I went to Raincamp Boston on Monday. I highly recommend that everyone go to the one in their area. Sure, it’s Real Estate specific but I learned so much there. Ben Kinney is so knowledgeable about how to use social media to get business. Although my brain was fried at the end of the day, Ben gave us many ideas that could be implemented immediately. If you want your site to come up when people are searching for what you sell, then you should implement these strategies too.

The first thing I did when I got home is went to my site and added titles and descriptions to every page. My site is built on the WordPress platform which gives my site an advantage because many SEO (search engine optimization) strategies are already built into it, and the ones that aren’t built-in are easy to add. Not that you can’t SEO a site built in HTML – but because WordPress is actually a blog, it has the advantage of built-in changing content. It’s less work for me to maintain it.

I then added titles to all the links in my pages – not any titles. I used keywords. When you create links here on ActiveRain, they ask you for a title. The title is not the word that you are linking, it’s the word that you believe people will type into a search engine so that your post pops up first.

Oh, most important about keywords, when choosing a keyword, try to get very specific: ie if you are writing about Worcester real estate, using the keywords (key-phrase) “WordPress blogs” is probably too broad and there’s too much competition. They may type in “how to SEO my blog” though. That is called The Long Tail, just to give you the technical term.

Now, on each page and when writing a blog post you should use your Long tail key-phrase at the beginning (in the title) and also at the end of each article, then once or twice in the middle of the article. Ben suggests 2-3 times for every 100 words that you write. A typical blog post is 300-500 words long. Any more often would be considered spamming the search engines.

Of course the most important SEO strategy is to write good content. Write for your reader first, the search engines second.

Another tip you can implement easily is to get other sites linking to yours. I use blogsearch.google.com to find other blogs to comment on. Since I am a WordPress expert, I look for blogs that write about WordPress. Oh, do not leave your URL (web address) in the post. WordPress is set up so that your name is linked to your site automatically. Leaving your URL is considered spam in the outside world.

I can go on and on with more SEO Strategies that you can implement right now, but I don’t want to leave you in overwhelm so I’ll save some strategies for later posts.

About a third of my inquires lately have been by people wanting me to teach them WordPress so that they can maintain – and even customize – their own sites. Makes sense. Most people create blog sites because you want control. You’re tired of being held hostage by a web designer who’s too busy to make a 15 minute change at the time you want it changed.

Before you can customize a theme, you need to know HTML. The best HTML tutorial I found is . Scroll down to the Basic Tutorial Mini-Chapters and begin. At the end of the tutorials I promise that you will have a good understanding of HTML.

Dave also has CSS tutorials too. Don’t worry about those just yet. Just get the HTML down.

Knowing HTML will also help you with formatting your pages. You will be able to fix formatting issues using the HTML editor because we all know that the Visual editor doesn’t always fix the problem.

Sandra Dodd, a great writer, wrote, “Somewhere between writing nothing and being a wealthy professional author, many people write in the middle ground, and others’ lives are changed.” 

Mediocre writing that changes people’s lives can be great content! It’s not about being a writer. In fact, it’s not about me at all. It’s about sharing ideas that change others’ lives that makes great content. Sheesh! Took me long enough to figure that out. 

If you are not a writer, from here on in, forget that you are not a writer and just set out to change lives by giving your readers great information.

Where do you get great information to share? You can start with a Google blog search. Plug in your keywords and see what others are writing about. Then give your take on the subject. You can scour the social networking sites and see what’s being talked about. Then report back to your readers what’s being said. There are lots of places to get inspiration on the internet.

Speaking of what’s being talked about, I read today that there is most likely a time of day when your writing juices flow more easily. Figure out what that time is, and block it off in your day timer each day. For me that time is after midnight when the rest of the world’s asleep. No phone calls, no email, no distractions. I don’t have to block off midnight in my day timer, but I do give myself a little extra time to sleep in the mornings after inspiration hits.

When writing, you have to have an audience. I learned that way back in my college English class and it’s still the same rule today. Know who you are writing to. Have a target market in mind. I’ve written a blog post in the past that shows you how to write as if you were speaking to your favorite client. It makes it so much easier to write naturally when you pretend you are actually speaking to someone. 

You don’t have to write it all in one sitting, either. My college English professor taught me to write something then put it away. Wait a few days, then take it out and you will see what you wrote with fresh eyes. Just don’t chicken out and decide that what you wrote sounds terrible. 

Ok, suppose you do decide that what you wrote sounds terrible. Then it may be time to hire a copy writer. Remember, you are a business and hiring a writer is a business expense. If writing is really agony for you, suck it up and pay a copywriter so you can spend that time making the money to pay her.