Don't we all want to get more traffic to our blogs or websites? No one likes to hear the crickets when they post something on their blog or website. I receive a weekly newsletter from AME and have found it very helpful.To subscribe to newsletter, click here:subscribe@amarketingexpert.com. I especially loved this article by Joel, it's just what I needed to know. I share this in hopes that it can help you too.

"Author Blogging 101: Simple SEO for Authors  "  

Article by Joel Friedlander www.thebookdesigner.com

"Attract search engine traffic to your blog with these tips for keywords, links, anchor text and more:

Author-blogging 101

If you have a blog you may have already run into a lot of the terms used in simple SEO. These make up the basic building blocks we’ll be using in our SEO strategy. You’ll need to understand these to get anything out of your efforts:

Building blocks of SEO: 

Keywords - The term people type into search bar.
Links - The way our website connects to other websites.
Anchor text - The actual text used to create a link.
Referring sites - a site that contains a link to another site.
Target site - A site linked to by a referring site.
Domain name - The URL website. Some are more effective than others, and when you study keywords this will be apparent.
Scannable - Text broken up with list and sub-headers to make it easy to take in what the post is about from a glance.
Page rank - A measure of websites general level of influence and authority, as determined by Google. Google assigns a page rank to every web page, from 1 - 9. Google.com is a 9, whenever you start a blog yours in a 1. Links from higher page ranks have more beneficial effect on your own ranking.
Link Juice - Authority or influence passed from a website to another through a link.
Organic traffic - Traffic from links you create. Traffic from link other people create.
Visitors - Someone visiting another website can click a link that will bring them to your blog or website.
"Juice" - A link from a site with more authority, a higher rank with search engines or longer lifespan can offer some of that authority to your site by linking to it. (Due to a fair amount of people trying to artificially enhance their site ranking, many sites now tags the links people leave in comments on a blog as "No Follow links" meaning none of the blog's authority will "follow" the link to the site being linked to.)


 11-ways-to-get-started-linking-for-traffic:

1. Blog comments - the link to your site is embedded in your name.
2. Guest post- When you post an article on someone else's blog as a guest author, you have a chance to link back to a couple of relevant articles on your own blog. You'll also get to add an author bio with links.
3. Status updates - FB, Google+ link to direct people to that content.
4. Twitter links - Short headliners and combine it with link.
5. Forum discussions- there are forums for every interest online, finding a couple in your subject area can be a real boon. Posting useful content will allow you to link back, when appropriate to your own blog. 
6. Social signature - every time you create an account you'll be asked to complete your profile. Don't neglect these opportunities to link to your blog, and don't neglect your "Signature" file either. Which appears whenever you post something, link in signatures can be creatively crafted and quite effective. 
7. Good profile - In Google + it's well worth having a good profile.
8. Email signatures - Do you link to your writers blog or website or mention recent books?
9. Article marketing - (see article marketing) how-self-publishers-can-sell-more-books-with-article-marketing-part-1/
10. Online press release - spread news and updates about your book.
11. New social sites- like pinterest, they have gained big followings.

*Reprinted from "The Book Marketing Expert newsletter," a free ezine offering book promotion and publicity tips and techniques. http://www.amarketingexpert.com