Your Blog Traffic Blueprint – Part Two

September 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In the last post I explained a number of different ways you could get your blog optimized for traffic and then methods in which you could drive traffic through the use of backlinking.  The good thing about a lot of backlinking methods is that not only do they help your blog to be recognized as important by search engines like Google; many of the methods drive traffic directly to your blog because of the insightful content you are providing.

In this post I am going to lay out a blueprint for you that you can follow step-by-step and then in later posts I will give you more details on how to actually set up each of these methods to maximize their impact on your traffic stats.

  1. Do the preparation steps in the previous blog post.
  2. Write five articles related to your niche – this is not as hard as it seems – you can simply rewrite your blog posts to create unique articles.
  3. Use Camtasia Free software and PowerPoint presentation slides to create videos out of your article content – don’t mind being in front of the camera?  Then use that, but you want to create five videos based on your five articles and you will need five PowerPoint presentation slide shows for traffic generation as well.
  4. Create an audio file of all five of your articles.  If your article content is quite short just make one audio file including the information in all five articles.

Okay so at this point you will have five articles, five videos, five PowerPoint presentation slide shows, and at least one audio file.  All of these files will contain backlinks to your site and if you can include a call to action (without sounding spammy) in the content as well all the better.  Now you have to get these out on the net.

The Articles

Your articles are going to provide a hub for the rest of your traffic efforts.  Firstly you want to submit them to Ezinearticles.com.  Unless you are a premium member this is going to take a few days for the articles to be approved.  You are also going to submit your articles to the following sites:

But wait until your articles have been approved on Ezinearticles.com first – EZA does not like duplicate content.  Don’t forget to ping your article links (the actual link of the page your article is on) as well as Stumble it, Twitter it and put the link up on Facebook.

Next you want to find some graphics to go with your article content and then head over to Squidoo.com and set up five lenses using your article content and the pictures you have collected.  Each article will make an individual lens.  If you have not made a Squidoo Lens before then check out the help tutorials they have on their site which are very good or courses by people like Tiffany Dow or the PotPieGirl.  Again once you have your lenses finished then ping them and use your social media links to put the word out about them.

Well that should be enough to keep you going for the moment.  In the next post I will explain more things you can do with your articles and also where to post the other content that I had you create.

Filed Under: How to..., Site Traffic, Wordpress Tagged With: ,

Your Blog Traffic Blueprint – Part One

September 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Generating traffic to your blog is something a lot of bloggers have trouble with.  But if you use the traffic blueprint I have outlined below then you will have swarms of traffic hitting your site every time you write a new post.

Setting the Groundwork

Getting prepared for traffic to your site is something that you should be thinking off from the moment you install WordPress on your new domain.  Before you start generating traffic you want to make sure that you have installed all of the plug-ins outlined in our previous post here [Link to 5 Essential Plug-ins You Blog Must have].  To keep Google happy your site will need to have a Privacy Policy page, a Terms and Conditions Page and a Contact page at the very least.  You should also make sure that you have a minimum of three blog posts on your blog, with more scheduled or planned before you put this traffic plan into place.  Ideally you should aim for one new blog post for your blog daily for about a month, and then at least three times a week thereafter so that your blog always has good fresh content coming in.

Setting Up Backlinks

If you are not familiar with SEO then it is unlikely that you have come across the term “Backlinks” before but these are a vital part of your blogging success.  In a nutshell backlinks are links on other sites that point back to your blog, or a specific blog post.  The more backlinks your blog has the more valuable it is considered by Google and other search engines.  So you need to set up a system to start generating backlinks as quickly as you can.

Warning: There are a lot of companies online that claim they can get you hundreds or even thousands of backlinks for the price of a cup of coffee – Do not use these methods.  They are considered spam and can get your blog banned from Google permanently if you use these “Black Hat” methods.

Your pinging will already be creating backlinks for you but you can go a lot further with this.   Just some of the methods you can use include

  • Putting articles on article directory sites like Ezinearticles and GoArticles
  • Putting up videos on YouTube and other video sites (TubeMogul is good for this)
  • Creating audio files and placing them on sites like iTunes
  • Blog commenting on other blogs in your niche
  • Forum posting on relevant forums in your niche
  • Posting an ebook of your content on free ebook sites like Free-ebooks.net
  • Setting up related pages on Squidoo.com and HubPages
  • RSS feeds
  • Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon

Now before you go thinking that this could be a lot of work, remember that you can outsource a lot of these tasks and as we will show you in the next blog post – a lot of these ideas come from recycling and repackaging content you have already created.  See you on the next post.

Read Part Two

Filed Under: How to..., Site Traffic, Wordpress Tagged With: , ,

The Best Six Facebook WordPress Plugins

April 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Facebook is the largest social media website and thousands of users update their accounts as often as possible. Therefore installing Facebook plugins in WordPress helps users to provide the “share posts on Facebook” option for their visitors. There are six really amazing Facebook WordPress plugins:

  1. WP-FBConnect: This plugin adds the Facebook functionality to WordPress Blogs through Facebook Connect APIs. To use this plugin you have to link your Facebook account to your WordPress and then sign into it again. This will allow you to publish comments through the Facebook newsfeed and avatars displayed in the comments field using WordPress.
  2. Add to Facebook: This plugin provides a link at the bottom of your blog posts for users to click on. Once they click on this link they can add the post they are currently on to the mini-feed on their Facebook home page. All they will need to do is sign into their Facebook account.
  3. Facebook Dashboard Widget: You have to be interactive on Facebook, and this application provides you with all the updates from friends. This widget allows users to work with both Facebook and WordPress to keep you updated about friends even if Facebook is blocked.
  4. Facebook Comments: This is a very useful plugin which imports all the comments made about your post which were shared on Facebook. These comments will be posted directly into your WordPress blogs so that you don’t miss any of the comments.
  5. Facebook Photos Plugin: Everyone likes images on posts; it makes them interesting, attractive and sometimes help people understand things better. This plugin helps you by making it easy to add photos to your blog posts. You simply have to link your plugins to your Facebook account using the WordPress blog. Once this is done, whenever you edit old or new posts in WordPress, a new icon in “Add Media Section” will appear. You will be able to see the uploaded photos in your Facebook account by clicking on the new icon visible on your screen. You will be able to insert your images as small sized, medium sized and large sized images. You can also align the images if you want.
  6. Gigya: This is a very important plugin and all its features are configurable using the WordPress Administration Panel. Once you use this plugin you can enjoy secure signup and login to your website. Additionally you will be able to update your status on different social media sites and invite your friends to the different social media sites to join your blog.

Beyond doubt, WordPress is the best blogging platform anyone can use with Facebook.

Filed Under: Strategy, Technology, Wordpress Tagged With: , ,

Using the Ping List to Increase Your Blog Exposure

April 11, 2011 By 3 Comments

Many new blog owners don’t know what a ping is, let alone how to use this quiet little function to increase traffic to their blogs.  Put simply a “ping” is an automatic notification of new and updated content to sites that collect RSS feeds for their own subscribers.  By pinging these sites you create backlinks for your blog and you have the chance to increase your organic (that means free) traffic figures.

To utilize this function in your WP blog you need to go to “Settings” in your admin panel and click on “Writing” in the drop down menu that comes up.

writing 480x295 Using the Ping List to Increase Your Blog Exposure

This will bring you up a page like the one above.  You need to scroll down this page until you find…

pinglist 480x223 Using the Ping List to Increase Your Blog Exposure

You won’t have anything in this block when you install your new blog – you have to find a ping list to copy and paste into it.  To help you here are ten you can include by simply copying the links below and pasting them into that box: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Site Traffic, Strategy, Wordpress Tagged With: , ,

How Personal Should You Get in Your Blog Posts?

April 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

One of the questions that I get asked quite often is about how personal should you get in your blog posts and honestly my only answer is “that depends on what your blog is about”. 

For example if you are writing a review on a product or service then your point of view is important.  If you are writing a site on relationship problems and how to solve them, then your own personal experience might be relevant and helpful.  If you write about politics you can be opinionated but if you are updating your workplace blog then third person anecdotes and factual information might be more appropriate.

Personally I share as much of myself as is necessary to get my point across.  If I am writing about “make money tips’ then some of the things I have done and tried would be good examples to use in a post. 

When I write book reviews I give my opinion and the reasons for it.  There are times, like in the relationship niche for example, where I have used life experience to illustrate certain points but personally I don’t think that topics like what I had for breakfast, what I watched on TV last night, or what my mates and I got up to at the beach last summer is really important – because none of my blog topics are based on television programs, food or hijinks. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Don't Do It, Wordpress Tagged With: , ,

What Bloggers Don’t Know About – Blog Scrapers

April 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Everyone is blogging these days. It could be a personal website aimed at social interaction or business related sites. Of course the main objective for every blogger is to keep the traffic hooked and make it grow.

Ironically, most bloggers go to any length to achieve this objective, and mostly through wrong means.

Never copy other peoples’ web content. It is illegal.

Always write your own blogs. It is alright to rewrite an idea but never take another person’s work and use it on your website. The fact is that, the internet has too much content and when you search there is lots of similar information. This is why the search engines are becoming very sensitive when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Copied information is detected immediately. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Strategy Tagged With:

Still haven’t gone local yet?

March 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

About a year ago, I wrote a post about Attacking Local on your Blog.  Looking back over the last year, how true has it become?

A year ago, most people had never heard of mega online brands like Groupon.  And forget about Gilt, Living Social, Buy with Me, etc.  Now, they’re everywhere.

Even the “old school” media like CBS is cashing in (sort of).

The trend is only going to continue.  Now is the time to get on board if you haven’t already.  There’s still plenty of time and space for amazing local content sites to stake major audience claims.

As more and more consumers head to the web for even their most hyper local needs, the SEO value of localized content continues to grow exponentially.

What are you waiting for?

Filed Under: Strategy Tagged With: ,

WordPress Backups: What’s your disaster plan?

September 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

What is your backup plan for your WordPress site? You do have one, right?

Anyone that has experienced a personal computer crashing or a web server disaster will tell you the same thing…they wish they had been better about backing up their files.

I don’t care how often you think you will end up backing your systems up, it is never enough if you are doing it manually. Take it from someone who has gone down that road before.

I used to tell myself that I would be regular about backing up both my Mac and my websites. Hoe hard could it be? All that has to be done is setting aside a fee minutes on a regular basis to save some files to secondary storage. Not hard at all. It always seems to work for the a first few days or weeks too. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Security, Technology, Wordpress
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