there is a tool that you can use to make sure your webpage is properly optimized for that keyword frequency, to ensure the search engines will find your content on that keyword over someone elses. It is called SeoQuake -- download it and try it for yourself.

Just use these resources, consistently create new content, and your online presence will grow, along with your traffic.

Who was it that said "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" ? ... other than my mother, that is. My dad says "If you keep your mouth shut everyone will think you're stupid. If you open your mouth, everyone will know you are!"

Thanks Dad.

See what I had to overcome? Oh well, have no fear. If you have something to say, go forth and create new content!

Check out these tools to help socialize your content:
Ping.fm will help you by updating all of your social networks automatically.
SocialAdr is a great bookmarking tool that will create backlinks to your content for you -- there is a free account option, and paid options that will let you create backlinks the lazy way! Have a look.

Next post -- we'll talk more about socializing.

Wendy