I used Website Grader to do an analysis of the top 20 bloggers (according to Technorati) and found that they are really not good at SEO. Here is what they are doing wrong: 40% are missing a 301 / permanent redirect 65% are missing a description 80% are missing keywords metadata So, my question is... is SEO important for a successful blog? PS - Here is a link to a blog article I wrote about the top 20 bloggers SEO report using this data, it also has a link to the report.
Is SEO important for a successful blog? Yes. Is it required? No, as your data shows. I believe the "content is king" cliche applies here. If you can generate quality discussion about a topic that many people are interested in, the traffic can find your site regardless of your SEO efforts. But I dont think anyone on DP will deny that ignoring good SEO rules is a wise thing to do if you want blog traffic.
Content is king, but only if people can find it, right? Without doing the basics of SEO, your content is really hard to find, even if it is amazing...
Only for an SEO blog or a blog that depends on search engine rankings for that site to be found. How many times have you searched for Ebay in Google? If President Bush started a blog about "insert political joke here", it wouldn't need to spend a dime on paid links and such. With that in mind, if a site is completely unspiderable, you simply won't rank. I'd rather be in a position with tons of natural inbound links and a terribly coded site. People will code a site for pennies. No one gives up a link for nothing! Brandon