6 Ways To Attract Search Engines To Your Website More Often
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 6:40 PM.
Updating and adding to the content on your website frequently will give you an advantage in the search results and also help you expand the number of search terms or key phrases you can get found for.
There are many tools and resources you can use to automate the process of adding fresh, updated content and creating more spider-food on your website.
Here are six ways to add fresh content to your site:
- Weblogs or Blogs
A blog is an online diary or journal. Setting up a blog is easy and the many free blogging services make it possible for just about anyone to get started.
Several blog programs allow your users to create an account and post their comments to your blog, thereby adding more fresh content for you.
I use Blogger.com to create my own blogs like this one.
- Newsletters or Ezines
Publishing a regular newsletter or ezine is an excellent way to add content at regular intervals and get repeat traffic to your site. Archiving your newsletters online is one way of automatically updating your pages and adding new content.
- Content Management Systems
Content Management Systems (CMS) allow you or your website visitors to add, edit or delete content to your website without having to create and format the pages manually.
Article exchange scripts are a type of content management system. There are many zero-cost or open-source content management systems like PHP-Nuke or Post-Nuke, that are often included with hosting packages and require no set up.
Xongoo! CMS is a search engine friendly and zero-cost content management system
http://www.xongoo.com/contentmanagementsystem.php
Other open-source CMS include PHP-Nuke and Drupal
http://www.phpnuke.org
http://www.drupal.org
- Forums/Bulletin Boards
A forum or bulletin board is an excellent tool for building content and creating an online community that will bring repeat traffic. Many web hosts now provide packages that include bulletin board scripts on your server.
The best part about a forum is that it allows your visitors to build your content for you. However, it does require time and energy, and some technical knowledge to moderate and maintain forums.
phpBB is a popular open-source bulletin system
http://www.phpbb.com
- Reviews/Interviews
Reviewing and publishing a write-up on new products or resources in your field is becoming a favourite technique with affiliate marketers looking to boost their commissions.
It is also an excellent way to get found for the keywords related to the product you review. You can also do regular interviews of experts in your industry and put up the transcript on your site.
- RSS or Newsfeeds
RSS is the latest craze in online publishing because it allows syndication of *expert* news and content that is regularly updated at the source.
Using RSS feeds you can enhance your site content without the need to write a single line on your own. Search engines love RSS feeds and are known to spider pages with such feeds more often.
Express RSS is a tool that allows you to add RSS feeds to your site in under a minute
http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/expressrss.htm
Ways That Blogging Can Save You Money
1 Comments Published by Sridhar on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 4:32 PM.
Even though I’ve had several personal blogs for years, I’ve only been officially business blogging since 2003. So in going back over expenses for the last quarter, you can imagine my shock when I realized that my overall business costs were down about 19%. What saved me so much money? Surprisingly, blogging.
How can you save money with your blog? It's pretty simple, so I'll be brief.
Attract search engine traffic without paying the big bucks
If you want Google, Yahoo and MSN to pay attention to you, blog.
It doesn't have to be a whole new site, just add a directory to your existing site and start blogging. Most blog software solutions are either cheap or free.
And you can find out most basic blog information online for free (really, sometimes just typing your question into Google will do it.) by people who've actually done it. For less than $100, you can build a small library of blog tips and secrets, written by successful business bloggers.
Instead of buying links, get one-way links from blog search engines and directories, as well as getting your RSS feed content displayed at other sites.
Linking is a great way to get search engine attention and click traffic. Some people get links by trading; others by including their links at the end of freely distributed articles. Others pay to be listed, or to get linked.
In each of these scenarios, some type of trade takes place, money, free content, or a link back.
When you blog, you'll find plenty of search engines and directories that are willing to list you free of charge. For the most part you won't need to link back - you'll get a one-way link from site favored by search engines, often using text that you select yourself.
If 90 or more of these free, legitimate links back to your site is worth your time, then get you blog in motion.
Not only that, if you update frequently, other sites may want to display your RSS feed content on their sites. To encourage them to do so, put a link on your page with instructions on how to do so. Ever since I put one on the front of my site, various feeds from my main site have turned up in the most unexpected places.
Cheaper way to study your audience.
As your blog gets more popular, you may start to find that on any given day, you have a representative cross-section of prospects and clients at your site. If you have a question for them, you can just... ask.
True, you can post a link to a survey in your newsletter or on your site, but these are not as interactive as the ability for your audience to comment. They will comment, and you can reply to ask them to expand, or clarify. Conversation gets going and before you know it, a bond is formed, a much stronger bond than occurs in a one-way conversation.
Cheaper (and faster) way to start a resource or authority site.
Five years ago, if you wanted to start an authority site, your best bet was to build a portal with a specialized directory at its core. Three years ago, you were better off starting a forum with a resource section attached to it. Last year, your top bet was a feed-enabled content management system, especially as more parts of content management systems began to have content feeds related to them. (I have 12 feeds for each of my PHP-Nuke based sites, though they don't work as well with Google Tap.)
Now, if you want to be the expert, you want to start a blog.
If you're blogging consistently, you have a hub of information collected that will inspire return traffic. You have a collection of links to articles, sites, and tools. You can constantly write up your own opinion editorials on each of these items, as well as fact-based analysis of news and events that can help your audience make better choices.
As blog software matures you can now categorize, and alphabetize your links, and with the ability to ping multiple sources as well as leave trackback links to other sites, you can send your readers through a ring of related, freshly updated information that ultimately leads back to you.
Spend less money on advertising as your blog becomes more popular
I can’t promise you that you’ll never spend another red cent on advertising costs. However, the amount of free advertising you get from having your blog link or RSS feed listed in dozens of search engines and directories, and popping up in feed readers is not to be underestimated.
You’ll probably still want to do some ezine advertising when your new ebook or software release is debuted. But you may not need to buy as much advertising or purchase as often.
Then there is the fact that many newsletters that are also published to RSS feeds have wider reach. I’ve found that it’s worth the extra money to appear in both versions – ask your favorite publisher for details. For publications that allow this, it’s normally only 20% extra
Save money by retaining visitors
You’ve probably heard a thousand times that it is easier to sell repeatedly to an existing client than it is to find a new one. So how do you get that visitor to come back, and possibly buy again?
A constant stream of new information on a particular topic work is enough to keep people buying a daily newspaper, subscribing to a magazine or viewing a television series.
Frequent updates can work the same way for your site.
With bloggers being named People of the Year by Time magazine last year, if you’re not blogging in 2005, you’re going to be left in the dust by other sites in your industry that do. It doesn’t have to take up a lot of extra time, and the time it does takes is made up for in the money you can save.
Tags: blogging, money, revenue, save5 Surefire Basic Methods to use in Promoting Your Blog
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on at 2:06 AM.
You are definitely ready to go blogging!
First, you’ll need to know and understand what kind of software a blogging uses, to be effective in promoting the blog.
Blogging software is simple Content Management System (CMS). This makes it easy for you to add new pages and have them easily integrated into your site's navigational structure and linkage.
Although there are crucial differences between a website and a blog, but they possess one very good quality. They are search engine friendly; ergo both use a good sized dose of keyword phrases. Blogs are also text-rich, link-rich, frequently updated web pages which utilize CSS, and need very little HTML.
Prior to writing your blog, go to websites to get a supply of at least 100 keywords relevant to your topic, try the Word Tracker website.
When writing, keep these 100 keywords close at hand, so that you’ll write the primary keyword into your blog urls. Use your primary key words in your title, the secondary keywords in the body of your posts, and in the anchor text of links in the body of your post.
Now that you’ve done the preliminaries such as picking your 100 keywords, and know how to slip them into your blog posts, these are the next steps you’ll need to take:
1. Build links to your blog, do this by the following ways. Link your blog from each page on your website, post comments on other blogs that are similarly themed. Ask if you can link to them.
2. Submit your blog and RSS feed to big directories. This will expand your community of readers and keep old ones coming back for more.
3. Make sure that your side navigation bar is present on all your blog posts, so that search engines can easily spider your blog.
4. Frequently post blogs. Search engine spiders strive on fresh content.
5. Stay with the domain you’ve picked. If you move, you’ll lose important data; traffic and worse, your position in the search engine rankings.
Use these basics to get started. You’ll get to the top in a short time. Make posting new content on your blog a habit and you’ll stay there.
I have been able to get to the top positions for important keyword phrases simply by naming my blog post according to the keyword I am targeting... so I know that blogging DOES work.
Get blogging today!
Blogging allows bloggers to share their expertise and knowledge with a very large audience. Building a loyal audience is something that every small business owner would love to accomplish and bloggers are able to do this by simply sharing their thoughts using their business blogs. Building a community that trusts you and follows your blog updates on a daily basis is one of the key ingredients that hundreds of bloggers are using in their business.
2: Easy To Publish
Blog software is simple to use. With the push of a few buttons you can post your thoughts, link to resources and publish your blog. Blog software companies provide bloggers with all the tools necessary to get started. Bloggers can update their blogs much quicker than a website which usually requires contacting a web designer or uploading yourself.
3: Search Engine Traffic
One of the greatest benefits that bloggers receive is search engine traffic. Search engines love to spider pages that contain quality content and are updated with fresh content on a regular basis. Smart bloggers optimize their blogs by keeping their content focused on a specific niche.
4: Cost Effective
Blogging is a low cost alternative to having a web presence. Blogging has given small business owners the opportunity to create a web presence without the time to learn html or the income to hire a web designer. Blogging is quickly growing with popularity as an inexpensive method to get the name of your business out on the internet. Gone are the days of having to come up with a large investment to create a web presence.
5: Spam Free
With Spam problems and email filters creating a huge challenge for email marketers to publish their newsletters, bloggers are now using blogs as an additional option to communicate with their subscribers. The advantage of using blogs is that you don't have to worry about spam and email filters because your message will be delivered by using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). You can use these syndicated RSS "feeds" to display the latest news from major newspapers, for example, on your own web site or read them on other sites collecting these feeds. There are special programs and web-based services called "RSS feed readers" or "RSS aggregators" that, given the URL of an RSS feed will fetch the latest headlines periodically and let you read them comfortably and efficiently.
In Closing...
If you are looking for another source of traffic that is cost effective, spam free, search engine friendly, and perfect for building relationships, start publishing your own blog today. Once you get started, you too will experience the secret benefits that bloggers love and enjoy.
If you're not getting traffic to your site, then you're not going to make money online. The internet is about traffic, so getting traffic should be high on your list of priorities. There are many ways to get traffic. One of the fastest ways to drive traffic to a site is pay per click advertising like Overture. Using pay per clicks however costs some amount of money. Today I want to share with you 5 free and easy ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site.
1 - Write and submit articles
One of the most effective ways to get traffic is to write articles and post them in as many article submission sites as possible. You could write a simple 500 word "How To" article with detailed step by step instructions, and links to useful resources. Include a resource box with your links. A well written article on a popular topic can easily get hundreds of links back to your site in a short period of time.
Here's some popular article submission sites:
Also, you could compile a list of ezine publishers that accept articles and send them your new articles.
2 - Blogging
Blogging is yet another easy way to get traffic. A blog is simply an on-line diary or weblog. Since blogs are usually updated frequently, the search engines love them and visit them often. For every post, include a link to a site or webpage that you want spidered by the search engines. Each time the seach engines visit they will follow the links. One of the easiest ways to start blogging is at http://www.blogger.com.
Here's a few ideas for writing blogs:
- Tips related to your product or topic
- A short "How -To" explaining the use of a product or service
- Product reviews
- News excerpts
- Opinions on news
3 - Write an ebook and give it away
A great way to get free traffic is to put together an ebook report on a popular topic and distribute it freely. Allow other people to give away the e-book to increase exposure to your web site. Put your links on the title page or on the table of contents and in the resources section.This will give the most exposure for your web site. You could submit your free ebook to ebook directories.
4 - Exchange links
Trade links with other web sites. They should be related to the subject of your web site. Having relevent keyword links to your site will increase your site ranking. Linking is an important strategy for search engine optimization. A useful software that can help with your linking strategy is at http://linkmachine.net
5 - Online forums
Participate on online forums. Post answers to other people's questions, ask questions and post appropriate information. Include your signature file at the end of all your postings. Forums are also a great way to network and create business alliances.
4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on Monday, June 19, 2006 at 3:30 PM.
Indexing Tip #1: Never launch a new site with a lot of back links. Build natural links over weeks and months.
Let’s face it, there is no guaranteed method of getting indexed by Google fast, and buying links from high-ranking sites does not guarantees anything either.
The most immediate red flag you should watch out for is your number of incoming links. According to Google, it takes time to get link popularity and sites should not have more than 100 incoming links.
It’s okay to launch with a quality link or two. But beyond that, you are pushing it!
Here is the scoop! It takes 30-45 days for Google to deep index new sites. Instead of sitting around during “sandbox” time, use that period to build a strong set of natural back-links with a variety of sites.
Indexing Tip #2: Register your domain name at least four months before you plan to launch the site.
No I am not kidding! Whether you agree with it or not, history shows that Google takes older URLs far more seriously than newer ones. So register your domain name as soon as you plan on developing a site.
Indexing Tip #3: Blog and ping carefully.
Blogging & pinging is one of the fastest ways to get into the Yahoo index - it can literally get you into Yahoo overnight – helps with MSN as well.
Will blogging and pinging help get you into Google? Maybe. But over-pinging can set off red flags on the ping servers, and if you’re using automated blogging software, overdoing it can cause Blogger.com and other services to shut down your blog.
Blogging and pinging intelligently can get your blog indexed in Yahoo quickly, but ping carefully.
Does Yahoo de-index junk blogs? Absolutely. Especially since the creation of all this software, the search engines are watching closely for red flags (use software wisely).
So what can you do about Yahoo Search? Not much… You can be smart about blogging and pinging or even better, you can create real (not by software) blogs. You still have to be careful with pinging though.
In the end, blogging and pinging should be part of every beginner’s indexing strategy.
Indexing Tip #4: If you build bulk directory/portal sites - keep them in the 200-300 page range.
We know it’s such a blast to build those monster 1000-5000 page sites, even with growing evidence of Google bots’ tendencies to stall after indexing the first 200 pages or so…
So if you’re into blasting out those gigantic directories and sick of waiting months for them to get indexed, experiment with building smaller sites around more targeted niches.
In a nutshell: Divide those mega-keyword lists, spend a little time grouping your sub-lists, and build smaller sites.
All in all, the best way to get indexed, stay indexed and eventually get ranked is to recruit incoming link partners. See, blogging and pinging could be gone tomorrow. But, linking is an integral part of how the internet works – it will never go away.
Concentrate on building sites and recruiting links – the links get you indexed, ranked and even bring you free traffic from those who click the links!
As RSS news syndication gains popularity among users, new ways for publishing RSS are emerging. In this article, I examine the three most popular methods, and help you decide which one works best for you.
1. Blogs
Weblogs, or blogs, as they are commonly called, are the primary reason RSS gained popularity. In fact, one of the earliest uses for RSS was for bloggers to monitor other blogs for updates.
Most blogging systems will produce RSS newsfeeds automatically. All you need to do is enter content, and the blogging software will build a newsfeed based on the information you enter. No extra work is needed. Just add content to your blog, and you have a newsfeed.
But there is one major disadvantage to using a blog for publishing RSS: you do not have complete control of the RSS output. Most blogging software will simply take an excerpt of your blog entry (eg, the first 15 words), and use that to create your RSS item. As you can imagine, this can lead to problems. The first 15 words of a blog entry don’t always capture the essence of that article.
2. RSS Publishing Software
Because of the inadequacy of blogs as a reliable and accurate RSS tool, new stand-alone software was developed. This software has one purpose: to provide the user with an easy way to create and publish RSS newsfeeds from their desktops. No longer do you have to write a long article in your blog to produce RSS feeds. All you have to do is enter a title for your news item, and (optionally) a couple sentences to describe that headline – and your feed is better than the blog-produced feed.
Examples of RSS publishing software for Windows include FeedforAll (http://www.feedforall.com) and Newzalert Composer (http://www.castlesoftware.biz/NewzAlertComposer.htm). Mac users have their own tool in Orangebox for Macintosh (http://www.globalsyndication.com/orangebox-for-macintosh).
3. Online RSS Publishing Systems
While subscribers to feeds generated by RSS software enjoyed the simplicity and clarity of the new feeds, some publishers began to run into problems that came with the publishing software. They missed the convenience of blogging’s online publishing that allowed them to add news -- regardless of whether they were at their home computer.
News publishers wanted the accessibility of online blogging with the accuracy of RSS publishing software. The new demand lead to the emergence of online RSS publishing systems such as FeedServer RSS Hosting (http://www.globalsyndication.com/rss-hosting). This new format of RSS publishing allows webmasters to login to an online control panel and publish their news – without having to worry about restrictive software licenses. Since most online RSS publishing systems run on a subscription basis, you can make use of the free trial or subscribe for one month and evaluate if the service meets your needs.
So which system should you use to publish RSS? It depends on your needs. If most of your readers manually visit your site to get new information, a blogging system may be sufficient. However, if you plan to take advantage of the full capabilities of RSS news syndication, you would do well to use a stand-alone RSS publishing system. RSS publishing software will satisfy your needs if you plan to use one computer only. But if you’re looking for flexibility and a lower startup costs, look into the new online RSS publishing systems.
3 Reasons Why You’re Wasting Money and Time on Advertising If You are Not Publishing a Blog
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on at 10:47 AM.
Did you know you are literally giving away money and time on advertising if you are not publishing a blog?
Nowadays blogs have become very popular for diverse reasons. For internet home based business entrepreneurs, blogging represents a great opportunity for increasing
their internet marketing effectiveness and presence.
You should really consider starting a blog to complement your advertisement efforts.
Here are 3 reasons why you should stop leaving money on the table and start blogging instead:
- It's the quickest way to build a website
- Blogging expands your marketing reach dramatically
- You can increase delivery rates for your newsletter
Establishing your web presence in minutes and slowly but surely building an empire:
Publishing a blog is the easiest, quickest way to establish an online presence. You don’t even need your own website to publish a blog (although it’s recommended that you host it there for SEO reasons).
As far as search engines are concerned, blogs are full-blown websites. And they love them because of the regularly updated, fresh content they often present. As time goes by and your posts become to accumulate, your "website" grows too, without any effort, linking, or HTML knowledge required from your part.
Soon your blog becomes your little "empire" of content-rich, interlinked webpages, which search engines keep visiting, crawling and indexing like crazy, often at various times during the day.
Easily and effortlessly expanding your marketing reach:
Here’s a surefire way to spread your advertisement across the web. Once you have your blog running, you can easily syndicate your content using RSS feeds.
You can submit your blog and RSS feed URLs to blog and RSS directories, which are proven means to increase your online presence besides normal website directories.
Even better, if your content is good, other webmasters might beging syndicating your blog posts, giving you effortless free advertising! And your posts can now be delivered instantly right to your readers’ desktops if they are subscribing via an RSS reader.
Giving SPAM filters the finger and auto-archiving your newsletter:
SPAM filters driving you crazy? Does your newsletter end up as a delicious snack on filter’s stomachs instead of client inboxes?
You can now give those nasty SPAM filters the finger forever! If you publish a newsletter by email, you may consider posting it at your blog instead, and using your mailing list just to announce your new issues to your subscribers. This way, you avoid the SPAM filter issue associated with delivering your newsletter via email.
At the same time, you are reaching more subscribers, the ones who have added your blog to their RSS readers, effectively "killing two birds with one shot".
In addition to the above, you are naturally building an archive of your newsletter issues, which get included in your blog’s archives.
As with any new technologies, you should study the potential you are missing by not publishing a blog, and compare it to the extra work blogging would mean for you.
Personally, I think the benefits clearly outweigh the extra work involved, and I strongly encourage you to start blogging right now. Blogging is easy, even fun, and it doesn’t take much time either.
If you are not much of a writer, just try to blog something, anything, when you feel like it. When you become consistent with your blogging, you will soon realize why it’s so important for internet marketers.
3 POWERFUL Ways To Profit From Your BLOG... Starting TODAY!
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on at 6:20 AM.
If you've been following the latest Internet marketing trends like I have, then you've definitely heard of them.
What's this new marketing tool I'm taking about that every Serious marketer should have in place?
BLOGS! ...(A.K.A. Web-Log).
Now, just for those of you who aren't quite sure what a BLOG is, here's a quick definition:
A BLOG (A.K.A. Web-Log) is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating(usually on a daily to weekly basis) a blog is called "Blogging" and someone who keeps a Blog is a "Blogger".
There you have it, quick and to the point.
Okay. For the rest of this article I want to focus on how ONE can $$Profit$$ from having there own Blog.
I'm going to list three ways that I think are the Best and most Powerful ways to get the most out of your Blog.
So, with that said, let's go to Profit Tactic #1.
Profit Tactic #1. Writing "Articles".
Writing "Articles" are a very Powerful way to profit from your Blog.
There are many reasons why "Articles" are valuable to your Blog, but, for the purpose of this article I'm going to give you the most important part, and that's your "Resource Box" at the end of your article.
Your "Resource Box" is like a classified ad and holds critical information about You, your websites and what you have to offer them after they've read your article.
The links within your "Resource Box" could lead to your own Product or Service you have to offer, or they could lead to a Affiliate Product related to the content of your article.
This is a great way to give them something of "Value", which is the information within the article, and a great way to get them to take action by way of getting them to click on one of the links within your "Resource Box".
That's "Profit Tactic #1".
Profit Tactic #2. Writing "Product Reviews".
Writing "Product Reviews" is a great way to profit from your Blog simply because they allow you to Soft-Sell your potential customer by way of giving them your personal opinion on the product you are recommending and then providing them with a link if they wish to look into it further, instead of throwing a Sales Pitch at them.
Nobody likes to be sold, but, offering them your insight on a Product and/or Service that could help solve the problem they're dealing with is yet another great way to profit from your Blog and make you look like a Hero.
That's "Profit Tactic #2".
Profit Tactic #3. "Text Ad" Programs.
"Text Ad Programs" like Affiliate Power Ads or Google Adsense are yet Another great way to profit from your Blog.
I've listed these two "Text Ad" programs for a reason, One is a Pay-Per-Click (Google Adsense) and shows related ads to the content on that particular webpage and the other one (Affiliate Power Ads) makes You up to $60 to $100 dollars in commissions on a single click.
They are both FREE to join and only take you minutes to set-up depending on your experience.
The great thing is... they'll be displayed on every page of your Blog when you make a post.
Now, I'm sure there are many other ways to $$Profit$$ from your Blog, but these ones in my mind are the most Powerful.
Well... there you have it, "3 POWERFUL Ways To Profit From Your BLOG... Starting TODAY!".
If you haven't started a BLOG, maybe it's time you considered it since NOW you have some incentive.
I truly hope this article helped you realize the $$Profit$$ potential your Blog could have and how you can start incorporating it... Starting TODAY!
3 Overlooked Ways to Get Hundreds of Links and Prospects to Your Blog
1 Comments Published by Sridhar on at 12:30 AM.
Did you know that there are free ways that you can get links back to your blog overnight? That after a few days they can number in the hundreds?
No matter what you market on the internet at some point you'll face the issue of increasing the number of visitors to your site. What most people don't know is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get free traffic. Here we'll focus on three overlooked ways to get additional traffic to your site using a blog.
The third most overlooked way to bring traffic to your site with a blog is to read and comment on other blogs.
Now, maybe you've done this before but stopped, because you're becoming concerned about being considered a link-spammer. In that case, leave a link to your site after your comments, instead of in the comment form that hot links it.
In the near future, blogmasters will be able to use special code to prevent spam in their comments section, so this will become less of a concern.
Besides, getting clicks from people who read comments, or visits from search engine spiders through your comments, isn't necessarily your direct objective, though it’s definitely a plus.
What you want to do via commenting is to enter the blog community that corresponds to your target market. Get to know who the players are and make agreements with them to cycle traffic between you.
Or lurk to find out where your target market typically hangs out when they're online – you’d be surprised at how many inexpensive and targeted advertising sources you can find through this method.
(If you're looking to get linked, there's another way that we'll go over next.)
This tip alone has earned me a few dozen links from prominent blogs in the past four days alone.
These links are worth ten times a reciprocal link because they send targeted traffic from established sources, and come from experts with records of proven results.
You can be sure these kinds of people will check you out before they linked to you, since they may be judged by the quality of the information they share.
The second method to more blog traffic is the most confusing for newer people, and this is probably the reason its benefits remain overlooked.
In the simplest of terms, Trackback is kind of a remote commenting system that incorporates linking. It allows the reader to follow a topic around the web to see other bloggers remark on the same subject. It enables the publisher to remotely cite references to the issue on which they've written.
Once you've made yourself familiar with the blogging community you have entered, you can often pick up the pulse of conversations within your site's theme. Then, when you see issues that you want to expound on, you can send the other site a notification to let them know you cited them on your blog. That link will appear on their site, and often draws visitors to you.
Bloggers who use Trackback often enjoy greater control over this function in their blogs than they do over linking, as they have the option to reject your reference - so there is a lesser incidence of fraudulent linking. That also gives your link a greater chance of being displayed.
So why don't more people use Trackback?
One reason is that what is arguably the most popular free blog system, Blogger, doesn’t have Trackback. However, Haloscan.com can remedy this with their free service – it’s a cut and paste away.
Many new bloggers don't get what it is and how it differs from commenting. And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again.
It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site.
The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog.
Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers.
It's a shame this is the one of the least used traffic methods for most sites, let alone for blogs. In four days, this method generated just over 1000 visitors. 157 newsletter leads, 98 new feed subscribers, and 206 links to my site. You may not get these same results right away, but using these simple strategies can still get you more exposure than you have now.
These aren't normally the highest quality links, as they rarely make sure of anchor text. However, bloggers are citing me using Trackback, sometimes in lieu of linking to the site where they originally found the article.
To see this in action, do a search on "Can A Ping Really Help Your Blog Get Top Search Engine Rankings", the title of an article I submitted earlier this week.
That article was published within a week of this one- the results speak for themselves. Many of these sites aren't the ones where my articles are normally published.
There are, of course, plenty of other ways you can leverage the content in your blog or RSS feed to increase the traffic to your site. The methods outlined here may be a bit outside the norm, but, as you’ll soon find, that’s part of the reason they are so effective.
16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
0 Comments Published by Sridhar on Sunday, June 18, 2006 at 11:45 PM.
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.
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.
Tip: Use a hit counter to track your visitor stats: how many unique visitors, how many page views, average length of visit. You can get a free hit counter at http://www.sitemeter.com
Now that you have got a basic understanding of the ins and outs of blogs, and some options available, you're probably wondering: How does this help my business? How does it help me to stand out?
1. Team Communication. Companies use blogs internally to communicate project status to stakeholders and managers. It beats clogging everybody's email with mass broadcasts. It allows these missives to be archived, indexed and easily searched.
2. Enrich Your Clients. You can easily link to articles and resources relevant to your readers and their needs. You can more easily attract experts to provide value-added content to your audience.
3. Get to Know Your Customer. Nobody buys from someone they don't know. Blogging allows you to demonstrate your expertise and point-of-view quickly and easily. In addition, blogs allow the customers to receive your updates in the format they choose.
4. Collaborate. You can create your own marketing buzz to drive attention and buyers to your products and services. Some companies use internal blogs to report on projects or to track work groups distributed around the world.
5. Research and Development. Weblogs are the perfect forum to test out new ideas and receive instant feedback. You can allow others to see how you develop your products and services, and at the same time, they can tell you how best to serve them.
6. Go Global. Blogs, like other online media, allow you to take your business and ideas to a global market. Translation services are getting better every day, allowing more people to read online content in different languages. I've helped bloggers from New York to New Zealand, from Indiana to India.
7. Hidden Entrance to the Press. Journalists are busier than ever and blogs provide a virtual directory of pundits on any topic. You and your company can be the content expert they're looking for. Furthermore, if your company is talked about in the blogosphere it could end up using that exposure as a back door to the press.
8. Get Published. Publishers are turning to blogs to find new writing talent. Blogs can give a publisher a taste of your writing style as well as a sample of your depth of knowledge. Content specific blogs show a a commitment to a certain topic or subject matter.
9. Write your book. Let your readers help you write your latest book or article. Post chapters or ideas, then let readers help you in researching, testing and suggesting ideas. Or, use a blog after your book is published to update the material or to answer questions from readers.
10. Success Stories. Invite clients to blog about their successes with your products and services - it's like a living testimonial that never ends. As clients share their experiences, your prospects can see first-hand how you can help them, too.
Blogging is a growing trend on the Internet today with hundreds of users adding new blogs and fresh content daily. While many use their blogs for personal journals, ploitical opinions or other topics of discussion, one could also look at a blog from a marketing perspective and find benefits for their business. Here I suggest ten reasons to start a custom blog to enhance their online marketing efforts.
10 - Blogs generate traffic
By posting blogs online you generate new keyword content that can be crawled by search engines. Unique searches by Internet users seeking products and services can lead them to your articles and topics for further review. If your blog answers their question, provides them information on what they are searching for or captures their interest you have a possible repeat visitor, lead or sale should they click through to browse your web site.
While many web sites use focussed articles, case studies and press releases in such a way, a blog gives you the advantage of covering several topics to capture a broad range of interests. A blog encourages repeat visits, remains open to interactivity when allowing users to comment or leave feedback and becomes a channel for you to network with the online public discussing your business, products and services.
9 - You don't have to be a professional writer
Writing effective material for web content that is keyword friendly and well presented for generating a sale is often left to professionals, and is very important to a web sites success. A blog however leaves the style and approach to the content completely up to you. As the owner of your business you are qualified as the expert in your field, which is enough to interest and educate your customers about what you do. You have the creative license to discuss subjects about your business with personality and even humor. You have a forum to converse with your readers about your business, yourself and what you do best.
8 - Custom blogs can have special features
There are many features used on the Internet such as polls and surveys that again help you communicate with your customers and your web site visitors. A custom blog can be modified to do whatever you would like it to do just like a web site. Any additional features that would improve your blogs interest can be added at any time, while a free or programmed blog can leave you less options or no options at all.
7 - Fresh web site content on your schedule
Fresh content and frequent updates are essential to a successful web presence. A blog allows you to add new content as your schedule allows be it the tip of the day or the product of the week. Blogging puts the task of keeping your site current right on your desktop.
6 - Broadcast on demand
Announcing promotions, sales and special events is as easy as typing them into your blog. Make any notice public within minutes.
5 - Today a blog, tomorrow an e-zine
As time passes and your blog archives your posts, your blog becomes a virtual magazine of material with a range of topics. The more content you add related to your business, the more keywords are added and more material is available for interested Internet users.
4 - Customer education
No matter what business your'e in it is important to give your customers a clear message of what you offer. You can use your blog to help them better understand your methods, products, policies and more. Frequently asked questions can be addressed and explained easily, a benefit to you and your clients.
3 - Customer service
Use your blog to support products and services by adding content that can again answer questions or explain procedures. The ability to attract attention to new products or inform customers about those products can give your customers a reference point and save them a call or possible confusion.
2 - Customer satisfaction
One could use their blog to allow customers to leave feedback on their purchases, build a list of testimonials, offer ways for them to recommend, rate or request products and more. All adding more content to the blog to interest other readers and sales leads.
1 - Your satisfaction
As this article suggests, with a custom blog you have a marketing tool and total control over what relationships can build from it. An affordable online web presence that requires little time, knowledge to operate and an open channel to the Internet at large.
I have been a blogger since September 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.
In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:
1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.
2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.
3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static webpages. I have had webpages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.
4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everwhere. The more content you have the better.
5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.
6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.
7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.
8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.
9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.
10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.
11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that you have updated your content.
a) http://WWW.Ping-o-matic.com
b) http://WWW.Rssfeedpromoter.com
So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?
