Make the title of your blog entries clear rather than clever. Andy Wibbels, author of Blogwild! notes that search engines don't understand puns. You can also use Technorati tags in your posts, put a Google Sitemap on your blog, and get many relevant, inbound links to your site -- all of which will improve your search engine rankings.

To drive traffic to your blog and further enhance your online profile, find a couple of relevant blogs you like, add them to your blogroll, read them regularly and leave comments. Done effectively, this is a great networking activity that may result in gaining real-world contacts. And when you link to others' blogs, those site owners will be more inclined to link to you, which in turn will boost your rankings.

Bring real-world activities online to get twice the bang for the effort. For example, if you speak at a tech conference, publish photos or video clips from your presentation on your blog or website. Also, reuse content you post on other websites. For example, if you post a review of an IT-related book on Amazon.com, post the same review at barnesandnoble.com, but be mindful of each site's terms of use and service, as some sites may claim ownership to whatever content you post. Collaborate with colleagues on a blog or article to split the work and gain the same benefit.

Participating in online discussion forums helps you to connect with and become more visible to others who share the same interests, though it's not necessarily a part of your public online identity that will show up in a search. You can find forums through Google Groups or Yahoo Groups, and some by-invitation forums may be available to you through professional associations. Bernadette Martin, founder of Visibility Branding, says online forums can be a valuable way to formulate ideas and strategies before presenting them on the public Internet.

Using networking and profile sites like LinkedIn and Ziggs are excellent ways to create or expand your online identity and network at the same time. Some sites like Facebook are popular and even used within corporations, but the jury is still out on whether spending time there will help your career. To get the most out of these sites, make sure your content is consistent across all of your profiles and matches your résumé. Jason Alba, author of I'm on LinkedIn -- Now What??? recommends fleshing out your profile with industry keywords, such as titles, professional interests, and company and university names. When using social networking sites to advance your career (as opposed to getting a date), keep your personal information and interests private. Use the built-in controls these sites offer to select what content gets exposed publicly on the Web and what's only available to friends.