Any blog owner has an interest in search engine optimization / marketing whether they know it or not. For whatever reasons, you have chosen to setup one of the best traffic driving forces on the web today. I’ve been working on the web with Wordpress for over 5 years now, and I’ve tried many different plugins to improve my traffic ratings. Here I’ll discuss some of the tools I use to successfully drive traffic to my blog.

#1: HeadSpace for title tag management

HeadSpace is a plugin for Wordpress that allows you to create dynamic title tags based on page content. HeadSpace also allows you to create special scenarios for certain types of pages, such as a 404 page or individual post pages. HeadSpace has a full GUI interface that is easy to use and easy to setup. It’s no secret that rich title tags will improve your search engine ranking.

HeadSpace also has an auto-tagging feature that will plugin to the Yahoo! Tagging API to auto-generate / suggest relevant tags based on your post content.

#2: Make use of update services

One of the best parts about using Wordpress is that it has the ability to automatically contact web services and alert them when new content is available. I’ve optimized my blog by extended the defauly list to include many popular update services. The services I list under “Settings > Writing” include:

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://ping.blogg.de/
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

I’ve gathered these sources from a articles written at The Weblog Zone.

#3: No-Ping-Wait Wordpress Plugin

I highly recommend using the No-Ping-Wait Wordpress Plugin. This plugin will save bloggers from having to wait for all of the update services to respond to the new post pings.

#4: Max Blog Press Ping Optimize Plugin

I also recommend that you install Max Blog Press Ping Optimizer. This Wordpress plugin will prevent your blog from posting pings for every change you make to your blog. Basically the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer will prevent your blog from getting tagged as ping spammer.

#5: Use Google Trends to research your target keywords

Google Trends allows you to see what the volume of searches are for particular key phrases and where they are coming from in the world.

#6: Use Google Insights for Search to see what the world is searching for

With Google Insights for Search you can follow popular search trends (which means you can basically see what your target market finds interesting). An added value of this tool is the comparison possibilities. You can compare between specific time periods, countries, categories and create combined filters.

What else can I do?

As always, I have a few others left up my sleeve. If people seem to find this helpful and useful I’ll do a follow up on the subject.