And, while it’s best to use links to other sites and blogs that are in your subject and keyword targets, it never hurts to pull in some from the periphery of your site and it’s focus. Most of us are not so narrow minded as to live, eat, sleep and breathe the main focus of our websites and blogs.

We showed you how to link  a site to a keyword phrase, but Google loves authority, so another great way of creating both interest in an article and tickling that Google fancy for authority is to quote an entire paragraph from a site that is an authority, but not so much for YOUR keyword but for an idea or concept that helps you build on your own subjects.

Darren Rowse recently wrote a fantastic article titled “If Marylin Monroe Were a Blogger What Would She Do?” that incorporates some great tips on how to think of your readers and respond to your site and your articles. One point in particular grabbed me and it’s not just because it’s attributed to my favorite actor’s quote:

(2) “Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”—James Stewart (Jimmy Stewart)

For bloggers: This is a crucial mindset to have. Even if your blog is monetized, your visitors—who make up your audience—are your “partners.”

Always ask yourself: What do my visitors need? What benefits can I bring to them?

Know the difference between a fad and a trend. A fad comes and goes very quickly, but a trend lasts. You want to be positioned and ready to ride the trend as it rises. Become a ‘trend-forecaster’—know a trend is coming before it arrives so you can take advantage of it with your blog.

Now, I’m not too sure I’m much of a trend forecaster, but I for sure know I don’t treat you guys as “customers”. You are my friends and family and I hope my treatment of you reflects how I truly feel. I’m grateful for each and every one of you stopping by and visiting however often you do and even more grateful for the insightful comments you leave.

Brian Clark of Copyblogger talks about “method blogging” and I found particularly interesting this analogy to acting.

Blogging on the interent can and does give us a curtain to hide behind — sort of like the Wizard does in the Wizard of Oz. He hides his true self behind that curtain, projecting to his subjects his “all powerful” image.

We are encouraged and emboldened to show our brightest light to the world by the anonymity of the internet.

Brian writes:

Be Who You’re Not – Until You Are

When you take on a role, you can act and behave differently than you do in real life. Actors in Hollywood do this all the time. Julia Roberts played a prostitute. Robert de Niro played a gangster. Brad Pitt and George Clooney played heist specialists.

Then they all went home to their regular lives to be whoever they are.

So, am I pretending to know more about SEO than I really do?

Looking at my site’s PR, you would think so.

My Alexa ranking tells a different story — even after they adjusted their algorithm and moved away from the Alexa toolbar being such a major part of their ranking system, my rank is 79K which, when I look at other sites with Alexa ranks in the 75-85K range, most have PR of 2 or 3 and some have even higher than that.

I do know that I have a lot yet to learn. I hope that you, my friends and internet family will continue to explore and learn it’s intricacies along with me.

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