I have found that the All in One SEO Pack plugin and the report I got from Website Grader can complement each other nicely to help me improve the search engine ranking of my blog.

To set up the plugin, the three main fields, Title, Description and Keywords, also known as metadata, can be appropriately filled in based on the suggestions in the report. In the case of my description, I had to make it shorter, since it was way longer than the recommended 150 characters. But most important, I came up with a completely different title for my blog. I changed to “Notes on blogging and list building”, which includes two keywords with which the search engines can have a better idea of what my blog is about. This title can still be improved but I think it is better than the old “The blog of Jose Perez” , considering that my name is a very common Hispanic name…

After these few changes I requested a new report for my blog. Website Grader gave me a 73/100 grade this time, a modest 4 points better than my initial rating.

According to the report, my grade could benefit from listing my blog in DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory, as well as bookmarking it with del.icio.us and submitting articles to Digg.com. But also according to the report, the main course of action for me is to work on increasing the number of inbound links to my blog, that is, getting more sites to link to it. The Superb business blogs & sites list I already have can help me a lot, I just have to post more often in those places and identify additional ones to list. I should also continue to post on forums, since Google Analytics tells me I’ve been getting links from the two places where I’ve been participating.

And one more step I’ve just taken that can bring me more links (by bringing in more visitors) is setting up the KeywordLuv plugin. Again with the help of my friend Vance Sova from Learn List Building, I will learn how to make the most of this tool that rewards commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text.

Well, I’ll keep scratching the surface of SEO. It’s worth the effort!

I had a most interesting conversation the other day over Skype with my good friend Vance Sova. Since he is much more experienced on internet marketing than I am, it was a great opportunity for me to learn a bit more.

Vance told me about the importance of having links to other blogs or sites that are well established among the marketing community. Heeding his advise, what I did was to add a text widget I titled ‘Superb business blogs & sites’ to the top sidebar. My first two choices were Rick Schefren’s and Yaro Starak’s.

Vance also said I should be keeping track of who my most frequent commentators are. It’s a good practice to show who visits your blog and, by providing a direct link to their own blogs, I’d also be practicing good etiquette toward those kind enough to visit me and comment. I activated the Top Commentators plugin, listing them along with their avatars and quantity of comments left; I also hyperlinked their names to their blogs, to make it easier for others to visit them.

These two additions can be seen scrolling down past the free report optin.

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After the call, I wanted to find out more about search engine optimization for blogs. I found two resources of my interest:

• Website Grader, which gave me a marketing effectiveness ranking for my blog as it currently is and –most important– a report on how to improve that ranking, and
• All in One SEO Pack, a plugin to help me improve the chances of my blog being found by the search engines.

I am in the process of understanding both the above tools, but I think they can help me a lot to make my blog better, one of the items I pledged over when I first started my efforts.

As I fully grasp and implement these concepts I’ll be using the Website Grader badge to show and keep track of how the modifications I make affect my ranking. This should also give material for my next posts, otherwise so scarce!