I thought I would give everyone a nice little example of how good SEO, search engine optimization, at the right time works.

Yesterday I found a post on my Facebook wall about the Blink 182 presale for their new album Neighborhoods. I thought their take on the old idea of a presale was really cool and creative so I wrote a quick article to share my thoughts.

My intention was first driven by wanting to share valuable information and not just jumping on a hot topic, but… Blink 182 is hot right now, on a tour, about to release a brand new album (the first since the band regrouped). So I titled the article Blink 182 Neighborhoods Presale is a New Twist on a Old Idea. I also tagged the article with keywords such as blink 182, neighborhoods, presale and I inserted these same keywords into the article where appropriate. You can spend alot of time tweaking your SEO, but if you cover the basics of title, tags and content you will be covering most of your bases.

Remember SEO is all about capturing people who are searching. And you need to ask yourself what would someone type into Google when they are searching.

Well the results were almost immediate. In the first twelve hours the article has rocketed to the top of a number of searches.

• blink 182 neighborhoods presale – #1 result. Above Blink 182’s own official Facebook pages.
• blink 182 neighborhoods pre-sale – #1 result. Above the Blink 182 store offering the presale and the official Blink 182 Facebook pages.
• blink 182 presale album – #3 result. Right behind Blink 182’s official website.
• blink 182 neighbourhoods bundle – #3 result. After the official Blink 182 store and before the Blink 182 Facebook pages.

Yesterday 8 of the top 10 search terms driving traffic to my site were related to Blink 182.

You might ask, why would you care about Blink 182 fans who are searching? They are not your customer. My response is, this is free traffic, it didn’t cost me a penny and it is exposure. I will always take free traffic. Ultimately, I do not know who is searching and reading the article and if even one person from a search result likes what they read and bookmarks my site, joins my email list, follows me on Twitter it is a win. One more fan for me.

I have been working in the internet since 1995… traffic is what drives everything. You want traffic! You want free traffic! Take just a few moments to look at your SEO when you are writing. Look for those small windows of opportunity around a hot topic and react quickly. I know I won’t be the #1 search result by the end of the week, but for now I am.