Blogging is an excellent way to get more visitors to your website. If your site is a blog then you already have this taken care of. If you just have a standard HTML website you’ll certainly want to consider adding a blog to your site as well. The search engines tend to rank blogs very highly and it’s easy for you to update the content or to outsource it to your writers.
If you need help to get your blog set up and customized, we like Shelancers.com
Search Engine Optimize Your Blog
The first thing you need to do after you set up your blog is to make sure it is search engine “friendly”. That means adding some plug-ins and optimizing your content.
A popular plugin you’ll want to check out is the All in One SEO Pack.
You should also change your Permalink setting in the admin area to %permalink%, because that will optimize the titles of your entries. Instead of each post having a long URL composed of numbers and letters, it will contain your title.
This will help you rank higher so you can get more traffic.
Optimize your content
You should definitely make sure that your blog content is optimized for search engines. That means doing your keyword research and including your keyword in the title, first paragraph, body, and last paragraph. Your content should be relevant to your niche, and you should link to internal pages in your website to give your site an extra boost.
Ping your blog.
Pinging your blog is very important because it alerts the search engines and blog search engines when you update your contact.
WordPress (the most popular blogging platform) automatically pings your blog entries for you if you tell it to. Still, it doesn’t use every ping site out there by default. You’ll want to add an optimized ping list to your settings.
You can find a good ping list here: HYPERLINK “http://www.dailyblogtips.com/ping-list/”http://www.dailyblogtips.com/ping-list/
Submit your site to RSS feed engines.
There are sites out there that are dedicated to collecting blog feeds so that readers can quickly and easily find blogs they are interested in many niche topics. These readers are great because they syndicate your content by using your RSS feed, and they also give you a link back to your blog.
There are many different sites out there, but the most popular is HYPERLINK “http://technorati.com/”http://Technorati.com
This is where many people go to search for blogs they might be interested in. You can also claim your blog at the site, which has its own benefits. If you update your blog you want to save each page as a favorite in Technorati. Other people can then pick up on your content, and you will get more traffic as a result.
Other options include:
Feedage.com
Feedagg.com
Bloglines.com
Write guest blog posts.
Writing guest blog posts is a great way to get traffic to your website. This is especially true if you’re able to do so on a blog that is very popular. That way, when your post is published you will get the benefit of their authority, and many of their visitors will come to your site. You also get the benefit of getting a link from a quality website. The more you can boost your ranking in the search engines, the more traffic you can get.
Some sites where you may be interested in writing guest posts are:
HYPERLINK “http://www.LadyPens.com/”www.LadyPens.com
HYPERLINK “http://www.MarriageMultiVitamin.com/”www.MarriageMultiVitamin.com
HYPERLINK “http://www.JustPreschoolThemes.com/”www.JustPreschoolThemes.com
Of course, you’ll want to make sure that you only choose places that are directly related to your field of expertise.
Write link bait posts
Writing link bait is the best way to get visitors to link to your blog. Basically, your goal is to write a compelling, interesting, or controversial piece that will get other bloggers interested (or riled up) enough to link to your post. This tactic is often very successful and can get you many regular visitors if they see that your blog is well worth visiting.
Remember — you should always leave the comments section open so that more people will comment on your blog and visit often. One of the best parts about blogging is the interaction. Link bait posts tend to get a lot of comments.
Encourage people to sign up for your RSS feed
One of the greatest things about blogging is that you often get repeat visitors from those who love your content. The only problem is there are so many other blogs on the Internet that people may forget to visit you just because life gets in the way.
If you encourage them to subscribe to your RSS feed you’ll have a greater chance that they will visit regularly since their feed reader will automatically update them when you’ve updated your content.
You can encourage people to sign up for your RSS feed by including a large graphic that clearly gives a call to action for them to sign up. You can find some RSS graphics here: HYPERLINK “http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm”http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm
Consider making your blog do-follow.
Most blogs are “no-follow” when you install them.
This means that when people comment on your blog, they will not get a lot of the benefit from their link since it basically tells the search engines not to follow it (different engines handle this in different ways). If you’re using WordPress, you can easily install a do-follow tag by using a plugin.
Once people know your site is a “do-follow” (let them know using a graphic), you’ll find that your comments drastically increase.
For a discussion about this topic and more explanation, you can check out this blog post:
HYPERLINK “http://nicoleonthenet.com/2007/i-dofollow-you/”http://nicoleonthenet.com/2007/i-dofollow-you/
(or go to Google.com and search for the latest information)
In fact, many visitors seek out blogs with the do-follow tag to comment on because they know that they are going to get the most benefit from the link attached to their comment in the search engines. While some people will only stick around just to leave their link, there will be others who are interested enough to read your content and what you have to say.
Better yet, the more comments to have the more social proof you have. Once you have a bit of social proof your traffic and blog interaction will increase.
Blog often
The more often you blog, the more often your site will get spidered. This means that new blog posts will be indexed in the search engines quickly and you will start to become a “favorite”. This doesn’t mean you have to blog every day (though it helps). Just post as often and as consistently as you are comfortable with.
Both people and the search engines like to see freshly updated content. That means you’ll see a lot more traffic if you’re able to add a few new blog posts per week or so.
For example, you may want to make it a habit to blog at least three times every week around the same time. If people get a feel for when it’s a good time to stop by they will visit more often. Best of all, people will start passing out your blog link and you’ll get more links and more people visiting than ever before.
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