When I caught wind of Google's latest PageRank update, I didn't waste any time before checking my PR. Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not a PR fanatic, I don't spend much time or burn many brain cells on this sort of thing. It's not a very reliable way to determine the worth of a website/blog. But I was curious, because I had started this blog in October, and wanted to see if my PR0 had changed. And it did. It is now at PR3, surprisingly.
Will it affect my search rankings? I don't know. I haven't seen a change yet.
I'm no SEO mastermind, and I don't keep up on the latest trends in search. I don't have the time, and even if I did, I'd either drive myself crazy or grow bored in a hurry. Neither outcome strikes my fancy. But there are a few things I feel are critical for a new blog to rank well, and are definitely worth mentioning here:
Update frequently with unique, useful content.
Basic rule of thumb- update often. I try to post every day. While it doesn't always work out that way, I do make a conscious effort to do so. The more you post, the more search engine spiders will crawl your blog for updates.
Now, when I talk about updating, I'm not referring to useless crap like random, "just for fun" surveys and quizzes, or that copy-and-paste bullshit you get from free article sites, or anything else along those lines. It should, ideally, be something of value, something useful and/or entertaining, something (preferably) unique.
Some topics have been beaten to death, like making money online, and yes, even SEO, like this article. It happens. That kind of stuff is all the rage right now, and has been for years. If you have a new blog in a crowded niche, GOOD LUCK trying to get a decent rank in Google. You're going to have to work hard to outdo everyone else, and/or provide a different view on the topic(s) that demands attention.
In the case of this blog, I got lucky and jumped in at the right time. Goth-related blogs are few and far between right now. It's fairly easy to obtain a higher rank in this niche, especially if you're talking about underground bands, small brands, and the like. You know, the things that people want, but are fairly difficult to find unless you know what you're looking for. One day, this may not be the case.. but until then, there's plenty of room in this area.
Yes, I know a lot of people aren't into a lot of the "weirdo subcultures", but there are plenty out there who are. You can't expect to please everyone, and it's rather pointless to try to do so. If you have an oddball hobby, or a passion for something bizarre, blog about it!
Keywords.
I could go on for hours about the importance of keywords and how to use them.. but I won't, not here. This will be quick and painless.
Assuming you're blogging with direction, meaning you have a goal to accomplish with each post, you should, ideally, have a keyword or phrase (phrases are easier to rank for) in mind. When you write, incorporate that word/phrase into your post title and content.
When using keywords, your writing should flow naturally. Write for your readers, and don't use that stupid word/phrase twenty bajillion times in your post. Please. Real people come first, search engines second.
Your post URLs should also contain these keywords. This means you should be using a blogging platform that uses your post titles when generating URLs, rather than numbers. And if you're putting those keywords in your post titles, they will show up in the address. Blogger does this automatically. WordPress users may want to read this. If you're using Drupal or some other platform that I know nothing about, you're on your own. Sorry.
Build your links.
Link building is essential for SEO. The goal here is to have as many relative, high-ranking websites to link to your site as possible. You can do this by trading links with other bloggers in your sidebar, other bloggers writing about you, leaving comments or guest posting on related blogs, participating in forums and/or various social media websites, among many other things. Get creative. And remember- it's not always about how many links you have, it's the QUALITY of those links.
Also, interlink your posts on your blog. If you're referring back to an older post, link to it. There are 'related posts' plugins that you can use as well, for both WordPress and Blogger. The easier it is for search engine spiders (and your readers!) to navigate your website, the better. Simple enough, right?
Use alt tags.
Search engines see TEXT, not images, not videos, not javascript, or mp3 or flash or whatever else you're posting for the world to see. I know, it sucks. So use alt tags when posting your various media files. It makes a huge difference.
There are other SEO tips I could throw out there, but these basic things are what I've been doing here on this blog, and they're working for me.
One last thing I'd like to say before I end this post-
It's really easy for some bloggers to get caught up in SEO, to the point where they're putting it first, before everything else, and their content suffers in some way. Resist the urge. Your content and readers should ALWAYS come first, SEO second. No matter how high you rank on Google, crap is still crap. Do us all a favor and post something worth reading. (But I guess my first point covers this.)