Blogging For Traffic
Tip #1 - Create
Original Content Of
Significant Value
Content is king. If you have been in the
Internet marketing scene for any period of
time you would have heard this saying day in
and day out. Every Internet marketing manual
has this as it's mantra and rightly so.
One of the biggest problems people have when
blogging has nothing to do with the lack of
traffic coming to their site. It's a symptom
of something more sinister. Bad content.
Even worse then poorly written original
content is content that is not original at
all. This is the death bell for all blogs
that want to be taken seriously.
You HAVE to have unique content. It is the
lifeblood of blogging. Every other blog is
lacking in original content, you have to be
different.
Pay someone to write it if you have to.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #2 - Create
Content That Gives
People A Plan Of
Action
Want to get people to not only read your
blog but follow your word blindly and do
your bidding for you? I kid you not, people
will fall over themselves to do what you say
if you do this. You just have to tell them
what to do.
This is the greatest idea, especially if you
are preselling an affiliate program via your
blog.
Every one of your posts you write should
give people an action that could be taken by
the reader.
IE, every idea you give the reader, they
should be able to go and implement in their
business right away.
I'm not sure who I read this from but I
remember reading that the best way to sell a
product or an affiliate product, especially
in the Internet marketing arena is to give
them a plan that they can follow and
implement straight away and then give them
the resources to do that with.
Alot of people write ebooks or articles or
blogs that are very informative but don't
really presell what they are trying to
promote.
Giving people a plan they can follow
straight away after reading what you wrote
will give them that incentive to buy that
recommended product from you instead of
another affiliate.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #3 - Create
Content That Is
Timeless
If you want your blog to be around for a
while and you want readers to come in 5
years time and still find your content
relevant to them, you need to make sure the
content is timeless, whether they read it in
3 months, 3 years or 30 years.
This not only means you don't have to keep
updating your content every 6 months which
will save you time, it also helps with other
people who you may allow to use your content
on their websites. They are sure not going
to update your content for you.
I wrote an article 5 years ago that I'm
slightly embarassed with having my name on.
It was cutting edge at the time, but now,
it's so old it's funny.
Some topics however, will always be
timeless. Find those, write on them.
Blogging For Traffic Blogging Traffic
Tip #4 - Write For
Your Visitors As Your
#1 Priority Not
Search Engines
While you should be optimizing your posts
and your blog for search engines, and I talk
about this later, your main focus should be
on writing for humans, not bots.
Keep this in mind always. Don't try and
repeat your keywords all over your blog
posts to the point where it does not make
sense.
This might work sometimes for search engine
ranking and you may get some extra traffic,
but they won't stay long if the content is
obviously geared for search engine ranking.
People have a short attention span and won't
waste it on junk.
Blogging For TraBlogging Traffic
Tip #5 - Write Like
You Are Talking To A
Friend
There is nothing worse then reading a blog
with no personality. People think that they
have to take on this serious, boring persona
when writing a blog, but you should be
having fun with it instead.
People like to read blogs that are
conversationalist in nature. People like to
read writing that is written at the 7th
grade level. People don't want to read large
words and hard to read sentences.
People also like it when you talk to them
one on one like an old friend. Talk to the
reader as if only one person were reading
your blog.
Having a unique personality will get you
more traffic from people telling people
about your site then any "traffic building"
technique.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #6 - Be True To
Yourself And You Will
Never Worry About
Money Or People
AgaiAgain
Alot of people just starting out,
especially in the affiliate marketing game
write blogs to earn affiliate commission,
and there is nothing wrong with that.
What you want to avoid is promoting
affiliate programs just because they pay out
larger commissions even though the products
might not be of the highest quality. Never
promote a product you have never bought or
tried yourself. You have to like and really
want to tell other people about it.
Blogging For Traffic
Tip #7 - Make Sure
You Post Regularly
But Not Overly So
You have to blog regularly to keep search
engines interested, ping sites interested
and even more importantly, people
interested. If you don't post regularly, all
of the above will still coming back as
frequently and will lose interest in your
site.
You should post at least once a week, at the
very least. Two to three times would be
better. But make sure you don't post every
day all day. This makes your site to search
engines look like a spam blog.
Also make sure you split your post times up.
Some weeks post on mondays, thursdays and
sundays, other weeks post on the other days.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #8 - Write Posts
That Are Very Topical
For The Times
One of the best ways to get a
sudden burst
of traffic is to write about something that
is hot right now or in the news. This is a
great way to get a sudden burst of really
interested traffic.
You can find out whats hot now by watching
the news or use online services like Google
Trends, Yahoo Buzz or Ebay Pulse.
These sites give you lists of searches that
are very popular online right now. Some of
the hot topics right now are
*
Xbox 360's
* Midterm Elections
* Halloween
* PSP
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #9 - Become An
Expert In A Small
Niche Market
One the best ways to get traffic to your
blog is to become a big fish in a small
pond. When you corner the market in any
niche, you become an expert and a traffic
gathering machine.
Becoming an expert in the field is not that
hard. Just post lots of really informative
blogs, setup an opt-in list newsletter,
maybe write a few ebooks.
It is so much easier to become an expert in
a niche within a niche. Trying to be an
expert in a big field full of experts
already is hard work.
Internet marketing is a niche, creating
landing pages is a niche within the niche.
Become the expert in the niche within the
niche.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #10 - Great
Examples Of Highly
Successful Blogs
You can learn a lot from really great blogs,
the problem is, truly finding a great blog
to replicate. One of the best blogs around
is at....
http://www.stevepavlina.com
He actually wrote a post about how he makes
money from his blogs. He even shows you how
much money and how to get traffic to your
blog.
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how
-to-make-money-from-your-blog/
His blog is the perfect example of timeless,
quality, original content that gives people
a plan to use and his personality shines
through.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #11 -
OptimizeYour Posts
For Search Engine
Ranking
You can do a lot to help your blog with
search engine ranking. The first thing you
can do is a buy a very keyword descriptive
domain name. It really does help to have a
domain name with the keyword your site is on
in it.
I created the site Backyardlandscaping.net
to get a high search engine ranking for the
term Backyard Landscaping.
Does it get a good ranking? You bet. I'm in
the top 3 in msn and top 5 in Google for a
rather competitive term. Don't forget about
keyword density in your blog posts. It's
important to use the same simple SEO tips in
your blog as you would in any website.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #12 - Run A
Contest For A Month
And Watch Traffic
Roar In
This is a great method to get traffic, just
run some sort of contest for a whole month.
Let me give you an example.
Go to.... http://www.15kchallenge.com
This guy setup a blog to show people how to
make $15,000 in one month starting with only
$150. People flocked to this site. Why?
A) Because they were curious to see if he
could pull it off
B) If he failed he said he would wear a
thong in public
C) He said he would give the site away to a
reader of the blog at the end of the month
Read his site to learn more.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #13 - Be An
Online Bastardo And
Stir Up Trouble
Another great way to get traffic is to be
controversial. Go around telling people you
are the smartest man in the world, or the
best at something.
Bag other people out and start fights with
other blogs and their owners. You have to do
something different to stand out.
Go to someone elses blog and comment in
their comment section and rip into their
post and tell them they are all wrong and
point them to a post on your blog that shows
their readers a better way of doing
something.
Don't say anything slanderish, but make
outrageous claims and back them up as best
you can like the guy above did in his
contest site.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #14 - Edit Your
Blog Posts To Use As
Articles
One of the great things about having unique
content is that you can use it in so many
different ways to your benefit.
One of the best ways to get free traffic to
your website is via article marketing.
Sending your articles out to article
directories.
You can however save some time by selecting
a few of your better blog posts, editing
them a bit, making them more to the point
and submit them to article directories for a
nice constant flow of traffic.
The best article directories are....
Ezinearticles.com
Goarticles.com
Articlecity.com
Searchwarp.com
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #15 - Design A
Site That's Appealing
To The Eye
While search engine ranking is
important, getting people to your
website and having them leave straight
away is a waste of your time, so
designing a website that is also
appealing to the viewer and is easy to
read is essential.
Don't use bright colors, lot's of
graphics, tons of links or anything
like that. Keep it simple. Make it easy
to navigate and easy to find all your
articles on your blog.
Also check to make sure all your links
are working in your site.
Blogging FoBlogging For
Traffic Tip #16 -
Use Forum Posting
To Drive Laser
Targetted Traffic
To Your BloTo Blog
This is a great way to get not only
more readers for your blogs, but
recognized as an expert in your field.
By posting helpful suggestions in
forums in your market, you will get a
lot of good attention.
I'm not going to get into a whole lot
about this subject as it's pretty easy
to get started.
1) Find forums in your niche
2) Read some of the back posts and see
whos the boss, who posts good content
and what the rules are
3) Start posting with informative
information and include your little RSS
byline at the end of your post or in
your signature file
What most people have a problem with is
not writing good posts, but finding the
forums to post in.
Now that work is done for you. Just
enter the topic your newsletter is on
into the website address below and you
will find all the forums you could
possibly want on those subjects.
http://www.link-advantage.com/search
Blogging FoBlogging For
Traffic Tip #17 -
Getting One Way
Links To Your Blog
So how do you get reciprocal links?
Easy! Submit your links to directories
and add link sites.
Here is what you do.
Go to Google.com and type in
"Add Link" "target market"
then
"Submit Link" "target market"
If you don't know what I mean, here is
an example.
"Add Link" "gardening"
"Submit Link" "gardening"
Do that exactly as it's typed and see
what you get.... If you did it
correctly, you should have a listing of
websites that accept link submissions
in your target market.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #18 - Setup Your
Own Opt-in
Newsletter For
Repeat Traffic
If you want to keep getting more and more
repeat traffic from loyal visitors, the best
way to do this is to setup an opt-in list or
newsletter or some sort of way to capture
peoples email addresses.
You can setup a mailing list easily with a
service like Aweber.com.
The best way to run a mailing list like this
is to send out a weekly newsletter, but if
that sounds like too much trouble, setup a
mailing list where you email people
everytime a new post is made in your blog.
Having an online newsletter is very
beneficial to blog traffic. People will
email your newsletter onto their friends and
you will get even more traffic.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #19 - Submit Your
Blog And RSS Feed
To Relevant
Directories!
Another great free way to get traffic to
your blog is to submit your blog to all the
best blog directories and rss directories.
There are two great websites that are free
that deal with this.
The first one is....
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
This is a website that gives you a list of
all the RSS directories out there that you
can submit your blog to.
The next site is....
http://www.lights.ca/weblogs/directories.html
It gives you a list of blog directories.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #20 - Submit Your
Blog To The Two
Major Search Engines
The two major search engines you need to
submit your blog to are of course Google.com
and MSN.com. All the other search engines
are a waste of time. So are those websites
that state they will submit your website or
blog to thousands of search engines for free
or a one time fee.
They are useless.
Just submit your blog to....
Google.com
http://www.google.com/addurl/and
MSN.comhttp://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #21 - Don't Forget
To Trackback On
Your Blog
Trackback is a way of blogs communicating
with each other. This is from Wikipedia.org
"
if a blogger writes a new entry commenting
on, or referring to, an entry found at
another blog, and both blogging tools
support the TrackBack protocol, then the
commenting blogger can notify the other blog
with a "TrackBack ping";
the receiving blog will typically display
summaries of, and links to, all the
commenting entries below the original entry.
This allows for conversations spanning
several blogs that readers can easily
follow."
You can learn more about Trackbacking by
visiting this site at....
http://www.cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/trackback
.html
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #22 - Internally
Link All The Pages Of
Your Blog Togther
One the best ways to get your blog indexed
quicker in search engines and give your blog
pages more links to them is to link from
your own blog.
Every page on your blog should link to other
posts and pages on your blog. Basically,
every post will be linked to some where on
your site.
You should also create a sitemap. Something
like....
http://www.backyardlandscaping.net/sitemap.h
tml
This helps the big search engines like
Google and MSN find all the links on your
site easily for them to index quicker.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #23 - Post
Informative And
Helpful Posts On
Other Peoples Blog
Comment Forms
This is the simpliest and easiest, yet one
of the most effective ways to get traffic
and highly quality targeted traffic to your
blog. Just post on other blogs comment
forms.
I don't mean spammy posts. I mean, really
REALLY informative comments. If you are
posting a comment on a particular post, add
to the post, give more information and then
link back to a similar post on your blog.
This works really well in very high
traffiked blogs.
Digg.com is a place that has lots of traffic
and allows comments on posts.
Blogging For TraffiBlogging Traffic
Tip #24 - Digg Your
Way To Traffic.
Digg.com Is Also
Great For Traffic
As I was saying above. Digg allows you to
post comments on their website about their
posts and submitted sites. You can get
HOARDS of traffic from them.
Digg.com is a social bookmarking website.
What users can do is submit their websites
or blog posts or article posts to this site
and then try and get on the front page on
Digg.com
The post with the most Diggs gets to be on
the front page. This site will drives LOADs
of traffic to your site, but it is not
always of the highest quality.
