It’s one thing to get search engine traffic, but is there any use to it, if you get unrelated terms? One example is this site, I get search engine traffic from people looking for the famous Roman “Mark Antony”, yet my content is totally unrelated to him and history so those getting here will not be best pleased, perhaps!

That’s one drawback to using your domain name as the same as your own  name. Yet originally I wanted my domain name to reflect myself, so I still take the view there is no real harm in doing that. But what techniques can be employed to help bring in search engine traffic…

One is permalinks If you use wordpress, in settings adjust your permalinks to point to your posts using the post title, instead of the default post number. It helps search engines find your post title slightly easier.

Tags. One thing I dislike about the popular site Flickr is the unlimited number of tags we are allowed to put in when we upload pictures. Tags are labels which can be applied to posts, and you think of keywords which relate to your posts and add them to the post tags. BUT don’t over use them. I strongly advise against what some do on flickr…Upload  a picture of a landscape and tag it  with BMW motor car!!

The greater number of tags increases exposure maybe, but again, what’s the use if your post is relating to say SEO and you tag it with horse racing??

Regular updates. When websites are updated regularly, search engines love it because it is fresh content, if it’s original. But again, I have to rebel against standard blog tradition here by saying daily updates are ONLY necessary IF you have something unique and relevant to say every day. If not, one quality update every three or four days is way better than sketchy daily updates about nothing in particular.

Think of your readership, and maybe even think of yourself as a reader. Do you visit sites on a daily basis, if so which ones and for what purpose? And then work out exactly how many updates you think a site like yours should get.

There are scores of articles on ho to get search engine traffic. But the best tip I can think of is write as best you can. My own aim is to use my websites to project my own life and  interests, and let the technical factors like SEO  work themselves out, which they will over time, if you are popular.