My SEO Story

I started this blog to describe my experiences learning about search engine optimization (SEO). The goal of each post is to simply describe the answers I found to one of my SEO related questions. While I hope this is helpful to some people, the real purpose is somewhat self-centered: I simply want to catalog the things I've learned so I don't forget them! Hopefully you can benefit from what I've learned. 

Why did you start this blog?

To answer questions! Just kidding. Here's my SEO story. I was first introduced to the internet way back in the early days when the Web was just getting off the ground (say, 1994 or so). I remember making my first pages in HTML and having fun learning new options like 'horizontal rule' or 'blink' back in the old NCSA browser. A few years later, I started my first site on a geocities server and then my own. The Geocities page was basically simple HTML, while the latter incarnation involved me basically coding a very basic blogging tool for myself out of perl. I liked the site, but it was truly a blog in every sense of the word. It had my rambling thoughts and my main audience was friends who clicked in from the link in my AIM profile. I think Blogger existed at the time, but had not been integrated with Google yet. 

A few more years passed, and I decided to start a blog. The blog was aimed at a more general audience in my field of interest. I put much more effort into it, and was pleased to see the site get indexed and then get traffic from other sites and Google. Eventually I added AdSense, and once I saw those pennies start to trickle in, I was hooked. How do I get more traffic? How do I make my site better? And yes, how do I turn those pennies into dollars? That is when I first learned about search engine optimization. 

Most people reading this will probably be familiar with SEO, but for those who are not, the idea behind SEO is to design your site in such a way that it is easier for search engines to find it, index it, and rank it highly, thus garnering you search traffic. For more information, check out Search Engine Optimization For Beginners.  

Why should you read this blog?

The goal of this blog is to provide answers to the SEO questions I had and researched on the "Intertubes." If you have similar questions, hopefully you will find some helpful answers on here. 

I'm not sure how I feel about monetizing this blog. I'll probably add a few little things but it depends on whether anyone reads this! Honestly though, I make more money at my day job, so this is more of a hobby / sport for me. I view it as a challenge both from a design standpoint as well as from an algorithmic one. However, I can promise this: 

• I will try my best to provide high quality answers to these questions
• I will try my best to answer any specific questions you have, or help us both find the answer
• I will post whenever I feel like it =P Jus' sayin'... 
  
  
• I will not promote useless or overpriced products
  
• I will not rant about things beyond my control or irrelevant to the topic
• I will not waste your time with incorrect or poor information
  

If you find some use from this blog, more power to you. If not, hopefully you can find them through the information I link to. At the very least, I will be able to find answers to the questions I already asked!