Web SEO Consultant: “Well, lets look at the foundation of things.  The posts are effectively TBB, right?  If its posts are not optimized for search, then it goes without saying that TBB itself is not optimized for search.”

I reply: “Yes, but TBB Authors are all business bloggers themselves.  They write their own blogs, and their posts for their own blogs are presumably optimized for search.  After all, if they weren’t, then their own blogs wouldn’t be optimized for search either!  Why would they let that happen?”

Web SEO Consultant: “Do you know for sure that the personal blogs maintained by TBB Authors are in fact optimized for search?  They are all busy people, perhaps they just maintain their own blogs merely as a record of  their business thoughts intended for a limited audience of readers?  Perhaps they only seek to have their words read by clients, business associates, friends/family?  Also, perhaps their idea of SEO is a long way from a blog/site gaining real SEO traction?  SEO is an abbreviation thrown around with abandon these days, after all.

Seriously, how many of the TBB Authors are paying $60 a month for a service like WordTracker.com for the purposes of SEO-ing their own blog for business?”  ”And, how many who do subscribe are using WordTracker correctly?”

I reply: “Well I couldn’t really tell you, but let’s say not too many.  But what about the “WordTracker SEO Blogger Plugin for Firefox or the “SEO for Firefox” extension?  You know, something that’s offers a more affordable SEO package of services — affordable as in “free.”   Some Authors are probably using those tools, right?”

Web SEO Consultant: “Even if they are, those free SEO tools only provide a few elements of the SEO equation for any given keyword.   If Authors for TBB are using those tools and thinking their own blogs, and thereby TBB, are optimized for search, then their blogs and TBB are likely lost in the search engines unless they are a decade old with thousands of incoming links.”

I reply: “Ok, maybe so, but how about something else that isn’t free like the ScribeSEO.com service.  That works great with WordPress blogs, right?”

Web SEO Consultant: “ScribeSEO certainly works to some extent with something like a blog,  providing bloggers with information like keyword prominence, frequency, density within a given post, in addition to the annual search volume of the keyword.  But let me ask you this:  ”Is it missing anything that you need to know if you are ever hoping to rank on the first page of a search for a keyword in question?”

Let me give you a hypothetical:  Lets say a keyword you are thinking of is “Twitter Tools” and its searched 27,000 times in the past fiscal year.  Scribe SEO tells you that, so does the free “SEO for Firefox” extension, so does Google itself.    Do you think you are going to add that keyword to your post a few times and, boom, your post page at your blog will suddenly receive 27,000 additional views per year?”

I Reply:  ”Well obviously you’d want to use the keyword quite a bit in the post, in the title and so forth — that will probably help you edge the other sites out there competing for top rankings in search for that keyword.”

Web SEO Consultant: “True, using the keyword a great deal is a smart thing to do in general.  But what’s the competition out there for “Twitter Tools?” Looking at WordTracker.com I see that “Twitter Tools”  was searched approximately 27000 times and shows 1,760 other sites that are using “twitter tools” in their title tag and are also receiving a link from another site that has “Twitter Tools” in the anchor text of the backlink itself.  The backlink is an indication of another site vouching for the destination site and the information contained therein on “Twitter Tools;” its one of the main metrics for the search engine ranking of a site.

Does TBB have any of that for “Twitter Tools?”  And even if it does and your post has “Twitter Tools” in its title, do you really think that TBB is going to rank on the first page of a Google search vs. 1760 sites doing the same thing?”

I Reply: “Hmm, let me think about that…10 search results a page at Google, 1760 pages with “Twitter tools” used in title and anchor text of backlink, TBB is a young site with not a lot of external links as yet and nothing else that might help it along in the rankings.  I’d say that our chances of getting a first page result using “Twitter tools” is not likely at this point in time.”

Web SEO Consultant: “Right, I mean you can use it and 5 years down the road when you’ll probably have a great many more posts associated with TBB, more incoming links for it, etc. associated with it you may rank substantially higher in search vs. the 1760 pages out there now.  But even then, I’ll be very surprised if you show on the first page of a search on “Twitter tools.”

I Reply: “Yeah Good point.”

Web SEO Consultant: “Maybe you need a refresher concerning Search Engine Use Statistics and why page ranking is important.   Lets look back a few years to some study info that is freely available; this is from a  Forrester Research Report in 2006:

• “93% of Internet traffic is generated by search engines
• 99% of Internet searchers do not view beyond the top 30 results (first 3 pages in a search results)
• 78% more traffic is received by sites in the first 10 positions (the first page of search results) than those received on the 11th through 30th positions (the 2nd and third pages of search results). “

Obviously the first page of search results for a keyword is where you need to be.  And the second and third pages are better than nothing. Anything else is effectively “Lost in Space.”

If SEO is important to your near term readership results, not best-case 5-10 years down the road, then don’t waste your time solely using keywords  that have a ton of  competitive sites also using them. You’ll put in a ton of hours  trying to include them in your own site but you’ll find your site’s readership levels have not and may never improve through their use. Anybody who only does that is a…well the word begins with “S” and rhymes with “Tucker.”

I Reply: “Great, so what is TBB supposed to do?”

Web SEO Consultant: “Well, go ahead and use a few “Twitter Tools” type keywords in your posts — that is keywords that are highly searched but also very competitively used.  5 years down the road, these might be worth something for TBB if it grows.  But for the near term, use your WordTracker account to find related keywords that are searched in various amounts per fiscal year, but that are not competitively used — as in that have data suggesting only 5, 10, 20, 50 other instances in which the keyword is in both a post title and within the anchor text of incoming link.  With those keywords, you have a fighting chance of ranking on the first, 2nd or third page of search results on that keyword.”

I reply: “Ok, makes sense.  But most of the TBB Authors probably don’t use a WordTracker account.  What do I do, use my own, then make a list of related keywords that are not often competitively used by other websites and then pass that list along to TBB Authors and explain where, why, and how  they’ll want to integrate them in future, if not past posts?”

Web SEO Consultant: “Exactly.”

I reply: “Ok, good advice.  You still want that $1000 in 20s right?”