Optimizing a blog is a bit different than your standard website search engine optimization (SEO), particularly because most blogs run off standard blog platforms, or worse, run as a hosted blog on someone else’s domain name. And there are design issues that can be unique to blogs which can impact your rankings

• Dump The Default Template – Looks Count!

• Just Say No To Bad Color Schemes

• RSS Me!

• Offer RSS & Feed Subscription Buttons

• Offer Posts Via Email

• Decide On Full Or Partial Feeds

• Write Compelling Snippets/Descriptions

• Pay Attention to How You Write

• Spelling Counts

• Fontography Counts

• Don’t Forget Navigation

• How Fast is Your Host?

• Avoid Widget Overload!

• Have Descriptive Titles

• Look at your Cascading Style Sheets

• Post Often

• Spread the Link Love

• Be Aware of Your Anchor Text

• Create Unique Stories

• Use a Related Posts Plugin

• Ping Other Sites

• Buy Your Own Domain Name

• Manage Your Trackback & Comment Spam

• Use a Good URL Structure

• Use Great Categories

 25 Tips To Optimize Your Blog For Readers & Search Engines

25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog

How to Attract Links and Increase Web Traffic – The Ultimate Guide 

Other good references: 

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 | SEO Book

101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips | SEOpedia

10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic | SEOMoz

8 Reasons Why Lists Are Good for Getting Traffic to Your Blog | Problogger

Ways to Get to the Top of the del.ico.us Popular Page | Problogger

3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic | Performancing

How to Get Traffic For Your Blog | Seth Godin

The Art of Linkbaiting | Performancing

The Art of Blog | SEO Black Hat

What is Linkbaiting? | Modern Life is Rubbish

SEO Advice: Linkbait and Linkbaiting | Matt Cutts of Google

Problogger Link Baiting Series | Problogger

Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 Revealed | Link Building Blog

What Makes a Site Link-Worthy? | Eric Ward

Using Digg to Attract Hits | Slate

Using Digg and Netscape to Get Traffic | Pronet Advertising

Social Bookmarking for Traffic | SiteProNews

The Sandbox and Delicious | Graywolf’s SEO Blog

Unleashing the IdeaVirus | Seth Godin

Viral Copy | Copyblogger

Building Traffic to Build Your Fan Club | Copyblogger

Trust Rank and Your Domain | Link Building Blog

Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns | Search Engine Watch

Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit | Search Engine Journal

Link Building Guide | Jim Westergren

Link Baiting & Effective Link Building | Search Engine Journal

Link Baiting and Viral Search Success | Search Engine Roundtable

How Much is Link Bait Worth? | Cartoon Barry

Link Baiting | Stuntdubl

Link Baiting Case Study from Search Engine Journal | Search Engine Journal

Link Bait | SEO Book

The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do | Seth Godin at Squidoo

Building Traffic With Article Marketing | Copyblogger

Link Building Blog | Text Link Ads

Link Building Wiki | Text Link Brokers

Advanced Link Building Tactics | SEOMoz

Link Building for Blogs | TopRankBlog

10 Creative Traffic Building Ideas | TopRankBlog

5 facts on link building  | SeoPedia
Press Release Quick and Easy Guide | IncreaSEO

An Indepth Look Into Free Press Release Site | IncreaSEO

How to Get 105,934 Unique Visitors | BrianKim

Ten Ways To Write A Killer Blog | maryamie

Link Building Resources | WebGeek

Apparently social networking site Bebo and sexy celebrity Paris Hilton have respectively been the top search terms or keywords for Google Search and Google News Search. This obviously continue the trends of popularity of Paris Hilton and increasingly popular social networking sites that starts with MySpace, which now is the second most searched term, giving up the top spot to Bebo.

Other top search terms in Google.com in 2006 are:

1. Bebo
2. MySpace
3. World Cup
4. Metacafe
5. Radioblog
6. Wikipedia
7. Video
8. Rebelde
9. Mininova
10. Wiki

And top searches in Google News for 2006 are:

1. Paris Hilton
2. Orlando Bloom
3. Cancer
4. Podcasting
5. Hurricane Katrina
6. Bankruptcy
7. Martina Hingis
8. Autism
9. 2006 NFL draft
10. Celebrity big brother 2006

There are also listing of popular and hot questions been asked, with the questioned subjects, persons, activities or objects ranged from borat, hezbollah, eu, mohammed, buckethead, carisoprodol, acyclovir, alprazolam, tramadol, vicodin, hydrocodone, vicodin, xenical, xanax, refinance, drift, podcast, levitate, promiscuous, calidad, ftw, ensayo, ciencia, harlequin to filosofia and etc.

Most interesting is, “What is hot?” is also been asked. And it definitely is something like current events in Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Hilary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama, or Nicole Kidman wedding, Tom Cruise wedding, or divorce of Paul McCartney, Travis Barker, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Eninem.

When it comes to search engine optimization, there are certain common mistakes that I see people making over and over again. Here’s a list of the 10 most common mistakes that I see people making:

1. Optimizing your site for the wrong keywords
2. Putting too many keywords in the Meta Keywords tag
3. Repeating the same keyword too many times
4. Creating lots of similar doorway pages
5. Using Hidden Text
6. Creating Pages Containing Only Graphics
7. Not using the NOFRAMES tag in case your site uses frames
8. Using Page Cloaking
9. Using Automatic Submission Tools
10. Submitting too many pages per day

By avoiding these mistakes, you can avoid a lot of anguish and frustration in the long run.