I think social media can get you traffic and if your content it’s good many of those who will come will link to your content on social media websites or social bookmark it or just link from their blog. It’s a time consuming process in the beginning because you have to work so the people will “listen” to your posts and your links. Only then I’ll get traffic from my Twitter account for example.

Including keywords in your URLs and file names for pages & posts does help considerably. But if that can’t happen because of URL structure for a CMS (as an example) it is still possible to rank for keywords based on title, headings (especially these) and the rest of the content of the page.

If you forgot about all that stuff, I’d imagine you’d have an increased chance that your article would rank for keywords you don’t want to rank for.

If your content in no way mentions “marketing tips”, it is highly unlikely your article will show up for a search on “marketing tips”. True the backlinks will help your PageRank and will help Google identify what kind of stuff your site might be about, but for Google to find your page via the specific search in the search box for “marketing tips”, that keyphrase better be in your article.

Re: all the social networks. Those methods do work, but that is a lot of work and it is typically a slow process for most people. If you don’t know anything about SEO and could care less about it, your best option (at least in the short run) is to use PPC.

For about $150 this month, I’ve had 250 clicks to my landing page with decent conversions. It’s well worth learning how to use PPC.

On a side note, SEO is not that difficult (as I can see you already know some). Like you said, all you need to do is add a keyword phrase in your title when you can and in the body of your content (best toward the top). Links are good as well. If your article is about marketing tips, it shouldn’t be too hard inserting that keyword phrase in your article without sounding weird. Then if you do get all those backlinks, Google has a decent idea what keywords and phrases your PageRank will go with.

Without mentioning “marketing tips” anywhere in your article but at the same time have a decent PageRank due to the backlinks, your article “Be a good boy and fetch the ball” would probably rank well for good boy and fetch the ball.

I agree- good content is vital, but you need to learn some SEO tactics to separate from the herd a bit. My first SEO guidebook? SEO School over at ittyBiz. If you’ve got to learn something that can seem a bit overwhelming, Naomi is a great source- SEO and humor all at once.

What makes it start to really make sense, for me, though, is when I get these kinds of little reminders and tips in easy to digest nuggets! As usual- good stuff!

Blog Marketer – that’s me

And I’m not only a Blog Marketer….I am also a client lol.

It’s a balance act, I believe. Write great content, but you can’t neglect the importance of SEO. I have a business partner I met on the first page of Google, and she get’s rewarded lovely for it.

Toma, you bring up some great points too. I personally am working on my SEO skills and am big on social networking (Twitter, Facebook especially) for traffic.

I can also relate to “writing for Google”. It’s not fun at all and awkward. Balance is key.

Good stuff, Michael. Looking forward to connecting soon!
Dali Burgado

Here is what I think :
1. If you’re not doing any SEO and you just create awesome content here is what I think you should do (because if you don’t use SEO you need some other ways to attract attention to your blog or website) : you should use social media tools. You should use Twitter (for it’s simple way to communicate), you should use Youtube or Viddler or both, you should pay close attention to social bookmarking and you should use at least one more social tool : FB, Flickr, Myspace or whatever suits you. If this is the case I’m just wondering what would Google will think about this next situation :
A person doesn’t care about SEO and he names his article about marketing something like “Be a good boy and fetch the ball”. The article is so awesome and offers so many great tips on marketing that it attract thousands of backlinks and trackbacks from websites and blog that are about marketing. If this happens what would Google return on a search of “marketing tips” ? If that article comes up then it’s SEO in the sense of building backlinks. If it doesn’t show … I think it will.

2. If you are doing SEO and you are researching what search volume a keyword phrase has or what is your Google rank with some keyword phrases and trying to improve that you could easily fall in that part where you write for Google and keep repeating keywords just to get the right density that people will found your content dull and boring. If this is happening then you have no backlinks and very low weight in Google.

In conclusion I think you have to keep a balance :
- use SEO on your titles but add some words that will help you create a spicy title
- use your keywords in your content but don’t worry about density; go for the first paragraph, the last paragraph and one or two text links; and of course in your metatag
- make use of your social network to try and advertise your articles
- research what keywords generate high volume searches but also what are the hottest searches in your social media channel

PS : sorry for the long article; I was carried away