Increase Your Blog Traffic

We've Moved

2006-06-04T22:29:00.000-04:00

We've moved to http://www.BloggingFool.com. We'll be re-posting a lot of the previous articles that we've wrote over the coming weeks in addition to new blog tips and resources.

Moving From BlogSpot to My Own Domain

2006-05-15T13:20:00.000-04:00

I realize that at this point this blog is pretty small time but I'm hopeful that it can grow to be something significant and helpful for people. For the past few weeks I've been tossing the idea of moving to my own domain around (my apologies for the recent lack of content while I tossed the idea around). After some thought I've decided that its time to move to my own domain. At this point I'm not certain what the domain will be but I should know in the next week or two. In the interim I plan on continuing to post here a little more and then once I've secured the domain and web hosting (anyone have a favorite?) I'll copy the content from here to the new site.

In light of my decision I wanted to take a minute to address why I'm moving and hopefully encourage others to do the same. My first and primary reason for the move is to allow this site to develop its own personality. It seemed to me that continuing to host on blogspot labels the site as being somewhat amateurish and doesn't leave much room to become any sort of authoritative source on increasing traffic to a blog. I'm also moving because I want to have the flexibility that having your own web space provides.

It seems that the longer I would have waited to move the hard the move would have been so I decided that the time was now. My own domain will cost about $8 and then a year of hosting can be just a few bucks a month, easily worth it I think.

If you're currently writing on blogspot, typepad, wordpress or some other blog hosting service make sure that you consider your goals for you blog and determine if having your own web space will further reaching those goals. If it will then its probably time to make a move.

tags: blogging

Using Feedburner for Syndication

2006-05-06T10:05:00.000-04:00

Feedburner is a great way to syndicate your content and get more people to read what you write. Feedburner offers a bunch of different services to help you build awareness of your content, keep stats on who is reading and even will help you with ways to monetize your blog.

A few highlights of Feedburner:

The Feedburner PingShot automatically notifies a bunch of web directories when you post new content.
Feedburner lets you easily setup email subscription lists.
Gives you serveral different chicklets to put on your site to make it easier for people to sign up for your feed.
Allows you to automatically add links to social bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg, del.icio.us, Slashdot, Furl, Spurl, etc.) on each blog post and also in your FeedBurner feed. By using these links you can have your readers promote your blog for you. This is a very powerful tool for you to use as you grow your blog.

All in all, Feedburner is an awesome and free tool. Definitely worth checking out.

tags: feedburner

Is the Rich Jerk a Scam?

2006-04-24T16:17:00.000-04:00

I recently purchased The Rich Jerk e-book to find out what all of the fuss was about and determine once and for all if the Rich Jerk is a scam or not.

What to Expect from the Rich Jerk

As the name suggests, the Rich Jerk is never short on arrogance, but amidst the arrogance there is also a lot of useful information. The book focuses on methods for creating wealth on the Internet and how to get started doing so quickly. Its not a get rich quick scheme but more of a best practices guide for affiliate marketing and selling information and products online.

Key Topics Covered in the Rich Jerk

How to make money with an affiliate website.
Unique ways to make money off of pay per click (PPC) advertising.
Some good and easy to use search engine optimization (SEO) ideas.
Making the most money from selling your own products.
Buying wholesale goods and re-selling them for a profit.
Listing of resources to help you put what the Rich Jerk says into practice.

More than likely not all of the topics covered in The Rich Jerk will be of interest to you. For me, the sections on affiliate websites and PPC were the most thought provoking and contained a bunch of ideas that I am excited to try out.

The Verdict on The Rich Jerk E-Book

Rating: 4 out of 5

For $49.00 you really can't go wrong with this book. At the absolute least The Rich Jerk an interesting read on some interesting tactics for making money on the Internet. At it's best, even if you were to employ just one of The Rich Jerk's techniques described in the book, you'll easily cover the cost of the book.

Note: The Rich Jerk also offers a 60 day money back guarantee so if you buy the book and don't like it just ask for a refund no questions asked.

tags: rich jerk

Using TrafficSwarm to Increase Your Blog's Traffic

2006-04-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

TrafficSwarm is in the same vein as BlogMad and BlogExplosion. Its completely free to join and can help you as you start to build traffic to your blog. Just for signing up you'll get some free credits that you can redeem to get people to visit your blog. Then you can also earn additional credits by surfing other TrafficSwarm users' blogs. A great way to get ideas from other people's blogs, leave comments (with a backlink to your blog) and get some traffic to your site in return.

TrafficSwarm also lets you sign up for a free subscription to Revenue magazine, just for joining TrafficSwarm. Revenue is a magazine devoted to the latest trends in online and affiliate marketing.

tags: traffic swarm

Free Blogger Templates

2006-04-16T23:20:00.000-04:00

I previously posted about a few available sites with free templates for Blogger. Below is an attempt at a more complete list of free templates for use with Blogger:

Hopefully that helps as you try to find the right look for your blog. Its not an exhaustive list of all of the site's offering free Blogger templates but its a pretty substantial list. If you know of any other sites with templates post a comment and let me know.

tags: blogger templates

Trying Out the Rich Jerk

2006-04-14T10:10:00.000-04:00

I am going to be purchasing the Rich Jerk's ebook today and will be spedning some time reading it over to determine whether or not it is a rip-off or a godsend for bloggers. I'm guessing it will fall somewhere in the middle...Check back soon for my review.

As you can see their ads are totally ridiculous but funny:

tags: rich jerk

The Google Big Daddy Update's Impact to Your Blog

2006-04-13T00:21:00.000-04:00

Over the coming weeks a major Google update, commonly referred to as Big Daddy, is taking place that will undoubtedly affect your blog's traffic from Google. To help explain the update I found this article entitled "What's The Big Deal About Google's BigDaddy Update?" by Matthew Coers. Read on to learn more about what you can expect to see from the update.

What's The Big Deal About Google's BigDaddy Update?

Internet Marketers assign names to these updates much the same way the weather service names hurricanes. Last October it was Jagger, before that we had the infamous Florida Update in late 2003, and Austin in early 2004.

Each update is designed to improve search results by either doing a better job of identifying high-quality content on the Internet, or by doing a better job of suppressing low-quality content.

Over the last two or three weeks, many website owners have seen traffic to their sites from Google fluctuate quite a bit. This is normal for algorithm updates – as the index is updated on one data center, a site will change positions. The fluctuations occur because the index in the new data center is not completely built, and therefore a site may be placed artificially high or low until all the data is brought into equilibrium.

A few days ago, Google completed a major overhaul of its algorithm – this one dubbed BigDaddy and in the world of search engine updates it's a category 5 hurricane; well, sort of.

You see, after all the turmoil of the past three weeks or so, most marketers are probably seeing their websites ranked more or less where they were about a month ago. This is unusual. Usually major algorithm changes result in significant changes in site rankings for virtually all sites on the Internet. Both the Florida and Jagger updates changed the landscape of Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) dramatically.

So, What's the Big Deal About BigDaddy?

At first glance, the BigDaddy update seems to be much ado about nothing. However, there are some welcome changes that have been included in this update that should make Google a much friendlier place for those of us who build valuable content-rich websites.

- Increasing size and scope of the index – One of the purposes of this latest update was to increase the size of the index itself. This will allow Google to dig deeper into your site and catalog even more of your content (HTML, JavaScripts, Flash, etc).

- URL Canonicalization – Yes, it's a scary word, but it's actually quite simple. Essentially, canonicalization is determining which URL is the most appropriate for a given page. For example, the following URLs are all valid ways of reaching the homepage of ProfitChoice.com:
- - http://www.profitchoice.com
- - http://profitchoice.com
- - http://www.profitchoice.com/index.asp
- - http://profitchoice.com/index.asp
By improving URL Canonicalization, Google is attempting to make sure your site gets credit even though the URLs might be spelled differently on different websites.
- No More Page Hijacking – Although not a common problem, there are unscrupulous jerks out there who will find a popular site and hijack it's content by using 302 redirects. Google is attempting to eliminated the ability to do this effectively – hopefully they are succeeding.
- New Spider – You will also see a new Google spider called Mozilla Bot instead of the old familiar GoogleBot. If you are into looking at server logs, the new agent is "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
- Less Search Engine Spam – continuing with the recent trends, Google seems hell-bent on eliminating the effectiveness of purchased keywords and link farms. If you are still employing these "black-hat" techniques, then you probably just found out about the BigDaddy update the hard way. If you didn't, then you will probably be hearing from BigDaddy soon.

BigDaddy Foretells More Changes To Come

In the immediate aftermath of a major update like BigDaddy, there are a number of things you can expect to happen.

The first is that your website's PageRank (PR) will probably change over the next few weeks. If you've been doing the things that Google likes, then you will likely see your PR improve, if you are engaged in unscrupulous (by Google's standards) activities, then you can expect your PR to go down. To see a list of what Google likes visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/.
In addition, some of your site's older content will be re-crawled and older, unlinked content will probably be removed from the index.

Over the next few months, there will also likely be a series of smaller updates that will take advantage of the new "infrastructure" provided by the BigDaddy update. Flash-heavy sites that were held artificially low may move up in the rankings while sites that rely heavily on reciprocal linking will likely go down.

BigDaddy – Not Such A Big Deal

In short, as long as you are not engaged in "Black-hat SEO", BigDaddy itself is probably no cause for alarm. If your site has recently bounced around in Google's results, then you will notice that things have probably returned to normal in the last week or so, and your rankings have probably improved a little bit.

Moving forward, in the next few weeks you can expect changes to your PageRank, and perhaps deeper crawls by Google's new spider, "Mozilla Bot". In the next few months there will likely be a number of smaller updates, mostly pertaining to issues like Flash content and niche-specific algorithm changes.

As with all algorithm changes, there is no reason to panic just because "BigDaddy" blew through town. Like hurricanes in the real world, algo changes blow a lot of loose material around; but if your website's foundation is sound, you will weather the storm and be ready for business once the storm has passed.

About the Author

Matthew Coers is an Internet marketing expert. His website, ProfitChoice.com contains FREE video tutorials and online courses designed to help entrepreneurs build a website and make money online.

Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com

tags: big daddy

Increase Your Blog Traffic From Yahoo

2006-04-11T21:25:00.000-04:00

Here is a unverified traffic tip for getting your blog's feed indexed by Yahoo quicker.

Start a MyYahoo page.
Then click the "Add Content" link in the upper left. This will take you to a screen to search for content for your page.
Click on "Add RSS by URL" on the right side of that window.
Then type in your feed's URL, click Add and then on the next page click "Add to My Yahoo" in the upper right corner.

Thats it. Hopefully it helps.

Idea courtesy of JohnTP

tags: yahoo

Easy Introduction on Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

2006-04-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

Increasing traffic to your blog is fundamental to your blog's success on the Internet. As you'll soon find, it isn't all that hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does take time.

Post Frequently to Your Blog

The first and most important rule for increasing traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post some more. Posting new and unique content on a regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.

Building Inbound Links

Another critical method for getting traffic to your blog in through by establishing links to your site on other people's webpages. This servers two purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone else's site can be clicked on thus bringing a visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites pointing to your site factor into the equations that Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in which sites are listed in searches conducted on their site. These types of links are referred to as "inbound" links.

When you try to develop inbound links it is important to make sure that the links are relevant. For example, if your blog is about cars then it doesn't do a lot of good to have an inbound link from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or, at a minimum, sites that target the same type of people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.

To begin developing inbound links, do a search for other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your blog is about cars then search "cars" in Blogger Search or Technorati (two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse through the results that you get and make a list of those that you think are well designed and interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs you will most likely have to give something in return and usually the easiest thing to give is a link to them. So from that list add a link on your blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then, after doing so, email the owner of each of those site and write something along the lines of:

"Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy Cars, a blog about cars. I've recently added a link to your site on my homepage because I feel that my readers are in a very similar demographic to that of your site. If you get a chance check my site out and if you like what you see please link back.

Thank you, John"

Remember that these blog owners don't owe you anything for you linking to them, but often if you ask nice you'll get a link back.

Submitting Your Blog to Blog Directories

Another way to build inbound links to your blog is by submitting your blog to blog and web directories. These directories contain literally thousands of websites and very rarely will someone come to your site by clicking on a link in one of the directories. However, including you blog in these directories can in many case help your ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don't spend too much time doing this but if you have a little free time they are worth looking into.

Write Interesting Blog Content

Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent content. The most powerful way to get people to your blog is to write content that your readers want to read. This will not only make people want to come back but it will also make them want to tell others about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to their blog once but getting someone to come back again and again, that is the key to increasing your blog traffic.

So post often, build links so people can find you and then make sure to keep it interesting. They'll come...for now, work hard and be patient.

tags: blog help

Free Link

2006-04-06T16:04:00.000-04:00

If you use or have used our blog to help increase your blog traffic then we would like to offer you a free link. Just comment on this post with your site's URL and after we make sure you meet our requirements we will list you below.

The only requirements are:

Your site is a blog
Your blog doesn't have any objectionable content

If you would like to give us a shout-out by linking back to us, feel free to but it isn't necessary. Here is code to link to us:

Blogs that Use Increase your Blog Traffic

tags: link exchange

Using the BlogMad Traffic Exchange

2006-04-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Similar to BlogExposion, a new traffic exchange service called BlogMad. If works pretty much the same, you spend time searching other member's blogs and earn credits doing so. Then you spend those credits to get other people to come to your blog. In fact BlogMad might be better than BlogExplosion in that BlogMad offers a 1:1 ratio, so for every blog you visit you'll get one visit to your site. Plus, its a fun way to search other people's blogs and accomplish something in the process, and completely free...

Remember to leave thoughtful comments on other people's blogs to help them and help your own site.

Sign up for BlogMad

tags: increasing traffic

Keeping Stats

2006-04-05T18:18:00.000-04:00

One key to building traffic to you blog is to keep track of who is coming to your blog and how they are getting there. In order to do this you need to use what is commonly referred to as a hit counter. A hit counter is a counter of how many people come to your site but it can also be a lot more. Good hit counters can tell you where a visitor to your site came from, how long they stayed, what web browser they used, what operating system they have, where they are located and more. Some of the info will be usefult to you (i.e. where they came from) and other info won't matter a whole lot for now.

Installing a hit counter is actually quite easy, all you need to do is paste a little piece of code into your blog template and off you go.

A few good, free options for hit counters:

I personally have only used SiteCounter but the others should be good too, if anyone disagrees please let me know. Thats for today....

Leaving Comments on other Blogs

2006-03-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

One great way to increase readership of your blog is to surf other people's blogs. There are a lot of easy ways to do this.

Surf randomly on BlogExplosion
You can use the “next blog” on Blogger
Find one blog that you like and clickthrough to blogs that they link to.

Also, as you browse, try to leave comments with a link back to your site in you comment. This will encourage others to visit your sit and then comment in return.

Blogging for Business (part 6) - Posting Entries with Multimedia Content

2006-02-20T18:36:00.000-05:00

A look at how to use graphics, audio, moblogging, and video to enhance your blog.

read more | digg story

Improve the content of your site with real time news

2006-02-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

Providing visitors with quality up-to-date content is not easy. Thanks to StepWebZ.com webmasters and bloggers can add constantly updating quality news to their site or blog. Learn more.

read more | digg story

A Good Link Exchange Program

2006-02-16T18:06:00.000-05:00

In my searching for link exchanges I found the Coop Advertising Network. The Coop Network is much, much better than most link exchange sites. You show 1-5 links on your page and then earn one-way links back to your site, the number of which depends on your site's weight (the Coop Network calculates this). I'd definitely suggest giving it a try, if you don't like it you can always quit the network.

Seven Blogging Styles that Generate Traffic

2006-02-13T19:39:00.000-05:00

Just as there are different styles of investing, there are different approaches to traffic generation. Aside from the occasional, reclusive J.D.Salingers, most writers want to be read as widely as possible. A blogger in the link identifies seven types of blogging styles that generate high traffic.

read more | digg story

Reviewing Blogexplosion, Blogclicker, BlogAzoo and BlogXchange

2006-02-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

Review of every traffic exchange services that I have tried so far. The idea behind traffic exchange services is you surf somebody else's blog in exchange for a credit which can be used toward drawing traffic to your own web site.

read more | digg story

Blogging For Profit: A Series of Tutorials

2006-02-13T19:35:00.000-05:00

Series of tutorials talking about traffic generation, Adsense tricks, etc.

read more | digg story

Top 10 Tips For Generating Big Traffic To Your Blog

2006-02-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

Let's face it, blogs (or weblogs) are getting incredibly popular amongst people with an internet connection due to the ease and practicality of setting one up. Despite this however, there is no value in having a blog if no one is visiting and reading it! Here are 10 quick tips to generating more traffic to your blogs

read more | digg story

5 things you can do to improve your blog in 1 hour

2006-02-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

"There are a lot of posts out there on ways you can increase traffic to your site, and unfortunately nearly all of them ask you to do things that, well, take time. For those of us who want things to do right now, here's a quick list of things you can do in the next hour that will improve your site if you haven't already."

read more | digg story

Drive traffic to your Blog (in 3 easy steps)

2006-02-13T19:29:00.001-05:00

After scouring the web for days looking for ways to increase traffic to my blog, I have compiled a simple 3 step process that is guaranteed to increase traffic. Three quick steps include:

Write about something people want to read about
Use trackbacks
Write Lists

How To Get Into The DMOZ

2006-02-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

If you haven't heard of DMOZ, it's because few people use it directly. Most people who use the DMOZ directory do so via sites like Google and Yahoo. Not only is being listed in the DMOZ a way to increase the traffic to your site, it also provides a good link back with a high PR which will in turn increase the PR of your site.

read more | digg story

About Social Bookmarking

2006-02-13T19:25:00.000-05:00

Social bookmarking communities can increase traffic to your web site! Learning about the strengths and weaknesses of social bookmarking will give you an advantage over your competition. Also includes reviews of the most popular social bookmarking communities.

read more | digg story

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog)

2006-02-13T19:24:00.000-05:00

Here's a great site to increase blog traffic by concentrating on content and forgetting about SEO and all that other tech stuff.

read more | digg story

Blogger Templates

2006-02-05T14:45:00.000-05:00

One of the keys to getting people to come to and stay for a while at you blog is to make sure that your blog looks good. One of the simplest ways to do this is to choose a cool template for your blog. Besides the standard Blogger templates here are ome useful links for other Blogger templates:
http://blog-templates.ravasthi.name/
http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/
http://www.pointoffocus.com/Graphics/focusblogger.html
Post a comment if you know of any other good template sites.

BlogExplosion - Increasing Blog Traffic With Traffic Sites

2006-01-26T16:27:00.000-05:00

Another decent way to increase blog traffic is by using traffic sites such as BlogExplosion. BlogExplosion basically is an exchange where the time you spend visiting other blog websites is returned to you by having other bloggers visit your site. Each visitor to your site is required to stay for 30 seconds and thats it! So make sure you have some quality content at the top of your page and make them want to stay on your blog longer. BlogExplosion also has a bunch of other utilities that you can use, for example, a rent your blog feature, blog statistics, scratchcards to earn more traffic and more. Check it out, definitely worth a try...

Building Links to Your Blog

2006-01-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

First and foremost in getting more people to read your blog is building relevant links. Doing this is not a easy or quick task but is worth the effort. Every week or two I'll try to cover a new idea for building links to your blog.

Today's topic...asking nicely for a link

If you are a blogger then most likely you spend some time reading other blogs. Not only will this help you get ideas on how to improve your own blog but this also is a great time to begin thinking about increasing traffic to your own blog. Anytime you find a blog that you like, send them an email and tell them that you like their blog and are interested in a link exchange. The worst that they can say is "No" otherwise you have already got a jumpstart on increasing traffic to your blog. Post any comments or additional thoughts below please...

Increasing Blog Traffic - Welcome

2006-01-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

Hello and Welcome to the Blog Traffic Blog. I'm hoping that this blog can serve as a resource for all of you out there struggling to get people to come to your blog. The tips and ideas discussed in the blog should apply to anyone hoping to bring more people to their blog, regardless of your topic or goals in blogging. With that said good luck to you all and happy blogging.

Links

2006-01-11T22:46:00.000-05:00

LS Blogs

VoIP and Internet Phone Center
Bringing you the latest information and reviews on VoIP and Internet Phone technologies.
Sales Training
Offers sales tools, information and resources.
Pick Up Lines
Offers pick up lines and related resources.
SEOElite Search Engine Optimization Software
Website linking and analysis software to help build link popularity and increase your search engine rankings!
SEO Hut - Search Engine Optimization
SEO Hut provides details and information about SEO products such as Link Metro and SEO Elite.

Friends

2005-11-01T00:42:00.000-05:00

Increase Your Blog Traffic

We've Moved

Moving From BlogSpot to My Own Domain

tags: blogging

Using Feedburner for Syndication

tags: feedburner

Is the Rich Jerk a Scam?

What to Expect from the Rich Jerk

Key Topics Covered in the Rich Jerk

The Verdict on The Rich Jerk E-Book

tags: rich jerk

Using TrafficSwarm to Increase Your Blog's Traffic

tags: traffic swarm

Free Blogger Templates

tags: blogger templates

Trying Out the Rich Jerk

tags: rich jerk

The Google Big Daddy Update's Impact to Your Blog

About the Author

tags: big daddy

Increase Your Blog Traffic From Yahoo

tags: yahoo

Easy Introduction on Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

Post Frequently to Your Blog

Building Inbound Links

Submitting Your Blog to Blog Directories

Write Interesting Blog Content

tags: blog help

Free Link

Blogs that Use Increase your Blog Traffic

tags: link exchange

Using the BlogMad Traffic Exchange

tags: increasing traffic

Keeping Stats

Leaving Comments on other Blogs

Blogging for Business (part 6) - Posting Entries with Multimedia Content

Improve the content of your site with real time news

A Good Link Exchange Program

Seven Blogging Styles that Generate Traffic

Reviewing Blogexplosion, Blogclicker, BlogAzoo and BlogXchange

Blogging For Profit: A Series of Tutorials

Top 10 Tips For Generating Big Traffic To Your Blog

5 things you can do to improve your blog in 1 hour

Drive traffic to your Blog (in 3 easy steps)

How To Get Into The DMOZ

About Social Bookmarking

How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog)

Blogger Templates

BlogExplosion - Increasing Blog Traffic With Traffic Sites

Building Links to Your Blog

Today's topic...asking nicely for a link

Increasing Blog Traffic - Welcome

Links

Friends

tags: friends