So everyone’s officially on the SEO bandwagon. You know SEO is big when a travel agent, halfway across the world, in a country you’ve never heard of calls you for a quote. There’s no doubt that like any other big thing - it’s bound to get saturated over time. So how can we stay ahead of the curve and make sure as marketing and business professionals we do everything in our power to reach the Holy Grail (as it applies to SEO, the first 4 listings of Google) - and stay there.

There are so many factors involved in the Search Engine Optimization process, but one thing’s for sure, CONTENT IS - ok i’m not going to say it because you’re probably sick of hearing it (but it starts with a “k” and rhymes with ping). Search engines like Google are getting stricter in their algorithms and will continue to give more leverage to content-rich sites, over flash or mini-sites.

We see a lot of companies that frequently add new pages to their sites so that search engine crawlers can visit them often. It’s not a bad idea, but the purpose of adding new content shouldn’t be primarily for this reason - it should be to captivate your visitors, and influence them in some shape or form. When you add content just for the sake of adding content, it could result in improved search rankings - but at what price? When ecommerce and brochure sites begin to publish too much content, they tend to lose their appeal. If your site is product-driven, it’s important to stay focused on the promotion of your products.

So how can we find the balance between having a conversion friendly website and a search engine friendly website? There are a few solutions, but the most popular one is having a blog. By having a blog on your site, you allow your site to be content-rich without bombarding your visitors with too many webpages to look at.

But having a successful blog is not an easy thing to achieve. Just like anything else worthwhile, it requires a lot of time, energy and dedication. To-date, there are 55 million blogs being tracked by Technorati. Even if you were to start a blog today, where would you fit in the rapidly growing blogosphere?

If you are serious about starting a blog, then start writing today. Write on the plane, on the beach, at your desk and anywhere you feel inspired. Once you have several entries to post, start identifying a blog software. The most popular ones are Wordpress and Blogger. Both are available for free download, and Blogger even provides a freely hosted option, if you can withstand having .blogspot.com appended to the end of your URL. Wordpress, while not freely hosted, is a relatively easy install and offers a vast library of plugins, articles, and social networks that can help you to meet your optimization needs.

One of the biggest advantages of the out-of-the–box solution, and this applies relatively equally to these two programs, is in website structure. Each has been coordinated to provide a site-wide organizational system that that plays well with the search engines, using well designed indexes, headers, and meta tools that not only organize your site, but make it browseable by the engines.

Once you move beyond the initially provided theme and structure of the site, the differences between these two softwares starts to really grow. WordPress, with its individually catered host and more in-depth CRM client, has a lot of potential to be not just a run-of-the-mill blog but a full-on engaging website. For SEO, plugins become indespensible. By adding in popular feed tools and community categorization features, you can encourage your visitors to help connect you to the rest of the Internet; another essential element of SEO. Adding buttons for RSS, Digg, or Technorati submit, as well as advertising trackback and pingback urls, can greatly and quickly enhance your interconnectivity and thereby your web presence.

In regards to where to place your blog architecturally – we advise having it within the main navigation of your site. That way, you give your visitors the option to read it, without shoving it in their face.