The evangelists have spoken. They have called from the mount to change the way you manage your site; that optimizing for Internet search engines is the true way to attract web traffic to your site, and ultimately convert blog readers into Podcast listeners.

Do they know what they’re talking about?

One of the most outspoken of these evangelists, that I know, is Julien Smith. He swears by search engine optimization and has invested a lot of time into his own website in the hopes of increasing traffic. One such optimization that he is particularly proud of has resulted in #1 status for a Google search on “Godaddy promo“.

This status translates into significant web traffic. Prior to May, Julien was seeing light traffic on his Godaddy promo code page - maybe 100 hits per month. Since then, traffic to that page has increased significantly: 800 hits in May, 1300 in June, 2100 in July. Now he gets 3000 hits per month on that one page alone! Remember, that’s not his main page, and just one of many on his site that generate traffic. And… all of that traffic from a single Google search string.

Here’s what Julien did:

• created a descritive, keyword-based, title
• made sure the URL included the keywords (in WordPress, this is done through the Permalinks configuration)
• saturated his post with the keywords
• used tagging tools to cross-reference popular social media services such as del.icio.us, digg and Yahoo!

Be sure to listen to Julien explain some social networking strategies on a special edition of the Canadian Podcast Buffet.