Most bloggers don’t know a thing about SEO. Many SEO’s don’t know a thing about blogging. Those who excel at both can be dangerously good and web marketing. Improving your web site rankings on search engines involves a large number of variables and the same goes for blogs. The difference is that there are unique linking opportunities with blogs that are not common with web sites.

Common blog linking tactics include:

• Trackbacks
• Comments
• Social book marks
• Tagging
• Blogrolls
• Guest writing on other blogs
• Blog, RSS directories

Methods to gain links commonly associated with web sites include:

• Backlink analysis on competing web sites or blogs
• Search engine directory submissions
• Profiles and bios
• Testimonials
• Job listings
• Interviews
• Contributions to non-profits
• Article marketing
• Social book marks
• Press releases
• Contributed articles to MSM web sites
• Media coverage
• Buying web sites
• Viral marketing - linkbait

Many bloggers miss out on the benefit of blogs being inherently search engine friendly by not taking advantage of web site linking tactics. In fact, blogs have an advantage over web sites without a RSS feed because they can easily be syndicated and they can be listed with blog and RSS search engines.

Here are some rankings on Google for Online Marketing Blog:

• “marketing blog” #1
• “blog marketing” #1

And on Yahoo:

• “marketing blog” #1
• “blog marketing” #2

These rankings are a result of good content AND inbound links. Each month more sites link to the blog without being asked. I call that “linking momentum”. In order to achieve linking momentum for a blog, you need to kickstart things by using linking tactics normally associated with web sites. Then you need to make sure you are creating linkable content.

Blog template optimization can only improve a blog’s rankings so much and many search engine optimization and blog marketing experts out there should pay more attention to blog linking. A steady stream of inbound links from a variety of relevant and authoritative sources can make a night and day difference for your blog’s search engine rankings.