I’ve had the good fortune to work with Lexnet Consulting Group on several blog implementations and continue to be impressed by one of the clients for whom I set up two blogs, Mark English Architects.  I was first impressed by the way they embraced the power behind blogging and other social media tools, like Twitter.  Maybe impressed is less accurate than the fact that it made me feel good to have someone take a deliverable and really make great use of it.After getting things situated for Mark English Architects I signed up for their feeds and also started following their Twitter stream, @markenglisharch.  After following for several months now I must say that I am truly impressed by the quality of the content on their “Green Compliance Plus” blog and look forward to seeing more Posts on their new “The Architects’ Take” blog.

I’ve also found that the quality of their Twitter stream is quite high, as evidenced by the following that they’ve obtained.  Their Tweets also led me to Mark English Architect’s presence on houzz where their work is on display.  It’s truly beautiful work.  I love architecture and looking at their work is like leafing through a Best of Architectural Digest magazine issue.

I have a lot of other clients that do great work and bring me personal satisfaction in my association with them; it’s just that I was awe struck again today while looking through Mark’s portfolio.  I can only hope I work with many more clients like Mark English Architects.

So, you now are full steam ahead on your blog, that’s great. What’s next? Well, if you are trying to drive traffic to your site and have not yet jumped into the fray that is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), then you need to start reading up.

Educational SEO Resources

There are a lot of these out there and I don’t presume to know the best ones, but I do know some very good sites for learning more about Search Engine Optimization. The first is Wordtracker, with Wordtracker Academy being their primary section for educational information on the subject of SEO keywording.

Another good site for finding more SEO topic coverage is HubSpot. If you would like to get some WordPress specific SEO information, check out the Yoast website by master WordPress plugin author Joost De Valk.

Tools and Methods for Selecting Keywords

So, how does one research keywords? Well, one free tool is the Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool. It will generate statistics around the keywords you provide as well as provide related keywords that may be applicable too. Information is provided on the number of searches the keyword is specified in within a given month (on Google) and the advertiser competition for those keywords.

Another tool available for selecting keywords is that provided by Wordtracker. This service is a subscription service but trials are available so you can get a feel for its utility.

What else is there? Well, remember you can use Word’s thesaurus if you want to think of other related words and then maybe run those through Google. You also can do some searches that you think would be applicable for your content and review some of the pages that pop-up on the front page of the search engine. Look to see what their content contains as well as how they defined their meta title, meta description and their URL. Meta data is available when you select “View Source” or “Page Source” from your browser’s menu, typically the View menu. Then look for the <meta name=”description”> and <meta name=”keywords”> tags.

Selecting the right keywords is really a skill that one develops over time and is important for driving traffic your way but don’t forget your message. It is still critical that the content you are providing is interesting, informational and helpful. Generating inbound traffic still relies on good old word-of-mouth. You want to bring your visitors back for more and also have them bring you to the attention of their social network by generating links back to your Posts. Inbound links are really what is going to drive your search engine page rank higher.