I wrote before about joining in the Thirty Day Challenge. While I was a little moire than 30 days in reaching my goal ( it was 40 days, and I made a little over $50), it was an eye opening experience in how to drive traffic to a web site. The biggest benefit for me was that it started me on a journey of learning how to compete with other web sites that are in a similar niche.

Let’s be honest, we’re in this because we want readers to our blogs, otherwise we would just be writing in diaries. While content may be king, without readers that king is merely a figure head. The real ruler is getting visitors to your site. This is especially true for those of you who are trying to earn money with your blog. If you can rank well on Google you have the potential to drive a lot of new traffic to your site for free. That’s always a good thing.
I’m going to be working on a series of posts that will look at what it really takes to rank well on the search engines, focusing mainly on Google, but also looking at Yahoo and MSN. Those are the big 3, and if you do what it takes to rank well there, chances are you’ll get noticed by the other search engines and directories.

I’ll still be writing about other areas of successful blogging such as using social media, creating great content, and how to successfully monetize your blog, but there will be a lot of focus on search engine optimization. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and for those who haven’t really looked beyond the use of keywords, it is easy to get caught up in the latest rumors. Hopefully we can put some of those half-truths and misguided opinions to rest.

Check back at Writing a Better Blog for more tips on building your blog. If you like what you’ve read, give me a link, a Digg, or a Stumble. There are links on the right make it easy for you. Thanks for reading.

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