Search Engine Opt and getting traffic

Ok, everyone wants to know effective ways to get more traffic for your web site, right? Heck, I do! If you have a site - you want people to come to it, right?

Let me start by saying that if you really want to push the envelope, you need a system that's SEP (search engine optimized) friendly. Let's say you're using WordPress, because that's the best way to go. Really.

Let me also say, I'm not an expert. This isn't an end all and a guarantee to get you the most hits for your site. This is my suggestions and recommendations.

First, in the 'Settings' page, make sure you have 'Permalinks' set up. This is the first, and extremely important, thing you need to do. Otherwise the rest is kind of useless.

This is what I roll with. Simple, easy and clear.

Now, on to the plugs - this is where we need to start installing some simple plug ins that will help you really roll out your SEO.

These are some plugs for WordPress that I'd roll with:

Configurable Tag Cloud
A tag cloud plugin for Wordpress 2.3 to give you more flexibility with the styling of your tag cloud. By Keith Solomon.

Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. Configuration Page By Arne Brachhold.

NoFollow Free
Remove the nofollow tag from your blog’s comments with a lot of options customizable, per user type removal, per comments count removal etc… Supports multilingual and a Top Commenters sidebar Widget. By Michele Marcucci.

Platinum SEO Pack
Complete SEO solution for your Wordpress blog. By Techblissonline Dot Com.

SEO Smart Links
SEO Smart Links can automatically link keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding posts, pages, categories and tags. By Vladimir Prelovac.

Slashdigglicious (More on social book marking later)
Add user-submission icons and links at the bottom of each post: Digg, del.icio.us, etc. By Robert Tsai.

WordPress Mobile Edition
Show a mobile view of the post/page if the visitor is on a known mobile device. Questions on configuration, etc.? Make sure to read the README. By Alex King.

WP Auto Tagger
Automatically finds tags based on your post content. By iDope.

These are all pretty self explanatory. If I had to pick two or three I'd definitely go with Platinum SEO Pack, Google XML Sitemaps and WP Auto Tagger. These are all pretty important, especially for later in this 'tutorial'.

Tomorrow - RSS Feeds.