Blogs are a fantastic way to market online or to spread the word about a topic that is close to your heart. If you are interested in someone other then you and a few close friends and family members visiting your blog, you will need to attract traffic to it. You can accomplish this in several ways. You can purchase traffic from places such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. You can also optimize your blog for the search engines and receive free traffic. In this article, we will give you some tips to help you get your blog to the top of the search engines.

1. Limit the Competition: No, this doesn't involve anything untoward, such as hacking into another person's blog and shutting it down. Instead, it has to do with picking the right niche. Don't choose a niche that is too competitive. If the topic you want to blog about is very competitive, choose a sub-niche. For example, if you want to blog about weight loss, don't try to get high rankings for the word "weight loss." It will be nearly impossible. Instead, shoot for something like "lose ten pounds." You will have much better luck. However, please note, you will need to find a niche that has enough traffic that will support your blog.

2. Post Often: The search engines reward sites that are updated often. Be sure to post to your blog at least everyday. After you post to your blog, be sure to ping it. This will let the spiders know that you just made an update.

3. Use Blog Directories: This was a pretty popular method to get good rankings for your blogs in the past. However, it has been overshadowed by the social networks lately. It is still a great way to obtain incoming links and to also pick up some free traffic. I am still receiving hits from sites I submitted to blog directories 12 months ago.

4. Use Social Network Sites: Social Book Marking sites are a great way to gain really powerful back links to your site. They also work well for picking up some extra, free traffic as well. Just be sure not to spam these sites and every now and then, be sure that every site that you submit is not a sales page.

5. Use the Right Plug-ins: If you are using a Wordpress blog, the right plug-ins can go a long way in helping you secure top rankings. Here are a few good ones: the SEO Title Tag, Akismet, Google Sitemaps and Optimal Title.

These are five tips that will that help you properly optimize your blog. Remember to choose a topic that is not too competitive, post often, and submit your blogs to blog directories and social network and book-marking sites. Also, be sure to use the correct plug-ins. When used correctly, plug-ins will give you an advantage over the competition. If you follow the above tips and stick with your blog, you should see excellent results with the search engine. The most important thing is to keep on plugging along. You might not see results right away. But if you have chosen a good topic, you should see results soon.