Link Your Way to More Blog Traffic

Providing an outside link, or two, or three, or four, can help you drive more traffic to your blog. There are several reasons for this, which include: improved internet visibility through spider crawls from search engines, more networking opportunities, heightened credibility and reciprocal links to your blog, just to name a few.

One of the things search engines do when crawling through the internet to find new information is to look for links. Now I’m no IT expert, so I don’t know exactly how this works (please feel free to educate me if you know), but I do know that having outside links in your blog posts helps get them recognized; and in the highly competitive world of blogging, you need every advantage you can get. By the way, providing a link to another blog may help you in getting links back to yours, and those links help get you more blog traffic as well.

When looking for different blogs to link to, I suggest finding the most credible bloggers you can. Not only will this help give your readers the best information out there, it will raise your credibility as well. Your readers will be much more likely to return to your blog because they know you are a resource for them, even if it means directing them to another site. Providing a link to another blog also opens up networking opportunities that you will be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

When I link to another blog, I am starting a relationship with somebody else in my field. Normally these bloggers will click over to my blog to check me out, and leave me a comment that provides me with much more insight into the subject I wrote about. Because the internet is so vast, it’s often difficult to build these important relationships otherwise. Keep in mind that you want to provide quality links to your readers; ones that relate to what you’re writing about and ones that truly give them something that can help them.

Getting more blog traffic is one of the main goals of any blogger on the internet. And, this is one of the best ways I have found to acheive that goal. What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree, disagree? Have you found better ways of getting more traffic to your blog? Leave me a comment, and let me know.

Marketing Your Blog Through Comments

Marketing your blog is vital, if you want to get as many people as possible to hear what you have to say. There are a lot of different ways to go about doing that, but one of the easiest and most effective ways to market your blog is through comments. I’m not talking about the blog comments left on your post, I’m talking about the comments you leave on other people’s blogs. You can also do this on many websites as well. The more the better, but there are some things you should think about when using this marketing approach.

Find Websites or Blogs in Your Niche

When you start utilizing the website to find blog posts or articles to leave comments on, try typing keywords into google that match your niche, or interests. It isn’t much fun reading through a bunch of posts that bore you to tears, and besides, there are so many blogs out there that you are bound to find plenty that truly interest you. And if marketing is your goal, you’ll find much more success on blogs or websites that are talking about the same topic you do. One of the goals here is to grab attention and interest with your comments so that other readers will want to check you out. If your comment provides new ideas, insights or even controversy, people are more likley to click on your name and pop over to your blog to see what you are all about.

Leave Blog Comments That are Sincere and Honest

I do not advocate commenting just for the sake of marketing, I am emphasizing how it can help you market your blog. One of the worst things you can do when leaving a comment is spam (by this I mean leaving your URl or advertising your services) a blog or website. Besides many bloggers moderate their comments and wouldn’t approve anything like that anyway, so it’s just a waste of time. Only leave a comment on a blog, if you feel you have something to add to the conversation, even if you just want to tell them how their post has educated or helped you. Sincerity and honesty are hard to fake, and if the blogger or other readers really think you’re providing something of value, they will consider you much more credible, and in my opinion, credibility is the cornerstone to any good marketing campaign.

Keep Up With Responses to Your Blog Comments

The key to marketing through blog comments is starting a conversation and networking with other people in your field. Leaving one comment and forgetting all about it after that, negates the work you put into the original comment. Most blogs allow you to sign up to get emails if there is a response to your comment, I suggest you take advantage of this. It’s a great way to build those business relationships and learn a lot about your industry as well. Another plus to this is that, in many cases, leaving comments on other people’s blogs will enhance your chances of getting comments on yours. You’re putting your name out there and marketing who you are, what you do, and the service or product you provide, so people will start to recognize your name. That being said, it can take quit a while to get a lot of comments on your own blog. In fact Chris Brogan wrote a great post about blog comments that talks about how do deal with that.

Marketing your blog is part of what all bloggers should do. There is a lot of different ways to go about it, but I have found this one of the best, easiest, most educational ways to to this; besides it’s fun getting to know people this way. What do you think about marketing your blog through comments? Has it worked well for you? Do you support other methods of marketing you feel work better? Why not leave me a comment, and tell me what you think?

Blog Content That Moves Your Readers

Providing quality blog content isn’t always as easy as it may seem. There are a lot of things you have to consider, if you want readers to click on your post, especially with social media sites becoming more popular and competitive. The bottom line is that you are trying to utilize your blog to market yourself, product or services, so you want to make sure you’re writing content that will raise your credibility.

The first thing to consider is what your blog post for the day will be. You can get great ideas from comments left on your blog, comments on other blogs with similiar content as yours and social media sites like twitter and StumbleUpon. Once you have a good idea, you have to come up with a relevant and eye-catching title that will help market your post. There’s a great, detailed post about blog titles at ProBlogger that can help you with this particular aspect. Once you have an idea and you have come up with a marketable title, you reach the hardest step; actually writing the post.

As with everything else, the best blog content is written by people that are passionate about the topic they are writing on. There are millions of blogs out there, so finding a completely original idea is almost impossible. If your readers feel your passion through your words, you’ll have a much easier time marketing it. You also want to put your own spin and personality into it. Danny Brown at dannybrown.me wrote a great post on how to be a leader in social media, and the same information can hold true when creating blog content.

The best advice I can give you here is to let your voice shine through. If you’re quirky, let your readers see that in your blog content. If your serious and more academic, try and give your readers a comphrehensive guide through your topic. Just be yourself and write content you’re passionate about, and readers will be moved by your honesty and the information you are providing them. You should also do the same on any social media site you are on. It will help you stand out above the crowd.

@BostonSarah on twitter just reminded me that being open to discussion with your readers is another important factor in creating blog content, and I couldn’t agree more. You do this by inviting comments, suggestions and even disagreement with what you’ve written. Let your readers feel like they are part of the conversation, and they will want to keep coming back for more.

What have I left off? What do you do to create blog content that moves your readers? Please leave a comment, and let us know.

Tips for Creating a Successful Blog

Blogging has been around for a while, but a lot of people still think of it as something people do to spout off random thoughts. Surf around the internet a bit, and you will see how wrong that thought is. Just about every business I know has either added a blog as a companion to their website, or they are in the process of doing it. But, many of them don’t know how to go about starting it, or helping it grow.

First we’ll start off with what a blog is; according to ProBlogger, one of the best sources for blogging there is, “- a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.” These entries can be found on the internet by doing a google search for the topic or company, or you can find them through social media. There are just as many types of blogs as there are people blogging. There are blogs that talk about people’s daily lives, blogs that focus on politics, The Huffington Post being one of the most popular in the niche, and blogs that provide businesses the opportunity to tell the public more about their services and/or products. You can see, it really runs the gamut. While there are more and more people starting blogs on a daily baisis, it can be hard to understand how to begin.

Pick a Good Blogging Platform

By this I mean, sign up for WordPress.com, Blogger, Typepad or any of the many other platforms that are out there. These websites give you access to easy-to-use templates that allow you to write your posts, insert pictures, audio and video, insert the relevant keywords that help you get picked up by search engines like Google and monitor your visitor comments; and that’s just to name a few. They are all really easy and fun to use. If you are starting a blog for a business, you may want to hire a ghost writer that already has experience in blogging. This will save you time and, in the long run, money. If the ghost writer knows what they are doing, they can get your blog noticed more quickly by search engines and the public.

Come Up With a Clear Focus for Your Blog

This is realy important. You want to make sure your blog sticks to a main topic. That isn’t to say that you can’t branch off into relate topics. For example; my business is internet marketing, and my blog has categories that fit into the large scope of my topic. So, let’s say your business creates websites; you could have categories on your blog like Reviews of New Computer Technology, Different Reasons You Need to Upgrade Your Website or Content Management for Your Website. You see how these are all related to website development, but broad enough to give you enough material to write about? A good way of trying to figure out what categories to write about is to ask your clients, check out related blogs or asking others in your industry what their thoughts are.

How Often Should You Blog

There are two schools of thought on this. Some feel it is best to update your blog daily, while others believe this just inundates the reader and is too much. Personally, I think three posts a week is good. First of all, three posts give your readers enough new information to want to check back on a regular basis, and more importantly, the search engines scour the internet several times a week looking for new information on websites, so posting three times a week ensures you’ll have new stuff for them to find each time.

These are just a few tips to help you get started. I’ll be writing more indepth articles on blogging, in the coming year. Please let me know, if I’ve left any important tips out, or if you have information to share with the readers. Your comments are vital to everybody who visits.