So you've decided to start your own blog but you want to make sure it gets noticed quickly. In order to drive traffic to your website you'll need to incorporate good SEO (search engine optimization), tactics right from the start. Here are 7 things you need to keep track of as you're building your website and creating your blog.

Purchase Your Own Domain

Purchasing your own domain instead of creating a blog on a free platform can have a number of benefits. First, you'll have complete control of your URL address and the content on your site. Having your own URL looks more professional, especially if you're attaching your blog to a business site or using it to generate income. With your own domain, you don't have to worry about breaking the terms of service of a free site, potentially risking deletion of your site for the smallest infraction.

Choosing Blog Platform Software

Once you have your own domain you'll find that uploading a blog platform is relatively simple. Your hosting provider may even offer to do it for you free of charge. Using well-known blogging software, like WordPress, will help you to create a blog that is well-formatted and easy to customize. Search engines love blogs - especially blogs built on platforms that are designed to be SEO friendly.

Keyword Research

Make sure you take some time to do a bit of keyword research before you launch your blog. As a professional in your field, you may be up to date on the latest jargon. Your readers, however, may be laypersons with little knowledge of the professional terms you use daily. A little bit of keyword research will give you a glimpse into the minds of your potential readers, allowing you to get a better idea of what terms are most often used when people search for products or services like yours online. Incorporate these words into your blog content.

Keywords in Post Titles

Many bloggers allow their blog platforms to automatically assign some random numbers and letters to the URL of each blog post. As a smart blogger, you're going to alter your settings so that the URL automatically includes your post name or a name you choose when writing the post. Incorporating keywords into the URL of your blog post will make it more visible and relevant when people are browsing the web.

Quality Backlinking

Backlinks are critical to your site's success - especially in terms of search engine rankings. While you may be tempted to pay someone to create a series of backlinks on your behalf, it is important to remember that you always get what you pay for. Make sure that the links pointing back to your site are coming from authority sites that are at least loosely related to your niche. Backlinks that come from link farms, sites that obviously charge for links, or from link exchanges will not help your search engine rankings. They may even make things worse.

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