Are you a freelance writer? Do you write and manage a blog which you feel could benefit from increased traffic? Fine tuning your SEO, search engine optimization, practices can help you achieve better ratings on major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Better ratings can mean thousands of new hits each month, which can turn into a larger readership base and more ad-based revenue if you run ads on your site. Here are ways that you can fine-tune your search engine optimization.

Blog Stats

Advertising agencies and marketing firms know that the Internet is not a stagnant entity. It is constantly evolving. If you run a blog, you have to be flexible and willing to change what isn’t working. This can be done by monitoring your daily hits. 24 hours after you write a blog post, check your ratings. Do this again for you next blog post. Track the ebb and flow of the page hits. This will clue you into what your readers are expecting from your blog.

Link Management

Search engines give precedence to blogs that are content-rich, not marred with numerous links. If you have a blog that is overly linked, it is time to clean up your act. This is the only way for you to fare well in Google and Yahoo searches. Make sure that you are writing posts that are informative. If you use a link, avoid the URL shortening tools that have become popular. This will not help your blog appear in search results because there are not any keywords to associate with your blog. In order to help search engines and potentially new readers find you, stick with full links with relevant keywords. Watch Formatting

Keep your formatting simple when you blog. Some bloggers overly bold and italicize their posts. This can hurt your ratings. Also, if you are pasting content from a word processing program, choose the plain text option. This option reduces the chances of additional formatting or excessive linking from occurring in your blog’s body; thus, increasing the chances of Google, Bing or Yahoo recognizing your blog on the first page of its search results.

Trend Alerts

If the goal of your blog is to increase readership, while making a profit from ad revenue then SEO, search engine optimization, knowledge is crucial. Making appropriate changes to the way you write will maximize the performance of your blog. Bloggers can only achieve this if they are willing to follow the latest SEO trends. In order to stay current on what the current optimization trends are it is vital that you subscribe to newsletters, online publications and other SEO blogs to stay current on industry standards. If all of this confuses you, you do not need to feel isolated in your confusion. There are many webpage developers and bloggers among you that struggle with how to increase traffic to their website. SEO is not easily defined and because the requirements and trends change so frequently, some people find it nearly impossible to keep up. By staying current on the latest trends and tweaking your blog in accordance with these trends, you can stay one step ahead of the changes, ensuring a positive performance for your blog in the major search engines.