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Increase Traffic`s Blog
You've got your blog set up and you've started posting pithy, useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do?
Like any website you own, you must do some blog promotion to start driving traffic to your site. Here are 16 steps, in no particular order of importance, that you can start doing now to get traffic moving to your blog.
1. Set up a Bloglet subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.
Http://www.bloglet.com
2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine (see tutorial on http://www.biztipsblog.com)
http://www.my.yahoo.com
3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.
4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
http://www.pingomatic.com
5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines: http://www.submitfire.com
6. Submit your blog to blog directories. The most comprehensive list of directories is on this site:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.
7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.
8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.
9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.
10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.
11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.
To learn how news aggregators/RSS readers work, see this site: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm
13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts
14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.
15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).
16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.
The Other References.....Next is 7 ways to drive traffic
You’ve put a lot of work into your blog, and you put more in every day. But without a steady stream of traffic, no one’s the wiser. Use these seven tips to get more traffic to your blog.
1) Do your SEO and keyword research homework. Make sure the HTML of your site is search engine friendly. Here’s a basic search engine optimization checklist:
• Do your post titles have appropriate keywords?
• Do your anchor links have keywords in them? Using “here” as a link is a missed opportunity.
• Does your domain name include a primary keyword?
2) Submit your site to the 1st and 2nd tier engines like Google, Yahoo, Dmoz, MSN and Looksmart, and to the blog directories. Here’s a short list of sites that offer free blog listings:
Blog Search http://www.blog-search.com/blogclicker-submission.html
Technorati http://www.technorati.com/
Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/
Blogdex http://blogdex.net/
Blogwise http://www.blogwise.com/
WeBlogALot http://www.weblogalot.com/
Globe of Blogs http://www.globeofblogs.com/
BlogHop http://www.bloghop.com/
Blogarama http://www.blogarama.com/
3) Ping like you mean it. This is a way for you to raise your hand to the blog trackers when you’ve posted new content. You can do it site by site at places like Technorati, or go to Ping-o-matic (pingomatic.com) and mass-ping your blog to over 20 sites. Make sure your blog is set up to ping the appropriate sites every time you publish a post.
4) Feed your RSS. Make sure your blog has one and that it’s working. An RSS feed is a bit of XML that allows your blog to push content to RSS readers. That way people don’t have to visit your site to get your latest insights – they just open their RSS reader and read the news. If your blog is at Blogger.com, don’t worry about an RSS feed – its already been created for you. If you’re not at Blogger.com and your current blog doesn’t have RSS functionality, visit Feedcraft.com and sign up for their free service that will set up an RSS feed from any website (blog or not). 5) Swap links. Make a list of relevant sites you’d love to link to your blog. Write them a short friendly note and offer to let them use a few of your posts as content on their site in exchange for a link back to your site. Also, link to their sites from within one of your posts. Be sure to offer to exchange links in the links section of your blog. Most blog software programs offer this. There are also sites that special in helping bloggers swap links. Web Log Empire (http://www.weblogempire.com/) is a large one. If you’re willing to pay for a link to your site, check out Text-Link-Ads (www.text-link-ads.com)
6) Be part of the blogging community. Go to other blog sites you admire. Contribute to their blogs in ways that add real value. Write good, thoughtful comments that are content rich. Give away what you know. Do it a lot – at least 3 posts a week. Over time you’ll become recognized as someone who has something worthwhile to say. As your reputation grows, people will seek out your blog. This is not an overnight process, but by paying your dues and building an audience you are positioning yourself to become a star. By the way, if your site doesn’t have the functionality for visitors at add comments, Haloscan (http://www.haloscan.com/) is a free service that will let them do so. It also allows for “trackbacking”, which is a way to manage pings.
7) Write your blog! Put everything you’ve got into it. Make it great. Post as frequently as you can. The search engines will note frequent poTracker.com.
You've got your blog set up and you've started posting pithy, useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do?
Like any website you own, you must do some blog promotion to start driving traffic to your site. Here are 16 steps, in no particular order of importance, that you can start doing now to get traffic moving to your blog.
1. Set up a Bloglet subscription form on your blog and invite everyone in your network to subscribe: family, friends, colleagues, clients, associates.
Http://www.bloglet.com
2. Set up a feed on MyYahoo.com so your site gets regularly spidered by the Yahoo search engine (see tutorial on http://www.biztipsblog.com)
http://www.my.yahoo.com
3. Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Don't write things like "nice blog" or "great post." Write intelligent, useful comments with a link to your blog.
4. Use Ping-0-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.
http://www.pingomatic.com
5. Submit your blog to traditional search engines: http://www.submitfire.com
6. Submit your blog to blog directories. The most comprehensive list of directories is on this site:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
Tip: Create a form to track your submissions; this can take several hours when you first start so schedule an hour a day for submitting or hire a VA to do it for you.
7. Add a link to your blog in your email signature file.
8. Put a link to your blog on every page of your website.
9. If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.
10. Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.
11. Print your blog URL on your business cards, brochures and flyers.
12. Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. The acronym RSS means Rich Site Summary, or some may consider its meaning as Really Simple Syndication. It is a document type that lists updates of websites or blogs available for syndication. These RSS documents (also known as 'feeds') may be read using aggregators (news readers). RSS feeds may show headlines only or both headlines and summaries.
To learn how news aggregators/RSS readers work, see this site: http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-readers.htm
13. Post often to keep attracting your subscribers to come back and refer you to others in their networks; include links to other blogs, articles and websites in your posts
14. Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. What is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.
15. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box (See example in our signature below).
16. Make a commitment to blog everyday. 10 minutes a day can help increase your traffic as new content attracts search engine spiders. Put it on your calendar as a task every day at the same time.
The Other References.....Next is 7 ways to drive traffic
You’ve put a lot of work into your blog, and you put more in every day. But without a steady stream of traffic, no one’s the wiser. Use these seven tips to get more traffic to your blog.
1) Do your SEO and keyword research homework. Make sure the HTML of your site is search engine friendly. Here’s a basic search engine optimization checklist:
• Do your post titles have appropriate keywords?
• Do your anchor links have keywords in them? Using “here” as a link is a missed opportunity.
• Does your domain name include a primary keyword?
2) Submit your site to the 1st and 2nd tier engines like Google, Yahoo, Dmoz, MSN and Looksmart, and to the blog directories. Here’s a short list of sites that offer free blog listings:
Blog Search http://www.blog-search.com/blogclicker-submission.html
Technorati http://www.technorati.com/
Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/
Blogdex http://blogdex.net/
Blogwise http://www.blogwise.com/
WeBlogALot http://www.weblogalot.com/
Globe of Blogs http://www.globeofblogs.com/
BlogHop http://www.bloghop.com/
Blogarama http://www.blogarama.com/
3) Ping like you mean it. This is a way for you to raise your hand to the blog trackers when you’ve posted new content. You can do it site by site at places like Technorati, or go to Ping-o-matic (pingomatic.com) and mass-ping your blog to over 20 sites. Make sure your blog is set up to ping the appropriate sites every time you publish a post.
4) Feed your RSS. Make sure your blog has one and that it’s working. An RSS feed is a bit of XML that allows your blog to push content to RSS readers. That way people don’t have to visit your site to get your latest insights – they just open their RSS reader and read the news. If your blog is at Blogger.com, don’t worry about an RSS feed – its already been created for you. If you’re not at Blogger.com and your current blog doesn’t have RSS functionality, visit Feedcraft.com and sign up for their free service that will set up an RSS feed from any website (blog or not). 5) Swap links. Make a list of relevant sites you’d love to link to your blog. Write them a short friendly note and offer to let them use a few of your posts as content on their site in exchange for a link back to your site. Also, link to their sites from within one of your posts. Be sure to offer to exchange links in the links section of your blog. Most blog software programs offer this. There are also sites that special in helping bloggers swap links. Web Log Empire (http://www.weblogempire.com/) is a large one. If you’re willing to pay for a link to your site, check out Text-Link-Ads (www.text-link-ads.com)
6) Be part of the blogging community. Go to other blog sites you admire. Contribute to their blogs in ways that add real value. Write good, thoughtful comments that are content rich. Give away what you know. Do it a lot – at least 3 posts a week. Over time you’ll become recognized as someone who has something worthwhile to say. As your reputation grows, people will seek out your blog. This is not an overnight process, but by paying your dues and building an audience you are positioning yourself to become a star. By the way, if your site doesn’t have the functionality for visitors at add comments, Haloscan (http://www.haloscan.com/) is a free service that will let them do so. It also allows for “trackbacking”, which is a way to manage pings.
7) Write your blog! Put everything you’ve got into it. Make it great. Post as frequently as you can. The search engines will note frequent poTracker.com.
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