Optimizing blog posts for Google has just become a lot easier. Search Engine Optimization Blogger http://labs.wordtracker.com/seo-blogger/ is a free Firefox plug-in from Wordtracker which helps bloggers grow their audience by easily producing search engine friendly posts.

For a blog to be successful it must get to the top of the search engines. To be easily found by search engines like Google, bloggers need to use keywords in the copy that the people they are trying to attract are actually searching for.

Search Engine Optimization Blogger sits alongside whichever blog publishing software they're using and allows them to do keyword research as they write.

Writers can find the most popular keywords for a topic without leaving the publishing screen. The tool also gives a count of how many times a chosen keyword has been used in the blog text.

Such is the rise in blogging, with an estimated 1% earning over $200,000 per year, the WSJ** are declaring blogging to be the newest profession in America. According to comScore blogs attracted 77.7m unique visitors in the US in August 2008, and the number of bloggers in the US is predicted to reach over 35m by 2012, equating to around 16% of the total online population.

"Blogging is becoming big business - whether as part of a social media brand campaign, selling products or earning a living from writing a blog as a trend or opinion former or a brand advocate" said Andy Mindel, CEO, Wordtracker.

"The Blogosphere is growing in size and influence, and bloggers, whether trend and opinion formers or brand advocates, need to react quickly and accurately to create copy that will attract their target market, improve their position on search engines and increase traffic." Said Ken McGaffin, CMO, Wordtracker.


[econsultancy]