SEO is important - as a wise friend once said when questioned about the value of SEO - popularity gets people to your current blog posts, SEO is what gets people into your archives.
Search Engine Optimization isn’t a new concept but I’ve always had a hard time remembering to do it. I often am writing my posts at the last minute, or I just want to get them online, and I forget to add all the tags that describe the post.
Then, thanks to Sherrilynne, I discovered Zemanta and it automates the process. Making the process easier is always a plus in my opinion!
Once you’ve installed Zemanta it works as you write. It analyzes the words in your post and it finds photos that might be a good fit, it comes up with links to definitions and web sites about the words in your post, it suggests news related links and it suggests tags. Nothing is automatically added, you get to then quickly click on all of the things you’d like to add to your post and it’s done.
It’s made me someone who always has tags and more links - something I definitely didn’t have before. I highly recommend it to anyone who blogs! Has it made a difference in the traffic to my sites? I’m not sure - but at least it’s easier for me to do the work I know I’m supposed to be doing in my posts!
Are you good at tagging and making sure your posts are written for search engine optimization? Do you use something different than Zemanta? I would love to hear about it!