Could you give a short schedule of what bloggers should do each day to boost SEO for their blogs (this can include beginner, intermediate and/or advanced SEO techniques - whatever you think bloggers should make sure they do everyday that's SEO related)?
Beginners: Read, read and read some more. Eventually you'll find who the leading authorities are in a field because all the second level and C-list authorities are referencing them. Don't restrict your reading to them, but try and read them at least a few times a week, and mix in b- and c-listers who write original material and make you think.
While recently client work has made me cut back, I was reading 15 - 20 hours a week on SEO for a very long time. Luckily, I'm at the point where a lot of material isn't new to me anymore so that reduction isn't entirely a loss - some of it is no longer useful to me. And I've been reading consistently for 2 + years now. Not 15-20 hours a week since the start, but I was reading at least 5 - 10 a week starting out.
People who say you can succeed with only a half hour of work a day are lying. It takes long hours of hard effort, and the first thing you need to do is feed your brain with quality reading, because otherwise you won't be able to think of your own ideas to share on your blog.
If you have nothing original to share, it's going to be harder to get people to promote you. Not impossible mind you, given how much crap people promote just because they're friendly with the crap-producer.
I would commit a minimum 5 - 10 hours a week to reading in your niche if you're serious. Sure, I call myself "bookworm seo" ... but then again this reading list has been a critical element in allowing me to have the early successes I have had. How many bloggers two years in are speaking at major industry trade shows like SMX West and SMX Advanced?
The next point is to build relationships. In your day-to-day business life, consider who you're closest to, and what those people do for you that makes them special.
My friend Jon, for example, will jump to my defense when we play soccer and someone pulls a dirty move on me. Considering he's ~180 - 200 lbs, most people get that I'm not a good person to play nasty with. And I really appreciate that. Online, if you see a friend being slandered, etc., they will appreciate and remember those names in the comments who came to their defense.
I've had people say nasty things about me online ... and rather than being defended, more stupid people jumped on the bandwagon. I did notice though when the blog's owner - who I know - edited the post to reference my point-of-view. I wasn't too happy that he allowed the tripe to be published to begin with, but it was nice to see he was at least giving me a chance to defend myself.
Just to be clear, I'm all for constructive criticism, and friends/people who respect you will actively give you that feedback. Giving it to others is another way to build a relationship. Be sure to criticize actions/ideas and never people, though, or your constructive criticism will be taken as an insult.
Of course, you won't find people flaming friends nor find something to criticize every day amongst the people you want to build relationships with. So you'll want to consider other ways of building relationships online.
I absolutely love forums and social networking sites for meeting new people and making acquaintances ... but IM is the best for building and developing those relationships once they're formed. If you can spend an hour or two a day reading feeds and collecting links to your favourite posts for submission to social news sites, you'll quickly build a lot of relationships. I would also focus on niche community sites rather than go to Digg. This can be the same time you're reading as part of the weekly 5-10 hours.
My friend Shana Albert of Social Desire got Darren Rowse's attention by submitting his stuff regularly to different social media sites. I know that Maki of Dosh Dosh Internet Marketing has done the same with many folks, although he's spent time going the mass-social-media route with building up a power profile on Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.
Finally, as to being advanced, go through the archives of these sites and read some more:
- Blue Hat SEO
- Slightly Shady SEO
- Nicky Cakes
- Rogue Domainer
- Oooff
- Nop
- Diorex
- Dink
- Search Engine People
- Gray Wolf's SEO Blog
Schedules all depend on how quickly you want to be succesful, and how succesful you want to be. "Working smart" just means using tools to be more efficient and making relationships with others so that they lend a hand where it's needed. The rest is all about putting in the hours.
