My company has a lot of blogs for the various businesses that I’m starting - 52 to be exact. Most of them are run on Wordpress, which I really like, one is run on an old install of TypePad (which is clunky, but might be because I need to update), and one is run on Tumblr.

I love Tumblr. I love the user interface, the way that you can post quick snippets of things. Quotes, pictures, text, links…it is fun to use. And the templates are awesome. The Cara Austin blog is on Tumblr, and it’s a delight to update every day.

But there is a fundamental problem with Tumblr that I wasn’t aware of before I started using it - the search engines don’t seem to like it. In the two months since I have been posting (every weekday starting March 13, 123 posts total), the blog has only received 17 visitors from Google. Every one of those visits, except one, had the term “Cara Austin blog” or “Cara Austin Tumblr” as the search term.

This is a major problem for a commercial blog. I have a personal Tumblr that I use for my own things, notes, things I want to remember - and I don’t care if no one ever comes to that site. But for Cara Austin, a musician who needs to get her name out there and needs to sell albums, this is a big issue.

I didn’t know this about Tumblr. I didn’t know that the pages wouldn’t be indexed well (or show up high) on Google. I knew that Tumblr doesn’t have comments. And I knew that Tumblr didn’t have a search engine built in. These things I decided to live with.

But I didn’t know that Tumblr had a search engine optimization (SEO) problem.

I could no longer ignore the fact after I launched another new blog on Wordpress on April 23, put up a few posts, and that blog starting receiving more traffic, from a wider variety of search terms, in a much shorter time period.

Here’s a little chart to illustrate:

And so I’m leaving Tumblr. I’m leaving with a tear in my eye, but I’m leaving nonetheless.

Photo by Jaye_Elle

Search engine optimization or SEO is the practice of trying to get your Web site to appear higher in a search engine’s organic search results for the keywords for which you want to be listed. The idea is that if someone is searching for a term that is related to your business, you want to be listed at the top of the search results page because that person will be more likely to click on your listing and come to your Web site. Organic search results are the “natural” search results, or the listings that are free. More about organic vs. paid listings below.

There are many factors that contribute to where sites are listed in organic search results - the combination of these factors is called the “algorithm.” Only some of these factors can be impacted with SEO tactics:

• Domain name - If your keywords are listed in your URL, you’ll have a better chance of being ranked higher in the search results for those terms.
• Duration - The longer your site has existed, the higher you’ll be ranked.
• Content - If you have high-quality content on your Web site, and the content matches the keywords for which you’re trying to rank, you’ll have better luck getting listed. It’s also beneficial if your site has frequently updated content.
• Metadata - This is data that allows you to describe your Web site with a title, description and keywords. Metadata sits behind the scenes on your Web page and plays a factor in organic search results.
• Incoming links - If your site has a number of other sites pointing to it, the search algorithms will determine that it’s of higher value and will list it higher in the search results. You will get an even bigger benefit from incoming links if the text that links to you contains the keywords for which you’re trying to rank.

SEO may sound like a relatively simple concept, but there are SEO experts who execute these tactics full-time and trust me - it’s more complex and difficult than it sounds. This post is just meant to be a starting definition of the term, and not a how-to or training guide in any way. For that info, follow the resources links below.

One quick comment about organic vs. paid search listings: All the various search engines display both free and paid listings on their search results pages. For example, if you type the term “SEO” into Google, the results that you get back will be a combination of organic (or natural) search results and paid search results. The screenshot below has the paid search results areas circled in red.

Let me say again that SEO can be fairly complicated and I am just scratching the surface with this definition. I definitely recommend checking out some of these additional SEO resources:

• Wikipedia’s SEO definition
• SEO Chat - articles and insight into SEO
• Search Engine Strategies - Conference series that covers SEO in great depth
• Search Engine Watch

I just talked to Chris Baggott, co-founder of ExactTarget, about Compendium Software, his new company that has a product focused on “organizational blogging.” From his description, the tool is pretty slick and a potential power-tool for the enterprise, but I was most impressed with the SEO benefits in Google’s organic search results. To demonstrate, Chris suggested that I use Google search and type in the phrase “Blogging Best Practices.” His company was listed #11, on page 2 of the search results.  Then he had me search for “Easy to use Blogging Software” – it was the #2 listing, page 1 in organic results. This is all done by the company’s technology and a process that he calls “compending.” A blog tool that has the power to impact search results in this way is going to make some noise. There’s an interview with Chris on Inside Indiana Business where you can hear him talk about his company and its technology.