Since the launch of Sam’s Web Guide, I have experienced an increase of over 1,000% in search engine traffic and the method for achieving this was not very difficult but has been very specific. Although there are so many factors that search engines use for determining ranking, today I’m going to share the most important techniques I employed that have helped my blog to soar even in tough times.

Gaining Relevant Links

Acquiring relevant links is one of the most important and effective elements when implementing your SEO strategy. Quality backlinks to your site improves its trustworthiness and weighs your position excellently when they are relevant to the content they are pointing to on your blog.

My most relevant and powerful backlinks were gained through guest posting on popular blogs that have already acquired massive authority in search engines. Regardless of what others may be saying about guest blogging, it provides solid benefits for strengthening your blog’s position and promotes you as an online publisher / blogger. Ensure that you are able to include a few relevant links back to your site with the correct use of title tags and keywords.

There are blogs that I have guest posted on that resulted in an increase of up to 10% in search engine traffic within just a week, so gaining those quality backlinks is very important for your SEO goals.

External Links

Don’t be mean with your outbound links. In fact, use links whenever they are necessary and ensure that they are pointing to trusted websites that have maximum authority. So if you’re supporting your articles with outbound links to sources of information, use sites like WordPress.org, Google.com, Wikipedia.org or any other site that provides the best official material. When writing anything about WordPress, I always include relevant links to their official site.

These outbound links contribute to the relevance of your blog posts and thus rank better in search results.

Using The Right Keywords

I have realized that this is something that most bloggers either overlook or overdo. Aim for a keyword density of 3 to 8% and write with your users in mind, ensuring that your articles are understandable and easy to read. The keywords you use basically help provide a map for users to find your posts through search engines. Its very important that the backlinks you gain are supported by the right keywords in both the link text and title tag. Spend the extra time when creating your links to get these just right.

Posting Frequency

Although I have not been posting frequently recently due to some offline challenges, my blog has a very good history of posting consistently and on relevant topics and provides lots of data. Maintaining a healthy posting frequency indicates to google and other search engines that you are a provider of fresh content. In fact, your fresh content may even gain higher priority in search results at times than articles that are well placed on established sites.

The foundation built in the earlier days of my blog through consistent posting and other SEO techniques have been able to continuously capture a decent number of search engine visitors even though my blog was dormant for a couple of weeks.

So create a schedule and stick to it.

The Results

When my blog was first launched only about 10% of my total traffic came from search engines and most of my traffic was from connecting with other bloggers through blog commenting and social networking. My search engine traffic now accounts for 50% of total visits and the numbers are steadily rising each month. This figure can vary depending on your activities online and how you gain your traffic.

So I am quickly answering some of the questions posed in my previous article, “Will Social Media Marketing Consistently Outperform Search Engine Optimization?” I will soon be writing a report on my findings and how Social Media Marketing compares with SEO. So be on the look-out for it.

Conclusion & Discussion

Search Engine Optimization has become much simpler to implement and with plugins like the All In One SEO Pack, more labor intensive SEO tasks can be automated giving you lots of free time to focus on the tips and techniques mentioned above. There really is no secret formula but only consistent practice of some basic fundamentals.

How has your search engine traffic improved as your blog grows and how much has it changed since you first started blogging? Please share your experiences with us by leaving a comment below. We would love to hear from you.

To help us understand what’s really happening, there are a few kind, hardworking and blessed individuals who spend the time and money to do the research to find out who’s blogging, how, when, where and why. Thanks to them, I’m, able to compile this post and reveal some very interesting facts about blogging and social media and their impact.

So here are some mind-blowing statistics that show what’s really happening in the blogosphere, social media and beyond.

Statistics of the Blogosphere

1. More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
2. 77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann
3. Blogging is equally popular among both men and women with 50.9% of bloggers being female and 49.1% being male.
4. The United States has the largest share of bloggers with 29.22% of bloggers coming from the U.S.
5. 60% are 18-44, 75% have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees
6. One in four has an annual household income of $100K
7. Around half of Bloggers are working on at least their second blog
8. 86% have been blogging for at least a year
9. 70% of all respondents say that personal satisfaction is a way they measure the success of their blog
10. 61% say they blog in order to supplement their income.
11. 53% of professional Bloggers are interested in attracting new clients from blogging.
12. 57% say that their future plans include blogging even more (including 74% of 18-24 year olds).
13. Part-Timers, Pros, and Self-Employed Bloggers are blogging more than ever, while Hobbyists are blogging somewhat less.
14. 15% of Bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.
15. One in five Bloggers report updating on a daily basis.
16. The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.
17. The majority of blogs use tags (85%).
18. 82% of respondents say that they post photos to their blog, making images the most popular form of multimedia.
19. Bloggers participate in an average of 5 activities to drive traffic to their blogs.
20. 72% of respondents are classified as Hobbyists, meaning that they report no income related to blogging
21. 38% of bloggers post brand or product reviews.
22. 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry.
23. 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog

Blogging Platform Traffic Statistics & Demographics

According to Compete.com, WordPress.com dominates the blogosphere with approximately 35 Million unique visitors per month as of May 2010. The graph below shows a comparison of monthly unique visitor traffic between WordPress.com, Tumblr, Posterous, Typepad and Blogger over the past year.

Sysomos, a provider of social media analytics, has also presented a report based on an analysis done on 100 Million blog posts showing bloggers’ age, gender and locations. You can find the full report here and below you will see a table of percentages of bloggers by location.

Based on the table above, we see that the majority of bloggers in the world reside in the United States by it does not deter the fact that blogging is truly a global activity and can be launched successfully from any country.

Social Media Statistics

We cannot deny the power of social media and its endless possibilities when it comes to launching and growing your business and truly connecting with the world. The statistics below will give you an idea of social media’s reach and impact on the world and should help convince you of its effectiveness if you’re still doubtful about it.

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
2. 96% of them have joined a social network
3. Facebook now tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
4. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
5. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
6. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…
7. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
8. iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
9. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
10. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
11. Yet, QQ and Renren dominate China
12. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
13. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
14. More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.
15. More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008 and more than 60M Facebook users engage with it across these external sites each month.
16. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
17. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  populations of Ireland, Norway, or Panama.  Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
18. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
19. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
20. Instead they are distributing: eReaders + iPads + Tablets
21. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
22. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
23. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
24. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles…studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
25. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs in existence
26. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
27. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1,712.32 per hour
28. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
29. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
30. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
31. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
32. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
33. Only 14% trust advertisements
34. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
35. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
36. Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas
37. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
38. 60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily
39. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
40. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
41. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
42. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men Listening first, selling second
43. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years

Discussion & Conclusion

What can we learn from these statistics? The main thing anyone should realize is that blogging and social media are here to stay, at least for now, and any viable online business can be launched beyond traditional boundaries and truly excel globally.

What are your thoughts on the distant future of blogging and social media? Please leave a comment below, we would love to hear from you.

Sources:

Socialnomics by Erik Qualman
Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere
Sysomos Analytics