Wednesday, January 27, 2010

HOW TO: Boost Your Blog Traffic

Many first time bloggers automatically assume that once their blog is setup and they put a few posts on it, they will get some hits and regular readers. This is quite untrue. You won’t get any traffic if no one knows about your website. In this article I hope to tackle these problems and discuss some of the common ways bloggers and webmasters drive more traffic to their site by understanding the user. I have received many emails from aspiring bloggers asking me what they can do to get more traffic, so hopefully this will help out at least those people. Don’t forget to checkout the prequel, How To: Start Blogging, that covers the technical side of setting up a blog.




Blog Usability

Before I get into getting your name out there, your blog has to have some style. Most web users are instantly turned off by tacky site designs or extreme neon colors. I know I won’t stay at a website too long if the layout or navigation annoys me. The goal is to have a unique blog, different than all the other weblogs on the net. The one thing I really stress to others is making it easy for your readers to contact you. It shouldn’t take a reader more than a click, if any, to find your email address or a contact form. This makes the reader feel like someone actually runs and cares about the website. An about page is also a great asset to have on a personal site or blog. The more a reader knows about you, the more they trust your content. I highly recommend reading this weblog usability article by usability guru Jakob Nielsen.



Content

Your blog’s usability goes hand in hand with its content. You can specialize in a niche subject as long as you have an idea of how many people might be interested in that subject. If you do well with your niche subject matter, you could get some crazy traffic for being the only decent blog online with that type of content. On the other hand you could have widely used content, such as some aspect of technology, but add your own twist with your opinion or comparing/contrasting from other tech analysts. People won’t go to your site to read something they could have read on CNet or Tom’s Hardware, they want a unique take on it. If you learn anything from this article, I hope its that reblogging is a very bad thing. The one thing to kill your traffic is having identical content to another several hundred blogs. I suggest taking a glance at Mr. Veloso’s Evils of Constant Reblogging to get a better idea. Finding out what your content should be is a key element of your blog’s identity and the type of image your blog will ultimately emit.



Technorati is Your Best Friend

Technorati is one of the best traffic providers for bloggers. It makes your blog much easier to find when people search by technorati tags. Technorati is also a large blog ranking engine. Based on the number of links to your blog from various websites, your blog is given a rank. The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things. A higher rank gives your blog greater credibility in technorati. If you don’t already have a technorati account, get one. After you have setup the main settings, such as your profile, you need to claim your blog. Go to Account and then down the page to Your Blogs. Enter the URL of your blog in the URL field and then hit “Claim this weblog.” Once you’ve done that go to “Configure this Blog” and fill in what you can. Click the checkbox to select “Include this blog in Technorati’s Blog Finder” and fill out as many tags or keywords that accurately represent the content in your blog. When you’ve done that, click “Save Changes” and then grab your claim code. There are two types of codes that you may put somewhere in your blog for technorati to verify that your blog exists and keep track of it. If you have a blog that is Blogger powered or some other blog host that does not give you direct control of your blog files you will want to use the “Link Code” and post it somewhere on your blog. If you are using a more versatile blog publishing system, such as a custom WordPress or Movable Type installation you should copy the “Embed Code.” You can edit your sidebar, header, or footer file and put it wherever you like. You also have the option of posting a Technorati search box or various links on your blog without altering the code you just pasted. Select the options you like and click “Save Changes.” Everything is done by automatically by Technorati. One last thing you might consider is adding the Technorati ping link to your weblog. Doing this will let Technorati know when you have updated your blog. Find out how to do that on Technorati’s Ping Configuration page.


You will also want to search for a plugin for your publishing platform that supports Technorati tags. For WordPress users, I recommend Ultimate Tag Warrior. Installation can get a bit complex, so moving to a WordPress theme that has support for UTW, such as K2, is a good idea. Basically, when you post an entry you can supply it with Technorati tags. Update: WordPress 2.3 has built-in support for tags.




Blog Rings/Networks

Submitting your website to a blog network or blog ring is another excellent way to get more readers. There are many of these networks but the one that I use is BlogTopSites.com. BlogTopSites is a blog ranking website that makes your blog easier to find and search for as well. After you sign up for an account on their website, you just need to copy a bit of code and paste it somewhere on your site just like we did with Technorati. Make sure you select an appropriate category to post your blog in. If you are not careful, you’ll find yourself in the same pool with some heavy hitting blogs and your ranking will be fairly puny. For WordPress users, you can join Blogs Of The Day by simply installing their plugin, which uploads your blog stats directly to them.





Burn that Feed!

By now you may have a few extra readers, but how can you help them come back? Many blog users will immediately scan the page for an RSS feed if they like your content. Most blogs, such as WordPress, already have RSS feeds integrated for entries and comments. Using the default feeds may suffice, but you won’t have any idea about how many people you will be catering to. The FeedBurner service will take your feed and reproduce it on their fast servers while tracking reader statistics. I highly recommend signing up for the service and letting them burn your feed. I won’t through the steps of signing up for FeedBurner, but once you’re done with that find the “Publicize” tab. Click on “FeedCount” and activate the service. FeedCount lets you post a little icon on your blog that displays the current circulation of your feed as well as make it easier for people to subscribe to your feed. Select the colors you wish to use for the icon and post the code somewhere on your blog. Come back a few days later and you should see some detailed reader statistics under the “Analyze” tab on the FeedBurner website.





As long as you are going the FeedBurner route, replace the current RSS links on your blog with the FeedBurner link. This usually means digging through some code to find that link and replace it. I really can’t go into details as it varies greatly by publishing platform and theme.



So Now You’re a Serious Blogger

You have found your unique blog style, mastered the type of content you want to deliver, and gained some regular readers but you want even more. If you are still on a free blog, get rid of it! Even if it is a paid TypePad account, you still have a shared domain name (e.g., yourname.typepad.com). It is time for you to become independent and get your own domain and hosting.



Having a weblog address ending in blogspot.com, typepad.com, etc. will soon be the equivalent of having an @aol.com email address or a Geocities website: the mark of a naïve beginner who shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Jakob Nielsen



If you are open to hosting recommendations, a (gs) Grid Server plan from Media Temple is the perfect solution for the dedicated blogger. It is when you start receiving over 150k hits a month that you might consider upgrading your plan.



Getting To Know Your Readers

The next step is tracking your visitors, seeing where they came from, what they saw, and how they left. You will be able to easily assess what content your readers appreciate the most and concentrate on that aspect of your blog. Most webhosts include some type of stats monitoring applications such as the Urchin suite. However, I use Mr. Inman’s Mint religiously. The best part of Mint is an open API that lets developers create plugins called Peppers that dramatically extend functionality. I had previously posted an article about the top Peppers I use. It is definitely worth a look if you want to get a better idea of how great Mint can make your life. There is also a Mint Pepper for tracking your FeedBurner stats.





Final Thoughts

Hopefully my suggestions have helped out at least a few people. If you post guides or reviews on your blog that you think many people can benefit or learn from, I suggest posting a link on del.icio.us or Digg. If your page gets on the frontpage of Digg or on del.icio.us popular, you’re set. Many tech websites have an email address for tips. If you think your content is worthy, I would try sending them an email with your article. You never know, they might post it. Even if they do not have a tips line, a polite email to the editor-in-chief or webmaster could do the trick. As a blogger, you really should not have any trouble talking to strangers… you practically preach to them everyday. While looking for companies to send me review products for my other website, I must have sent out over 150 emails. It is amazing what a nice email can get you. I gained a contact with at Akasa, who was kind enough to trust me and send some computer products for review after a few emails. Even at the lowest level you will establish some rapport between that company or person, which may help you out in the future.



Also, holding a contest can greatly boost traffic. Even if it is for a small thing such as a WordPress golden ticket, you will be amazed at how many people find out about it. You can establish a relationship with some of your readers, and they might link to your blog on theirs. Commenting on other blogs can also earn you a few hits if you put down your URL. Oh and how could I forget a de-lurking post to talk to those hidden readers of yours.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Basic Tools to Boost Website Traffic

Basic Tools to Boost Website Traffic


By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Willie_DeJarnette]Willie DeJarnette



You can enhance your website traffic today if you would like. Pay per click is a choice that's evident and plain, so we should think about some means that are freed from cost to boost your traffic. Blogging is the most evident example and if you do not already own a blog you can set one up today for 0 cost. Take aid from the ping services to get the word around after writing a post or posts with keywords important to your subject or point. Services like these will send your link out to plenty of blog directories and sites.



You can get an immediate hit in twenty four hours but your website traffic will get a lift the more that you do it. Post on Forum - forums carry most subjects and the top news is that you can register free. Choose the best forums by searching on Google with the word forum and your keyword and then make a choice from the result. You aren't permitted to really promote in your forum post but if you write reasonable posts, offer help and counsel others as well as commenting on popular threads you are probably going to get folk check out your website and this can occur for free on the same day.



Article writing - while some of the finer article directories appraise your article to evaluate the quality before posting, others don't and this leads to your getting to view an article linked to your internet site on the same day. Others pick up on them and put them on your website all with your writer bio box at the bottom linking to your internet site. Digg it - Digg gives an excellent opportunity for you to post entertaining pieces or a short outline of your blog post, article post or poetry text from your internet site.



It would appear shortly on their on their exalted and top-line pages as it offers a dynamic help to enhance your website traffic. E-mail your list - how are you able to not have a list as yet? It is astounding that tons of folks on the internet have not framed up their own e-mail list. You can increase the volume and frequency of your website traffic right away if you've got a prepared list to send out pre-set announcements or e mails drawing the eye of everybody to go to your internet site for making the best of the most recent special offer or recommendation. Collaboration - occasionally very unlikely in a day but occasionally it is.



In case you receive a message from another site related to your theme, why not discover if it is feasible to send them something applicable for their use and for their clients. Firstly this would consist of something that you would add worth to - a free report, a product where you barter the gain with the list owner. Traffic to their website is increased by some folks by maintaining thousands of names in their lists.



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How To Boost Website Traffic For Free

Being successful on the internet takes a great amount of skill and knowledge about how the various search engines determine their rankings. Not only that but there is such a vast amount of hype wrapped up in SEO (search engine optimization) and gaining traffic to ultimately monetize the website. With the different incentives and means to draw traffic to a site and to make money off having one, it is important to consider all of the aspects of bringing traffic and which are highly successful at accomplishing this feat. If you are wanting to boost website traffic in order to reap the monetary and business benefits you need to consider Web 2.0.




What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is more than only the mere concept of drawing traffic towards your site. It is an amazing innovation in internet technology that was specifically designed to boost website traffic to your website drastically. It surpasses that of it’s earlier version of web 1.0 by allowing the public to interact with the media through social networking, RSS feeds, tags, blogs, AJAX, and social bookmarking. This enables individuals to be active for personal purposes within their media realm. Connecting all these sources through this elite technology is the answer to your low traffic woes.



Unlike adwords and other schemes that do not get the word out there that you have much to offer to the internet community, Web 2.0 is equipped to guarantee that your traffic will be increased indefinitely. It is all in the technique in which the individual produces the effort to boost website traffic with it. Let me explain. This modern technology is amazingly composed to conform to the trends of the internet by simply appealing to everyone locally and globally. There is no single definition for web 2.0, it is just simply built on a platform that accommodates the internet society we live in today.



The main reason to boost website traffic with Web 2.0 is such a brilliant idea, is that mainly it is very cost effective and cheaper then other traditional methods of increasing traffic. However it is the trends of all trends, and presents some massive dynamics of the introduction of a new type of technique used to store, distribute, share, manipulate, and create in the digital realm. It is going to set the precedence of how businesses and IT applications are going to dictate and be performed in the future on an enterprise and internet basis.



Web 2.0 makes it a simple process to utilize protocols and consists of tools that are essential for it’s high-tech platform structure. It also provides the ability for the user to interact with the assortment of content. It is also very effective for allowing the user to not be obligated to purchase extra software, because the desktop differential is removed and the internet interactivity is supplied. This not only saves expense but spares time-consumption for the user. Pretty much the only thing that an individual will need to acquire to use this magnificent device is an updated browser mechanism to support it and it’s tools.



So if you are really opting to boost website traffic, saving your precious time, and costly expense, you should definitely check out the alternative, Web 2.0. It certainly beats anything that is on the market today, and can definitely prove to be a very large asset for getting you monetized and enabling you to think outside of the spectrum and beyond anything you have ever imagined. You might a well give it a try as you really have nothing to lose and vast amounts of traffic to gain.



Conclusion :



There are many free ways that you can use to promote your website. You may not only focus on SEO, but Social network is the powerful tool for your site now.



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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Increase Web Traffic by Internet Marketing - Boost Website Traffic by Article and Video Marketing

Increase Web Traffic by Internet Marketing - Boost Website Traffic by Article and Video Marketing


By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=BJ_Min]BJ Min



If you want to find out the best way to increase web traffic, then read this article. It will give suggestions on how you can boost website traffic for better profitability.



Every businessman today probably has their own websites where they promote and advertise their business. In this website, they feature their products and services in the hope of gaining more customers. However, a website that aims to advertise a business will never succeed in its marketing plans if it cannot generate more traffic. No matter how good the website is and no matter how attractive the web design is, you will never achieve success as an online marketer is the website has very few visitors. Less visitors would mean that you have less opportunities of convincing more people to avail of whatever your business is offering.



Building a website for your business is not enough. You also need to advertise your website so that more people who are constantly using the Internet will have the idea that your website exists in the huge highway of information such as the Word Wide Web. This is important because your web marketing plan would be flop if you fail to advertise your website.



The best way to increase web traffic is to do article marketing. Most of the online marketers today do this kind of strategy because this is very cost effective. Submitting to article directories is for free. Most of the directories and blogsites allow every businessmen who want to post articles related to their business without monetary fees. As a businessman you just have to make sure that all articles are written well so that it will pass their standards.



By doing this, it will boost website traffic. When this happens, you have more people visiting your site. It would be the perfect opportunity for you to introduce your products and services to them. Through the years, a number of businessmen have gained so much profits and sales, thus increasing their income because of article marketing.



Article writing and article submission is the only thing that you can do in Internet marketing, you can also do video marketing which is increasingly becoming very popular today. The concept of video marketing is similar to advertising in television, but you are using the Internet as a medium to reach your target market.



In doing article and video marketing, you have to bear in mind that keywords and the links to your website is very important. The backlink to your website is of vital important because this is the best way that people will be directed to the website where you publish your products and services. This is how you can effectively increase web traffic.



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Learning Getting Earning...: AdSense - How Can You Earn From the Traffic of Your Website

Learning Getting Earning...: AdSense - How Can You Earn From the Traffic of Your Website

Friday, January 1, 2010

Easy Way to Boost Website Traffic

Written by Khalid Muneer


Website development is not an easy task but the most difficult task is to get traffic for your website. It is very tricky. Traffic could be transferred to your website from search engines line google, yahoo and bing etc. The traffic directed by search engine to your website is called organic traffic. It is difficult to get good position or rank against most visited keywords in search engine because competition is too hard and fast. Commonly it is easy to direct traffic from those websites or portals which already have good position and rank in search engine. These sites are called referring websites. The referring website must be most visited website which must be based on a unique idea. There are so many referring websites used for website promotion but here I am going to describe only those which are good in my experience and are capable to transfer tons of traffic to your website.


Answers.Yahoo.com



It is an online community in which people put their question regarding any area of life. Yes do not be confused it is an opportunity. Just do login by using yahoo user name and password. Answer the questions and put your website link below it. But keep in mind only answer those questions which are related to the topics discussed in your website. For example if your website has articles regarding website promotion then answer the questions regarding this topic in the advertisement category. If some one has same problem and he use any search engine for the answer then the answer given by you with your link will be displayed there. Remember you must have to answer correctly other wise you would be banned on this community.



http://www.answers.yahoo.com/









Facebook.com



It is an online social community. Its powerful features are its groups. Get connected with people having same interest as you and send updates of your website to them regularly. Join relevant groups and regularly post tips with your link. Always try to answer every message which has been send by a friend positively, and show them your loyalty and get the same in return. This community could help you in your website promotion campaign.



http://www.facebook.com/







Digg.com



It is a social bookmarking service. Just create an account on digg and use it when you update your website with new article. To use digg you need the article title and its web address. Do login to digg and post your article link. It would be termed as a bookmark and would be considred as a valid back link of your website. Digg has a potential to transfer handsome traffic to your website on daily basis and would help you in your website promotion scenario.



http://www.digg.com/







WebPageLottery.com



It is an online lottery system but the reward here is the traffic for your website. Just submit your website link. After submission you would see the today’s winning page. If your link is a winning page then every visitor of web page lottery would be directed to your website. In website promotion background it is the easiest way to get traffic and totally depends upon the luck of your website.



http://www.webpagelottery.com/







Twitter.com



It is a micro blogging service. You could send information containing one forty characters and each shared sentence is called tweet. On twitter try to increase your followers and its simple way to follow others. Regularly chat with your followers and try to establish a good relation which would help your in your website promotion campaign. Tweet for three times for each article you posted on your website with link. But your tweet must be attractive, so that it grab the user and the user will be directed to your website.



http://www.twitter.com/







Wait it is not the end of website promotion. It is not enough for website promotion but if you follow my instructions then surely you would get heavy traffic for your website. If the age of your website is few months and it has maintained daily more than hundred visitors then it is a good symbol and if it is not the hurry up follow my above given instructions and also read other articles on this website regarding SEO Tips and Blog Promotion Tips.