SEO is an umbrella term that encompases several aspects of site design, information architecture, content creation, directory placement, and to some extent, algorthimic math. There’s something to be applied on every level, but today we’re breaking it down to what is probably most applicable to you - the software your blog is built on.

Choosing a blogging software can be daunting, but fortunately you shouldn’t have to sacrafice quality or features for the ease of an out-of-the-box-solution. Many respectable blogs are built on ready-made blogging software (including this one), but if that isn’t enough to convince you, the massive supporting communities often built on years of research should. And this is especially handy when it comes to SEO.

Your SEO goals should be clear to you. You’re trying to get the best results to maximize your brand, reach your customer base, or advertise your service. To that end, you want to choose a software that is going to help you effectively advance those goals. This is, admittedly, not a straightforward process. Like many things in life, this decision is one of trade-offs, between ease of use, search presence, complexity, and customization.

It should be stressed that the most important element of blog SEO will (hopefully) always be content based. If you don’t create content on a regular basis you’ll be at a disadvantage when it comes to SEO, and most importantly, with your audience base. After all, SEO results are really just metrics and facilitators for the real prize, people finding and exploring you. But beyond that, popular use engines like Google, Yahoo, and even Technorati put a heavy bias on anything that is updated recently and often.

Each of the major blogging sofwares has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to SEO. We’ll explore two popular options today, WordPress and Blogger. Both are availible 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 (it’s often provided free by third party hosts) and offers a vast library of plug-ins, articles, and social networks that can help you to meet your optimization ends in a straightforward and efficient manner.

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.

For these features Blogger is particularly attractive if you’re trying to simply get presence on Google, since it is owned and the software is provided by the search company itself. In fact, a Blogger site created in ten minutes will register just as quickly in a google search (of course where it registers in that search involves a little more work), especially after submitting it into the index.

These inherent opimizations can be broken down over the course of editing and redesigning the site, so it’s important to employ a designer who’s familiar with the core tennants of information architecture and web standards, or to make the best of publicly moderated themes.

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 indavidually 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, plug-ins become indespensible. By adding in popular feed tools and community categorizatation 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 their free versions, both brands of blog creation software make it easy to get in the game and start writing. Ultimately, WordPress offers a wider range of customization, especially in the host process. Furthermore, the recent advent of the Google Sitemaps plug-in, which generates a Google compliant site map, closes the gap between the two in terms of immediate findability. But while WordPress might allow you the option of plug-ins, tools, and other goodies, it all comes back to link building, interconnectivity, and content creation. So the best element of Blog SEO is never going to be what you download, it’s what you create and who reads it. But of course there will always be a few tactics and tools to get what you wite onto more people’s desktops. And if you’ve done everything you can and still don’t have the audience you’re after, well, that’s what we’re here for.

What is the three easiest things you can do to help create those sort of feelings?

1) Remove the welcome mat.

A welcome mat is for your guests, it isn’t for friends or neighbors who pop by every few days just to see how you are doing. So please, take the word welcome off your homepage.

2) Create new content often.

Your own grandmother won’t come back week after week to read the same stale bits of information on your website, why should you expect your users to? Even if you run an e-commerce website– update content. Create a 5 piece series called “5 alternative uses for” (fill in your topic here).

3) Make it easy.

Listen, I hate to break this to you, but you are a developer. Your site isn’t for you. It is for your audience. Do not make them question how to navigate the site and scratch their heads and give up in frustration. This has been said 1,000 times. Keep things simple. Keep new content on your homepage, and make sure it engages your audience.

Honestly, at the end of the day there is absolutely no better marketing strategy than creating users who absolutely love your product. They are your cheerleaders, your link building team, they are your usability study. They will guide your site– so long as you listen to what they have to say.

In simple terms, quality scores exist on a keyword level in Google and ad group level in Yahoo and MSN. The most interesting of the updates to these quality score indexes in Google is that they now consider the landing pages of your ads more seriously. So if your landing pages do not contain the same keywords being used in your campaigns and ads, then Google may not consider the pages relevant, and as a result, assign a poor quality score.

So what should you do?  Start approaching PPC more like SEO, in terms of ensuring alignment and consistency in the copy used across all ad and website touch points.  In fact, this has started to become just as tricky as SEO, in terms of balancing true ad quality versus other calculated factors that may or may not best represent your products.  It reminds me of the SEO debates about balancing content-rich sites versus graphically appealing sites.  Also, the same issues arise about overdoing things, and making too many changes, without giving prior changes a chance to make an impact.  Patience, on the part of both clients and agencies, is required, although as we all know, in the fast-paced business world, pressure for results often clashes with this requirement.

Let us know what your experiences have been with the evolving quality score aspect of PPC.

• I start on Task #1 with great intention at 9am.  I am cruising until 9:30am, until a phone call comes in (WARNING: Spillage Potential).  It is from the client, about an “urgent” project that is the focus of my planned Task #3 for the day.  Feeling the pressure and not wanted to reject a call from a client, I take the call (Spillage!).  “Can you get it to me before day’s end?  We are really anxious to see the comps.”
• I call the web designer to make sure the comps will be ready for my review, and he wants to show me what he has right now - so we go back and forth on IM for 30 minutes, reviewing comps (More Spillage!).
• OK, it’s 10:30am now, where was I?  Oh yeah, Task #1, almost done.  Before getting back to Task #1, how about a “quick” scan of my emails - shouldn’t take too long.
• 11am, why am I responding to emails that have nothing to do with my four tasks for the day?  That decision to ’scan’ emails turned into a major tangent, and now getting back to Task #1 seems a bit tougher.
• Noon.  Between saying “no” to two more incoming calls, answering a few questions from co-workers via IM, and taking a few minutes to breathe, I manage to put in half an hour more to finish Task #1.  Wow, it was only an hour of work, and I am done with it at 12pm.  How did I lose two hours?  I feel a bit scattered, and hungry.  What’s for lunch?  A cup of coffee sure sounds good right now.  Afterwards, we’ll get right on Task #2.  This time, we’ll avoid those tangents, and gain back some lost time.

Not only will I achieve the tasks more rapidly if I focus on one at a time, but I will also “lose” less energy, that inevitably happens when we have to withdraw and shift energy elsewhere, which may be necessary in certain job roles. It’s like trying to fuel the gas tanks of several different cars with a running flow of gasoline from the pump. Imagine that you keep your finger on the gas pump while pulling it out of one gas tank and jumping from to another without filling up any one tank fully. There will be a lot of spillage or wasted gas…that gas, now useless, is your energy.

The potential for spillage occurs all the time during the course of our days. After a lot of switching, it is very difficult to settle the mind and get deep into a particular task. However, wWhat is spillage for one person, may not be for another. For me, some prime examples of spillage are listed here:

• I leave too many windows open on my desktop (currently 37 windows are open between my two desktops, local and remote VPN), for tasks that I was working on yesterday and want to work on tomorrow. By jumping backwards and forward, in my mind, spillage occurs and I cannot be 100% dedicated to the task at hand.
• Too many random, unplanned discussion chains going, via email, IM, phone and in person. Message to self: ‘just close the door, turn off IM, phone and email, and focus on the task at hand.”
• Changing the order of tasks in my daily task list, because I just “don’t feel like” doing the particular task that falls next on my list. By not keeping my order, I break my focus and procrastinate the more difficult tasks, which puts greater burden on the following days.
• Saying “yes, I’ll do it now” to someone in the office, to accommodate them, at the expense of whatever I was working on at that moment. In my eagerness to be a team player, sometimes, I promise too much, which causes frequent switching.

This is the reason why a master task planning tool is so imperative for companies big and small, for staff and managers. We cannot just free wheel and deal, intuitively going about our days, and addressing things as we see fit. Well, not that anybody can’t, but that requires a level of awareness and sharpness of intellect that I do not claim quite yet. Further, even if I did, it would be of no use to others. We have to create practical systems, that people can learn and follow.
Playing the role of CEO, aka Air Traffic Controller, requires a lot of switching, as people - be it clients, employees or vendors - will always be demanding the head hancho’s attention. It requires a special strength, flexibility and resiliency to play this role well, knowing when to say “no”, and when to close the door. Managing spillage effectively is one of the keys to success in business and life.

In future blogs, we will discuss tips and strategies for avoiding spillage and effectively managing your own time, as well as those who you manage.