The blogosphere is a big and busy world with over 100 million blogs and growing. How do you attract visitors to your blog? Follow these simple tips to drive traffic to your blog.

1. Write Well and Write Often

Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog’s audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more. Make sure you have something meaningful to say to them and say it often to maintain their interest and keep them loyal.

Furthermore, post frequently to increase the number of chances you have for your blog’s content to be noticed by search engines such as Google or Technorati.

Google Reader – Use Google’s web-based blog reader to keep up with blogs and news.reader.google.com

2. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines

Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! by submitting your blog’s URL to them (for example http://www.download4fun.com). Most search engines provide a ‘Submit’ link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.

It’s important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn’t mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.

3. Use and Update Your Blogroll

By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It’s an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs’ blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.

4. Harness the Power of Comments

Commenting is a simple and essential tool to increase your blog’s traffic. First, respond to comments left on your blog to show your readers that you value their opinions and draw them into a two-way conversation. This will increase reader loyalty.

Second, leave comments on other blogs to drive new traffic. Make sure you leave your blog’s URL in your comment, so you create a link back to your own blog. Many people will read the comments left on a blog post. If they read a particularly interesting comment, they are highly likely to click on the link to visit the commentor’s website. It’s important to make sure you leave meaningful comments that are likely to invite people to click on your link to read more.

5. Syndicate Your Blog’s Content with an RSS Feed

Setting up an RSS feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.

6. Use Links and Trackbacks

Links are one of the most powerful parts of your blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get you noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs.

You can take links to other blogs a step further by leaving a trackback on the other blog to let them know you’ve linked to them. Blogs that allow trackbacks will include a link back to your blog in the comments section of the post that you originally linked to. People do click on trackback links!

7. Tag Your Posts

It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it’s worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They’re also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.

8. Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites

Taking the time to submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and more can be a simple way to quickly boost traffic to your blog.

9. Remember Search Engine Optimization

When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don’t overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google’s search entirely.

10. Don’t Forget Images

Images don’t just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.

11. Consider Guest Blogging

Guest blogging can be done when you write a guest post on another blogger’s blog or when another blogger writes a guest post on your blog. Both methods are likely to increase traffic as your blog will be exposed to the other blogger’s audience. Many of the other blogger’s readers will visit your blog to see what you have to say.

12. Join Forums, Web Rings or Online Groups

Find online forums, web rings, groups or social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn where you can share ideas and ask questions of like-minded individuals. Add a link to your blog in your signature line or profile, so each time you post on a forum or participate in another online network, you’re indirectly promoting your blog. Chances are many people will click on that link to learn more about you.

13. Promote Outside Your Blog

Promoting your blog shouldn’t stop when you step outside the blogosphere. Add your blog’s URL to your email signature and business cards. Talk about it in offline conversations. It’s important to get your name and your blog’s URL noticed offline, too.

14. Nominate Yourself and Other Blogs for Blog Awards

There are a number of blog awards given out throughout the year. Nominating yourself and other blogs and bloggers can draw attention to your blog and drive traffic to it.

15. Don’t Be Shy

The most important part of the blogosphere is its community and much of your success as a blogger will be tied to your willingness to network with that community. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, join conversations or just say hi and introduce yourself. Don’t sit back and hope the online world will find you. Speak out and get yourself noticed. Let the blogosphere know you’ve arrived and have something to say!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/15-tips-to-increase-blog-traffic-1241768.html

Author: Johan Domonji

Blogs and the activity of blogging went mainstream a long time ago so much so that these days every 1.5 seconds a new blog is created! Crazy huh? Put another way:

• 7.4 Million blogs were created in the last 120 days

• 1.5 Million blogs were created in the past 7 days

• 900,000 blogs created in the last 24 hours

• 37,500 blogs created every hour

Those are downright scary figures especially if you are just creating a blog today because it is a reflection of the extent of the competition facing you today! So what really made blogs and the activity of blogging so popular?

Why Blogs Became So Popular

Well before blogging became so mainstream and the internet became literally saturated with millions upon millions of blogs, the activity was pretty much restricted to only the truly savvy online marketers (who traditionally set the pace for the rest of the crowd) and the geeks. Once those marketers realized the significant advantages blogs held over normal websites they quickly, quietly and efficiently converted their traditional websites to the blog platform. Here’s why they did it:

1. Blogs are quickly indexed by search engines;

2. A blog is easy to update and add content to frequently;

3. Frequently updating content encourages visitors to return to your blog;

4. You don’t need to know HTML or any other web coding language to manage a blog;

5. Blogs embrace the 2-way conversation interactivity that is so important to today’s business environment;

6. Social Media Websites welcome and are the perfect fit for blogs;

7. Blogs rise up the search engines quickly;

8. It is dead easy to attract web traffic to a blog even if it is brand new;

9. New content added to your blog is instantly viewable and just as quickly picked up by the search engines; and

10. You don’t need to be a web designer or have web designing skills to create a cool and professional-looking blog that stimulates visitor confidence and enhances their interaction.

What those ten attributes listed above so characteristic of blogs essentially mean, is that a blog would invariably and inevitably beat a normal website when it comes to attracting web traffic and attaining exposure! What blogging had fundamentally done was to level the playing field so that even absolute beginners could take on well-established traditional websites that had had thousands of backlinks and been around for several years. What is more not only were blogs competing effectively with them but actually beating them at their own game!

Before long blogs were popping up as the number one listings throughout Google’s index for the most competitive keyword terms! Slowly and surely those traditional websites that had maintained a vice-like grip on the top-spot listings on Google for an eternity slowly lost their rankings to a large number of blogs.

Soon enough the secret was out that blogs wielded a considerable advantage over traditional websites and before long the activity itself had gone mainstream. Now let’s fast forward to the current situation today where the internet is super-saturated with blogs to the tune of a new blog being created every 1.5 seconds!

What 900,000 Blogs Created Everyday Means to You!

It used to be that anybody could virtually blog about anything and were almost guaranteed to attract enough traffic to make enough sales to actually justify it as being worth their while. In such a manner a lot of marketers who had embraced blogging early on were able to dominate a good number of niche markets quickly. But that was then and today, well, is today!

Long gone are the good ole days when you could target a small niche, slap together a few mediocre posts to your new blog and attract sufficient traffic to enable you to make money enough to quit your day job! These days most of those once little-saturated and highly-lucrative niche markets are overcrowded with more competitors than their daily web traffic allotment can possibly handle! What that boils down to is that only the very few, very best of blogs are actually able to make money online from their chosen niche markets.

That also means that if you are just creating a blog today, your blog will surely join the millions of mediocre blogs that never make any headway and are quickly abandoned by their owners unless you…

Make Your Blog Stand Out From The Rest Of The Crowd

To succeed as a blogger you have to make your blog stand out from the many other millions of blogs already proliferating all across the internet. This ironically is actually good news for you because most bloggers have absolutely no idea how to distinguish their blogs from the next guy’s. In fact these days there are two kinds of blogging style, the traditional type of blogging known as Old-School Blogging and the more recent style in tune with the current internet business environment known as New-School Blogging.

The big difference between Old-School Blogging and New-School Blogging is that unless your Old-School Blog is already ranking well on the Google Index, you are going to find it extremely difficult to draw enough attention to make your blog profitable. In other words if you start a blog today and adopt old-school blogging techniques then you are almost certainly guaranteed to fail. Why? Because old-school blogging techniques will not enable you to stand out from the crowd which also means that you cannot possible compete against blogs that have been around for a while and are already well-established.

The biggest flaw that old-school blogs suffered from was an inability to consistently draw significant amounts of web traffic!

However if you create a new blog and adopt new-school blogging techniques, within little time you will effortlessly attract lots of web traffic. Which method of blogging you choose will ultimately determine the level of internet success!

–

Author: Ba Kiwanuka

Click For More Tips On How To Make Money Blogging

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/one-new-blog-created-every-second-means-yours-is-irrelevant-unless-889295.html

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Companies have quickly caught onto the fact that guest blogging works. It works well whether you’re writing for another site or another site is writing for you because it helps you share audiences. Your SEO efforts will improve because you will get a link back from the site where you’re offering content, and your social media efforts will improve because you’ll be able to reach a whole new audience who is interested in your material. This will help you connect and follow both those in the industry as well as potential customers and/or clients. So what’s not to love?

The answer: Scheduling. Any editor will tell you that managing content, even when you’re starting a small business, is much more difficult than it seems at first glance. You have to deal with all different kinds of requests—one site may want to write for your blog the first Thursday of every month, another site may be interested in every Wednesday, another site could want to try it out for one or two articles first, etc. In addition, it’s also important that you schedule time so that you can write an article on your own blog. You want to make sure that the initial vision of your blog can remain intact despite all the different voices chiming in. For this reason, an editorial calendar is an absolutely necessity.

What is an Editorial Calendar, Anyway?

An editorial calendar is just a fancy way of saying “publishing schedule.” It is a way of organizing all the content on a website and is particularly helpful when it comes to a website’s blog. Even if you don’t have a particular piece of content for a certain day, a calendar still works well because it will show that you have a space open. Many editors also use this schedule to write notes about content they hope to fill a certain time or a topic they are interested in for the future. Consider some of the other benefits of an editorial calendar:

5 Benefits of an Editorial Calendar

1. Cover the Unexpected – You will be able to focus on the unexpected, alternative types of content. For example, if there is an event going on in your community that you would like to support on your blog, and editorial calendar will let you know when that will be possible.
2. Communication – It allows for better teamwork and communication. Many larger blogs have several people managing content, so an editorial calendar will help keep everyone on the same page. No two articles will be published on the same day, and everyone will be able to see the article topics that have been/will be covered.
3. Efficiency – It’s very quick and simple to use an editorial calendar. Once you have everything laid out, you will be able to see what tasks need to be completed and you can make sure you do not repeat something that has already been done.
4. Stress – Many editors will tell you that managing a blog is stressful. However, an editorial calendar can help break up the priorities and tasks into day-to-day sections. This helps make things seem more manageable; thus reducing stress.
5. Professionalism – Showing investors and/or advertisers your editorial calendar will show that you’re organized and take pride in your content. Google has made it clear that content should be an extremely important part of any website (obviously), so companies you are trying to impress will be attracted to your organization.

How to Get Started Creating an Editorial Calendar

There are lots of different ways to set up an editorial calendar. It’s all about personal preference. As long as you are staying organized and have your content laid out day by day, you have a successful editorial calendar. I have seen some people do this simply with a pencil and traditional calendar, but as your blog gets more popular you may want to consider going digital. Below lists three ways you can create an editorial calendar on your computer:

1. Google Calendars – This tool works great because it can actually send you email messages to help remind you when content is due. The service offers many different templates so you can choose which one works best for your purposes. You can find the templates in the Google Docs Template Gallery and then click on “calendars and schedules” on the left hand side. Below is a screenshot of what you will see: 

1. Excel – Many editors feel comfortable using excel for their calendars. The program allows you to create different tabs for different projects. This can help you keep what has been published, what is pending, and what you hope to create all separate. You can also share this as a Google doc, which allows an entire team to work on the spreadsheet without any overlap. Visit Savvy B2B Marketing for a beautiful example of a successful excel-based editorial calendar.
2. WordPress – This is the most popular option for editors today. Most editors are very comfortable with the program so the calendar plugin is the easiest solution. The tool actually lets you edit posts right in the calendar and it gives you the ability to move posts around as you wish. This works great if you have an unexpected guest post pop up and need to stick it somewhere in the middle. Below is a screenshot of what the plugin will look like: 

It may seem like a simple idea, but many editors still having gotten around to creating an editorial calendar. It will certainly take some effort at the start, but this should not discourage you from giving it a try. Even if you are have never been a plan-it kind of a person, an editorial calendar will likely be worth it in the end. If you’re not into computers, try a traditional calendar, if you’re not into planning, have someone manage the calendar for you. Take it from an editor and blogger – whatever you need to do to make this idea work for you is worth the little bit of effort.

Photo Credit: top10hell.com

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to credit card processing services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including background checks to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading business directory, Business.com.

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Image via Wikipedia

If you needed another reason to move away from Blogger or Blogspot, here’s a doozy.

In a little seen article (until now) printed on a Blogger help page a couple of weeks ago, Google has announced it has put in place technology that will allow it to censor blogs on the free Blogger platform for those blogging in countries where censorship is required.

Google will begin redirecting Blogger traffic to country-specific URLs, so that whatever country you’re in, you’ll get that country’s domain for Blogger-hosted blogs. If the blog you are visiting is in Canada the URL will end in .ca, in India the URL will end in .in. When you are on a Blogger blog you will know where that blog is located by the ending of the URL.

Google has put this redirect in place so that content can be removed on a per country basis. You can read more about it here at Wired.

It costs very little to host your own domain, what you save in hosting costs and domain fees by using Blogger is really negated when you consider the possibility of being censored based on the country you live in.

Twitter put similar checks in place last week and were faced with a rather large backlash.

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I love my iPad, I use it for everything from reading a book, and writing a post to playing Angry Birds and even changing the channel on the TV (the kid hates when I change the channel on the TV with the iPad). Now I can feel good about using my iPad because tablets are actually pretty good for the environment. According to this infographic by Vanarama,they use less energy than other gadgets (though I would never call my iPad a gadget) and the apps on the mobile devices can be controlled so resources aren’t being wasted. Hell, tablets are even beginning to use solar energy. How cool is that? So go out and buy that tablet you’ve had your eye on, you’ll do the planet some good.

Provided by Vanarama

Image via Wikipedia

Blue Mountain Arts is looking for poets who want to win $300 and have their poetry on a greeting card.

If you can write poetry you could win $300 in Blue Mountain’s Twentieth Biannual Poetry Card Contest.

Cool huh?

Poetry Contest Guidelines:

1. Poems can be rhyming or non-rhyming, although non-rhyming poetry reads better.
2. Write about real emotions and feelings. It helps to have some special person or occasion in mind as you write.
3. Poems are judged on the basis of originality and uniqueness.
4. English-language entries only, please.
5. Enter as often as you like!

For the fine print and how to submit your poem click here.

I’ve been a freelance writer for several years now and I am always amazed that people see this job as sexy. I was at the Mall of America yesterday and a clerk in Eddie Bauer asked what I do for a living. I stumbled over my answer because I wear so many hats; freelancer, writer, ghostwriter, blogger, teacher (I will be teacher a class through community education this fall!!) but once I finally got it out he asked if it was as sexy as Charlize Theron made it look in that movie.

I haven’t seen that movie so I don’t know how sexy she made it look but it’s Charlize Theron so obviously it would be really sexy.

Um, no. Freelance writing, ghostwriting, blogging, etc… are not the most sexy of jobs. Unless, of course, you do all these jobs in the adult entertainment world and then I still doubt they’d be sexy…skanky maybe, but probably not sexy.

I didn’t aim to be a freelance writer. This was a career I backed into. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t something I have been trying to achieve since I was a young girl.

That said, I have always wanted to be a writer. A real writer, one who writes books and makes gobs of money. Unfortunately there are a lot of people reaching for the same apple on that career path and like acting there is a lot of waiting tables until you reach your dream. For me I have to write about things I might not have chosen to so I can earn the money needed to write my book.

Still, not a bad gig.

I don’t have to sit in a cubicle all day, I don’t have a boss who micromanages everything I do. I can wear anything I want to work, I can set my own hours and take off whenever I want. I can pick and choose who I want to work with. I have an incredible amount of freedom and that’s something that is really important to me because I need flexibility as a single mom.

On the other hand, I have no net and I have to hustle each job I get. I work long hours, don’t have time to take off whenever I want and when something goes wrong I have no one to blame but me. Um, and I don’t look like Charlize Theron, unless you count that one movie about the serial killer she did.

Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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As you know we love Pinterest. Kelly and I have been playing around with Pinterest for a few weeks and the love just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Sure it’s pretty and I mentioned before it’s an affiliate marketers dream but according to this infographic Pinterest is a game changer. When it comes to social networking Pinterest is not only changing the rules, it’s breaking the rules and rewriting the rules. Facebook and Twitter will need to pay attention because Pinterest is a social network game changer.

Pinterest, with it’s visually stimulating boards filled with link love and comments and networking will change the way Twitter and Facebook do their thing. Pinterest isn’t a direct threat to Facebook but I have already noticed spending much more time on Pinterest than Facebook in the last couple of weeks. Sure, that could be novelty but I’m not so sure. With the comment sections you can have conversations and continue to network.

I could go on and on about Pinterest, and I will in the next couple of days. For now, have a look at this infographic from Monetate.

via

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For those who are new to blogging and would like to learn some blogging tips and tricks we will be running a series of blogging 101 posts to get you started. For today’s lesson in blogging we will be talking about the blog review.

Some people love doing blog reviews and others don’t really care for them, I suppose it depends on the type of review you do and the brand you choose to review. For those who are just getting into reviewing products online the pickings can be slim at first but as you do more and more reviews, and your blog becomes known as a review blog (don’t forget to add that you do reviews to your ‘about me’ page) the brands who select you to do reviews will get better and better.

Reviews are really very easy to do. You are given a website, service or product to look at and then you tell your readers what you think. In today’s example we will be talking about Canada Drug Center. After spending time on the site and clicking around to get to know how the site works you can usually write a couple of paragraphs to sum up your experience. For example you might write something like this:

When looking to buy lipitor or over the counter drugs online you should check out Canada drugs. Not only is the site easy to navigate but it’s also got a full featured FAQ page that explains all there is to know about buying drugs online and from a different country. 

What I especially liked about Canada Drugs was that they have 24 hour, toll free fax and customer support available 7 days a week. And their site is secure with McAfee and TRUSTe Certified, so your credit card is safe and secure. What I liked even more than those two things is that the folks at Canada drugs suggest telling your doctor that you are getting your prescription there rather than a local drug store chain. That to me says they have nothing to hide. 

See how easy that was? Just a couple of paragraphs about your experience on your blog with some relevant links to the company site. When writing a review the key is to not over think the process and make the task harder than it needs to be. All you need to do is answer a few very basic questions like did you like the product? Was the website easy to navigate? Is it easy to contact the company if needed? What is their return policy? Do they take credit cards? Often times the company that requests a review will provide you with some key points they would like you to discuss but remember the review should always be your thoughts and findings.

But what if it’s a negative review?

I know many bloggers who won’t write a bad review. They fear if they do they won’t be asked to write any other reviews and since bloggers can make a nice income from writing reviews they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. The problem with that is that you can’t remain a credible source if you only give positive reviews. That doesn’t mean you have to be nasty or mean about your bad experience but if you find something wrong you mention it. If for no other reason that the brand would be able to address it.

If you remember to be truthful and ask the right questions your review will be helpful to your readers and the brands that ask for reviews.

If you’ve got a blog or website and are looking to make a little extra money with by selling space to advertisers consider trying the Bizzclick network. Bizzclick is a per per click (ppc) company that provides a means for advertisers and publishers to work together. Bizzclick for publishers is for bloggers who want to monetize their blog or website by selling space on their blog to advertisers who want to get the word out about their business. Bizzclick for advertisers is for those online businesses who want to get notices and recommended by other websites and like minded businesses.

The Bizzclick network offers professional 24/7 support as well a personal manager for each client. That means you get exceptional service no matter how big or small your business is. The Bizzclick team can help you with your marketing campaign to determine which is right for your business. Bizzclick also supplies its clients with the latest tools and software needed to access data about the performance of each campaign.

Bizzclick also offers an nice affiliate program so in addition to making money with your website by adding advertisers to your income stream you can also refer others to Bizzclick and make a nice referral fee.

Have you tried Bizzclick?