Saturday, October 18, 2008

Traffic to Blog - 5 Fun and Fast Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Blog Within 24 Hours

Many blog owners struggle with getting traffic to their blog, especially when their blog is brand new. Generating visitor traffic to your blog takes a little effort on your part but thankfully modern technology is now making that task a lot easier.

The most common blogging platforms online are Blogger, Wordpress and installing your own WP blog on your domain. It's possible to get traffic to your blog on its first day of launch once you put these tips into practice.

I created a new blog in a health niche on 17 September 2008. Within 24 hours of creating that blog I generated enough traffic to this weblog to award me with a sale.

Let me give you an example of what I do when I start a new blog.

(1) RSS Feed Syndication

Every blog has an RSS feed. By submitting your RSS feeds to the most popular feed services online you can get very quick traffic to your site, particularly if you are focusing on keywords with lower competition in the search engines.

All that you need to do is submit your feed url to a range of services (these are free) as soon as your site is live.

The ones in particular that I highly recommend are:

Feedage.com
Feedagg.com
Feedraider.com
Feedfury.com
Feedsubmitter.com
Feedest.com
Search4rss.com

Now when you submit your rss url to these services it's absolutely critical that you carefully select the right tags to include with the submission. It is these tags that will help drive traffic to y our website. The best tags to use are the ones that are you targeting your site about -- plus what you believe your search engine visitors will put in the search box in order to find out what you're offering.

(2) Social Bookmarking Your Blog

Social bookmarking involves bookmarking your blog, what it's about and what it has to offer at the most popular social bookmarking sites online.

It is important not to overuse this method or to spam these sites.

Simply do a short post explaining why you believe this site or product will interest other people on these sites.

Some of the most popular social bookmarking sites are:

Digg.com
YahooBuzz
Technorati.com
Del.icio.us
Propeller
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Mixx
Fark
MyBlogLog

(3) Social Networking

Social networking is slightly different. Probably the most popular social networking site is Facebook. When you create an account at Facebook or other social networking sites like Myspace you can connect with other people online and create friendships and networks with these people related to your niche.

It is through these networks and relationships that you can then promote your sites or products (although VERY subtly).

Some of the more popular social networking groups are:

FaceBook
MySpace
Classmates Online
MSN Groups
Yahoo Groups
Xanga

(4) Google AdWords

Paying for traffic from Google isn't for the faint hearted. Done incorrectly you could achieve no sales at the end of the week but a Google AdWords bill of hundreds of dollars. However, done correctly you can actually get in front of surfers within about 15 minutes of writing your ads.

(5) Video Marketing

Millions of videos are watched daily by surfers all over the world. Video marketing is really the next wave of internet marketing online. By creating video clips or short video articles and then linking to your url in the video and also in the description box of the video sites you can get high rankings very quickly and drive traffic to your blog fast, provided the quality of your content is good.

Here are some of the easier to use video sharing sites online:

YouTube
Blip
VideoEgg
DailyMotion
GoogleVideo
AOL
Eyespot

Conclusion

Many people online choose to put in as little effort as possible into creating blogs and promoting them.

However, by incorporating some of these simple but more advanced traffic generating methods it is possible to drive targetted traffic to your site within 24 hours of its creation.

Whether you actually make sales after this point is entirely dependent on the feel of your blog, your site layout, the ease of navigation, the quality of the content and the kind of Plugins being used to entice your readers to stay on your blog longer.
Here's a live example of a blog that fits into this criteria that may help your blog to appear more interesting to its readers. It also has a range of techniques in place to keep visitors on the blog longer by internal linking to relevant blog posts. Click here to see how you can incorporate some of these blogging techniques on your blog and increase the amount of time your visitors stay on your blog -- and ultimately return to it.

Blogs - Should You Have One?

In the quest to uncover the secrets of the latest, greatest technological tools for growing your business, the first step is always the same - research. I like to start with Wikipedia. It's a good source for broad stroke overviews in layman's language. I usually follow that up with a trip to Google so I can add some meat to the bones I've just unearthed.

Once you've de-coded the lingo surrounding a tool and how it works, then what? Next comes the really tricky part - figuring out how to, or whether to apply it to your business.

To accomplish this you need to ask yourself a very important question - what are you trying to accomplish and will this tool help you do it?

Along those lines, let's look at blogs: seems like everyone has one these days. Here are a just a few tips that might help you decide when and if adding one to your marketing mix would be useful.

What can you do with a blog?

Build relationships - it can take time to get people to start commenting but when they do, you'll want to take the time to reply - at least occasionally. No one likes to feel like they are talking to themselves.
Foster community - no need to try and be the answer woman (or man). Ask others for their input by posting a question about something you're looking for help with or solicit the opinions of others on a topic. This can be a great way to get a "conversation" going (just be careful to avoid topics that can get hot fast - unless controversy is your goal)
Communicate timely information - If there is hot news about your industry that your audience would appreciate knowing, share freely but be careful not to make it all about you and your business. Few things will cause people do disengage faster than thinly veiled self-promotion.
Drive traffic to your website - you can add links that direct readers to your website to read a full article about the topic at hand, for example. Plus, if you're really good at providing useful info, readers may link their sites to your blog. Whaa Hoo!
Increase search engine results - This is one of the most useful reasons to have a blog. Search engines love fresh content so if you add to your blog regularly you increase the chances that you'll be found when someone Googles stuff related to your niche.
Promote products and services - Again, be careful here. A winning formula for this is 5 parts useful information, one part promotion.
Grow your mailing list - you can add a mailing list sign up on your blog page as well as an RSS feed (don't have a lingo panic attack! That's just shorthand for a way readers can subscribe to a blog. That way they can get a notice every time you post something new.)
Build your brand - The more places you're visible the better. How far can you drive or walk without seeing a Coca Cola logo of some sort. They've done such a great job of branding, probably 90% of the time you see their logo you don't even notice it - you don't think "hey, there's another Coca Cola sign." That's because the recognition has become subconscious rather than conscious - the Holy Grail of branding!

There are other things a blog can do for your business as well. But before you jump on the blog-wagon, (or any other techno-tool wagon) make sure you are clear about why you're getting on board. Ultimately a blog is just one more marketing tool and if you've ever tried to drive a nail with the handle of a screwdriver, you know how important using the right tool for the job is.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Keyword Focus & Density Are Critical For Your Blog Traffic

As you can tell from the title of this article this subject is very important for people wanting to make money blogging and many people do not even bother pay this any attention. Basically what this tells you is that if you DO pay attention to this you will be way ahead of your competition. The reason that this is so important is because with any type of website that wants to attract visitors you need to be sure that your website is optimized for the search engines. This article will explain more about this so that you have a better understanding of Keyword focus and density and how to make them work to your advantage.

The search engines use two main things to rank your blog. These are your " Onpage" factors and your " Offpage" factors. Allow me to explain. Just so you know, the reason that your keyword focus and density matter greatly is that they make up the the bulk of your onpage score with the search engines. Regarding the onpage factors, these are the areas that the search engines look at;

1. Your Title

2. Your Headlines within your blog

3. Your Keyword Density & Focus throughout the body of your blog / website.

Before you make your first blog post you need to determine what keyword you are going to be targeting. Obviously this tells you that you need to do some keyword research before you get started building your blog if you want to make money blogging. Google has an excellent keyword research tool that you should work with to determine the best keyword for you to be targeting.

You can find Google's keyword research tool here; http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Once you have done your research and determined your keyword that you want to target you then need to optimize your blog by using your keyword at a density of about 1 1/2 %, which calculates to approximately using your keyword 6 times for every 300 words in your blog posts. My suggestion would be for you to let your thoughts flow as you write your blog post and then during the review of your post, which you should always do before publishing your post anyway, check your keyword density and see where you can fit it in if you have not done so with your first draft.

With regard to "offpage" factors, here is what you need to be aware of. The main offpage factors you MUST pay attention to are what is called the anchor text for all of your links. No doubt you have seen on many websites where they have links with the words " Click Here". DO NOT make this mistake. Here is what you must do...let's say your keyword is " handy golf ball washer" then every single link on any website that links to your blog needs to direct people to your link by showing a hyperlinked text phrase " handy golf ball washer". You want your website to be known for "handy golf ball" washer rather than "Click here" as so many others are due to the lack of knowledge or laziness of the webmasters.

Make Money Online With a Free Blogger Blog - It's Easy!

If you're looking to make some extra cash online, you've come to the right place. These days it seems that everyone and their dog is trying to sell get rich quick schemes. They're everywhere, you can't miss them. I'm not here to sell you on some hype. I'm here to give you a step by step plan on how you can make some extra cash with a free blogger blog. It's quick and easy, you could be making money a few minutes from now.

First of all you'll need to set an account up for yourself. Head over to blogger.com and register (don't set up a blog just yet). Then you need to decide what to write about. I recommend writing about a topic that you're passionate about. If you think the topic isn't profitable, think again. Almost every topic is. When you've thought of a topic to write about, you need to get some keyword phrases that people are searching for in the search engines...

Head on over to Google's keyword tool and type in your topic. You'll be hit with a massive list of different phrases. Make a record of all of them. Then go back to the blogger website and create a blog. You want the blog name and url to be a keyword phrase. So if you're topic is resume writing. And people are searching for effective resume tips, then that's what you call your blog and url.

Then take the keyword phrases from Google's keyword tool and write articles on each phrase. Try to include the phrase in the article title, and two or three times throughout the article. Try to write atleast 400 words for each article. Then start posting the articles on your blog. You need to be writing content for your blog every single day. Your blog will rank much higher when you update your blog each day, the search engines love fresh content!

Then you'll need to monetize your blog. I recommend heading over to clickbank.com, to see if there is any related products you can promote as an affiliate. Or you could search for "YOUR TOPIC Affiliate Program" in one of the search engines. If you can't find anything useful, don't worry. Blogger will allow you to add some Google ad's on your blog. You'll get paid per click!

I realise that this may sound all too complicated, but don't worry. Below I've included a link to a website that offers a full guide to making money with Blogger.

Click here to go to Blog Cash and start earning money from FREE blogger blogs today!

Useful Tools & Resources For Bloggers

No doubt you want to know what it takes to be a successful blogger if you are planning on launching your own blog. Keep in mind that a blog is something that requires patience and care and regular updating in order to succeed. You want to always be adding fresh and unique content to your blog so that you can stay ahead of your competition.

In this article, I will provide some recommended useful blogging tools & resources you can use to stay ahead of your competition.

The first item on the list of recommended blogging tools & resources is WordPress which is actually the simplest blogging software to use to build your blog. You can download this software at Wordpress's website. Just as a side note, the search engines love blogs and they also love WordPress blogs so this is another reason you will do well to make this your blogging software of choice.

Another useful tool you may want to use is a keyword research tool known as Wordtracker. At the time of writing this they have a 7 Day Free trial and you can find this resource at Wordtracker's website. You want to have a main keyword that your blog is targeting and Wordtracker is an excellent tool to use for your research on keywords. There are also many free keyword research tools so you may want to do a search for this if you are on a tight budget.

When you get your WordPress blog setup, one of the most useful things with WordPress is the amount of plugins that are available. Plugins add functionality to your blog. For example, there are plugins that will update Twitter everytime you submit a post. There are others that allow you to put Social Bookmarking tools after your posts so that your readers can bookmark your posts which helps you to get backlinks to your blog which drives further traffic to your blog.

Since you will want to stay abreast of what your competitors are doing another recommended blogging tool you can make use of is Google's blog search. Using this tool you can find all of your competitors and check out their traffic generation methods. You can also see what marketing methods they are using to attract and retain their readers.

You should do a Google search and look up blog directories as there are many that you should submit your blog to. One of the most important is Technorati so, at the very least make sure you submit your blog to Technorati and ping them with every post you make.

I hope you take these recommendations and make use of them to build yourself a successful blog.

Tired of Blogging? Do This Instead!

Blogging is common in the Internet world. It seems that everyone has something to say and blogs are the way to convey those thoughts. Some Internet marketers and entrepreneurs use blogs to make money through monetization strategies like AdSense, and this can be a nice way to bolster income. But blogging takes a great deal of time and energy, and the profits from blogging may not be that great compared to the effort the blog takes.

You might have a blog or two yourself. Maybe they even bring in money - and that's great! But if you're tired of blogging, do this instead: write an eBook! Say what you have to say once and sell it for a higher price point than some AdSense ads could rake in.

You probably know what an eBook is. You may have bought eBooks for yourself. After all, you can find all sorts of information about just about anything in convenient eBook downloads.

If you don't know what an eBook is, it's a book in electronic form. You purchase it online and download it to your computer - no sifting through blog entries to pick and choose the information you want to read. You can read it from the computer or print it out - your preference.

Why would you write an eBook instead of blogging for money? First, you don't necessarily have to do one instead of the other - you can do both. But if you're tired of blogging, writing an eBook is an excellent alternative.

To keep your blog rankings high, you need to update often. Most of us can't get away with doing a feeble entry once in awhile and expect that to work well. So we have to always be on the lookout for new information that we can add to the blog, have guest writers we can invite to blog, or even pay a ghostwriter to develop the content for the blogs because it's just too time consuming to do ourselves!

Let's face it - the majority of blogs just don't make all that much money unless you're savvy and personable like Perez Hilton or another identity who has made their living from being a blog persona.

When you write an eBook, you have a digital product that you put up for sale, and from that one-time effort of writing the eBook, you stand to make tons of sales. The monetary return on your effort is going to be much greater than it will be for blogging, where you have to watch as your AdSense income slowly builds.

Now, if you truly like to blog, there's no reason why you would have to give it up. Blogging and writing eBooks can go together nicely. You can promote your eBook right from your blog and allow your customers to interact with you there. Just remember that the return for your effort is probably going to be much, much higher with the eBook.

If you have a subject you're passionate about (maybe what your blog is about), you can write about that. Or you can find out what's hot right now and write an eBook about that - ride the wave of what's currently on people's minds.

You have nothing to lose by writing an eBook, and an awful lot to gain. Blogging is still a great thing to do. It's great for getting information out there and for getting your name and face out there, too. It can be instrumental in business ventures. But if you're tired of blogging - write an eBook!

If you want to write an eBook, there's no better time than right now to get started. Find an excellent resource that outlines just what you need to do like the one at http://www.Guide2eBooks.com - which was written by the Ghostwriter to the Gurus.