Friday, February 25, 2005

16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff

You've got your blog set up and you've started posting pithy, useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments and your traffic stats are barely registering. What do you do? 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 (See example in our signature below).

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

About the author: Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership, and Patsi Krakoff of Customized Newsletter Services, have teamed up to create blogging classes and marketing services for independent professionals. Read and subscribe to their blogs at http://www.biztipsblog.com, http://www.coachezines.com and http://www.bizbooknuggets.com

7 Powerful Ways to Get One-Way Inbound Links

By Trent Brownrigg (c) (http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com) It's no secret that having links pointing to your website isvery good for search engine rankings, and gives more ways forhuman visitors to find your website. So, how do you get one-wayinbound links to your website? Well, there are numerous ways,and I am going to focus on seven of the most effectivetechniques.You probably already know about link exchanges as great way forgetting links to your website. However, with link exchanges, youhave to give a reciprocal link back to the website that islinking to you. In this article I am going to show you how toget links to your website without giving a link back.Ok, here are seven powerful ways for getting one-way inboundlinks: 1) Content - Packing your website full of useful content is oneof the best ways to get inbound links. When you have a lot ofcontent other webmasters will naturally link to you because yoursite will be valuable to them and their visitors. Some examples of good content to add to your website would be;free articles, tools, tips, and resources related to yourwebsite theme. You could also have a blog that you updateregularly with fresh content. 2) Testimonials - A big trend on the internet right now isadding testimonials to websites. The site owners typically getthe testimonials from their site visitors and businesscustomers. In exchange for the testimonial they usually give alink back to your website. Every time you come across a great website, or have a goodexperience with a purchase, send a testimonial to the websiteowner. If they decide to publish your testimonial you will get a link to your website. After a while these links will add up to a significant number. 3) Online Directories - There are hundreds of online directoriesthat accept website submissions. This is a very good techniquefor getting one way inbound links. Many of the top directoriesrequire you to pay for inclusion or provide a link back to theirdirectory. You can give the link back if you want, or pay if youhave the extra money. However, there are also numerousdirectories that will accept your website without payment or alink back.All you have to do is find the ones that accept free submissionsand you will get your one way inbound links. You can find quitea few directories, and some other great information aboutsubmitting to directories at http://www.directory-pages.com/ 4) Articles - Writing articles is one of the best techniques forgetting one-way inbound links to your website. Many webmastersare looking for more content for their websites and ezines. Youcan provide them with that content by writing articles andsubmitting them to websites, ezines, and article directories. In return for your effort you can put a little blurb aboutyourself and/or your business, with a link to your website, atthe end of the article. You will rack up a very high number ofinbound links to your website by utilizing this technique. Ihave done it many times with a lot of success. 5) Free E-book - You can write an e-book and offer it for freein exchange for a link to your website. You can also put linksto your website and other affiliate links in the e-book. Puttingthe links in the e-book will increase your website traffic andaffiliate profits.You are probably thinking that you can't write an e-book. Well,yes you can! It doesn't have to be some killer piece of workthat you spend months writing. Instead, you can just make it acollection of your favorite articles, resources, and toolsrelated to your website theme. As long as it is useful to yourvisitors they will gladly link to you in order to get it. 6) Blogs - There are actually a few ways to get one-way inboundlinks with blogs. The first way is simply to host a blog on yourwebsite and update it frequently. People tend to link to blogsbecause they provide content that is constantly being updated.The second way you can get one-way inbound links with your blogis to submit it to blog directories. Just like websitedirectories, there are tons of blog directories on the internetthat you can submit to for free. Just do a search on Google for"blog directory" and you will find many of them to submit to.The third way of getting inbound links with a blog is to host itsomewhere other than on your website. Then, provide a link fromyour blog to your website. After you have done that, you cansubmit your blog to directories for the extra page rank andadded exposure. Use this third technique with as many blogs asyou have time to update regularly with quality content. 7) Free Article Directory - Create an article directory on yourwebsite and allow your visitors to submit articles to it. Askfor a link back to your website in exchange for the articlesubmission. This will build your inbound links and create freecontent for your website. I have successfully used thistechnique for quite a while. You can see one of my articledirectories at http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com/articleAlright, there you go, you now have seven very effectivetechniques for getting one-way inbound links to your website.Get started on them right away and you should see your searchengine rankings rise, your website traffic increase, and yourprofits explode. If you have any questions about any of theselinking techniques just let me know, I will be happy to help.You can find my "contact me" link at the bottom of my website. ============================================== Trent Brownrigg is a successful internet marketer and homebusiness mentor. Visit his website athttp://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com and he will personallyhelp you succeed with your own home business. You can subscribeto his "Biz Tips Newsletter" by sending a blank email to:workathomebiz@aweber.com ==============================================

Thursday, February 24, 2005

WorkZoo Job Search Engine Indexing Over 40,000 Jobs Via RSS

WorkZoo Job Search Engine Indexing Over 40,000 Jobs Via RSS WorkZoo.com today launched a job search engine that combines over 40,000 new jobs daily from a wide range of employment web sites across the USA. The new search engine provides users with a personalized job map showing where the jobs are ... Read More...

Monday, February 21, 2005

Seo Elite Review: New Optimization Software

Is it really possible to achieve a number one position in search engines using SEO Elite™ 3.0 ? "Yes!" says Brad Callen, SEO Consultant & Internet Marketer and creator of this revolutionary software. " SEO Elite™ 3.0 is NOT another costly search engine optimization (SEO) service, outdated search engine 'how-to' program, or complex software that uses illegal or unethical tricks to gain top search engine rankings." One of the main factors in achieving a top 10 ranking is getting links to your website. Not just any links, but quality links, relevant to your website. However, building links can be a laborious and extremely time consuming process. SEO Elite™ 3.0 simplifies the process and allows you to find and email thousands of link partners in a matter of seconds. It saves an incredible amount of time and effort by allowing you to automatically monitor your keyword rankings for an unlimited number of websites and keywords on all major search engines which include: Google,Yahoo, MSN, Altavista and Alltheweb. SEO Elite™ 3.0 also checks whether your link partners are still linking back, checks where your site ranks on all major search engines, shows which pages have been picked up by the search engines and searches for super affiliates willing to promote your products, besides several other features. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an expensive and time consuming process. This new software promises to achieve the same results as expensive SEO services, for a fraction of the price. "My niche in the SEO community is to find new and effective tools to help other SEO's and webmasters gain top positions." says Aaron Wall, Professional SEO (seobook.com). "I have reviewed tons of software and have yet to find another link analysis tool with as many features as SEO Elite, let alone at it's bargain basement price. I am wondering why Brad hasn't raised the price yet." To find out more and to download a free demo click here: SEO Elite™ 3.0