Blog promotion and marketing is extremely important for those wishing to increase the number of visitors to their blog(s). Nobody’s going to visit any blog that isn’t being promoted, and while it does sometimes take a little luck, relentless promotion is essential for bringing in the traffic.

For those new to blog promotion, here are a few tips to get you started:

• Make sure you know your target audience. If your blog is about pets, for instance, then obviously your number one objective should be to market toward pet owners. If your blog is about politics, then you need to be marketing toward other people interested in politics, especially those who share similar views with you.

• SEO. Search engine optimization is a must. If you’re unsure about what good keywords would go well with your blog, ask an SEO expert. Make sure you implement those specific keywords throughout your blog posts in an intelligent manner. Keep them spread evenly throughout your page.

• Visit popular message boards, especially those that center around your niche, and share ideas with other members. Make it obvious to everyone reading your posts on those forum(s) that you’re an expert. Have your blog linked as your signature, so that other members and lurkers will click to read more.

• If you’re not afraid of criticism, cause a little controversy. Controversy almost always attracts interest, be it good or bad. Write controversial blog posts, and then leave controversial comments at competitive blogs and forums in order to stir up some interest. Try not to be too negative, though, and you don’t want to be accused of trolling, so be careful.

• Try getting linkbacks from other blogs and websites, especially the ones that are of similar content to your own. The more established and higher ranking they are, the more it will help your own blog obtain a higher ranking.

Each of these five tips will help you bring in targeted traffic to your blog. There are countless other blogs and websites out there for you, thus a lot of competition. Many of the highly successful ones, including your niche’s competitors, have done these five things to make it to the top. These are all established methods, and bloggers use them for a reason—they work.

Remember, search engine optimization, blog promotion, and internet marketing are a lot of work, and while some are more lucky than others, true success is determined by the amount of time put in doing those five things mentioned above. Unfortunately, time can be wasted if you’re doing everything wrong, so if you’re unsure about whether or not you should take a certain step, don’t be afraid of asking an SEO expert for advice.

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Anybody who knows anything about SEO knows how important keyword density is. Keyword density plays an important role as far as page ranking goes. The number of times a specific keyword is used on a web page full of content represents the density of that keyword. If you use a specific keyword or keyword phrase 5 times in a 100 word article or page of content, then your keyword density is 5%. If you’re trying to get that page ranked high with search engines for that certain keyword or keyword phrase, you’ll obviously want good density.

Unfortunately, many mistakenly believe that the more times a keyword is used, the better. This is not the truth. In fact, if you use a keyword or keyword phrase too much on a page, you will be accused of keyword stuffing and maybe even spamming. That page may just get banned from search engines like Google. Thus the number of times a keyword is used isn’t the only way to measure density, but the way it is used is very important as well. If the keyword is thrown all over the page left and right then it is obviously “stuffing”. The best thing you can do is to try to find a balance on your web page.

Keep in mind that when I say “page of content”, I mean the words appearing on the page, and not the html or metatags. A good keyword density for a page of content will be around 3%-7%, and the keyword needs to be implemented in a professional manner and not just thrown all over the page in an obvious attempt at stuffing or spam. Therefore, for every 100 words appearing on your page of content, you should use the keyword or keyword phrase approximately 3-7 times in a professional manner.

One thing you can do is to measure the keyword density on the pages of your competitors. Find out exactly what the density is and pay close attention as to how the keywords are used on your competitor’s pages of content. There are a number of “keyword checkers” and “keyword density” measurement tools out there that can help you if you don’t feel like calculating it all yourself. Those who despise math can find these keyword checkers useful. These keyword density tools will even allow you to specify whether you would like to measure the content on a page only or the metatags and html as well.

Now that you have a better understanding of keyword density and how important it is to get it just right, you have increased your chances of succeeding with SEO.