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:

• Goarticles.com
• SubmitYourArticles.com
• ArticleDashboard.com
• Freenichetopics.com

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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:

Make sure that when you paste them into this box that there is only one link per line – you don’t have to put commas after them.

Now just click save and then every time you update or create a page or blog post all of the sites listed in your ping list will be notified.   Subscribers to those sites, who are interested in your particular area of expertise will be notified automatically about your new content and before long you will have plenty of new people coming along to your site, to see what you have to say.

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.

There are times when the personal approach is a good one.  Rori Raye, on her relationship sites gives a lot of personal stories about how she changed the state of her marriage by following the advice that she sells – heaven’s her business is based on it.  Tiffany Dow who is a well-known Internet Marketer shoots little videos of her dog, Honey, and puts them on her blog along with the more useful information – her readers love it.  John Chow is another successful blogger who actually does video trips he goes on with his family, places he goes to lunch and things like that – his readers love that he shares these aspects of his life along with really useful information about how others can succeed online.

So what is the point of this blog post?  Well that is simple.  To give you the same answer that I would give anybody else – it depends on the topic of your blog.  Another couple of tips I would suggest given that large corporations and employers now do searches on the internet for references to their employees (or applicants) is don’t post anything online you would not want to share in a job interview – because you will never know when that embarrassing photo someone took of you last summer will show up on your Facebook page.

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.

Most times I have heard friends who are bloggers talk about their blogs being stolen. At first I thought it was far from the truth, but it took me a while to verify this. This is why I felt I should put some light on the problem of Blog Scrapers. There really are people out there who actually steal other peoples’ blogs and put it on their websites, or use them as “Splogs”. These Splogs are spam blogs which people email to their clients to maintain huge traffic.

Blog scrapping is actually the process of searching the internet for blogs. After finding them, blog scrappers use them on their websites – like stealing. Some in fact use software applications to search and copy the blogs. There are friends of mine who have been victims of blog scrapping. When their blogs got stolen and they approached the site owners, all they got in return were false claims of ownership. It was quite a mess.

The problem is that people don’t realize this is illegal. Instead of stealing blogs from original sites, just ask the owner for permission to use it. Strike a deal or share links, this is better and helps both parties. Of course the writer has his or her right to protect the article. This is what we call “Copyrights”.

Those of us who want to protect our blogs can get them copyrighted. The best site for this is creativecommons.org. It is a simple process and easy to do.

There is also CopyScape.com, a site that will compare your web page and search the rest of the web for copies of that content.

Just as there are copy scraper applications, there are those which detect the copy scrapes. For example; you can use the HTML Agility and Silverlight browser applications. There are some applications like node.js which actually detect screen scrapes. You never know to what extent your webpage may be copied.

So once you put something up on your website, always copyright it immediately and check for blog scrapers.

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?

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.

Inevitably, daily backups become weekly. Then weekly become monthly. Then monthly becomes never.

Then disaster strikes.

Your site gets hacked. An error occurs in your code. Your database becomes corrupted.

FML.

Luckily for WordPress based sites, there is now a dead simple, bulletproof solution. Introducing VaultPress by Automattic.

The whiz kids behind WordPress.com, Gravatar, Akismet, etc. have created a service that automatically backes up your entire WordPress site, including database and static files without any manual intervention.

You simply install the ValutPress plugin into your site and never touch it again. From that point forward, VaultPress saves copies of file on your site and eve database entry onto the WordPress.com enterprise infrastructure.

Within seconds of making a new post or template change, a backup copy is saved to VaultPress.

Multiple times a day, the system makes entire backups if your site.

If the unthinkable should ever happen to you, there is a full site backup sitting for you just waiting to be restored. Crisis averted.

There is also an additional service that checks your site for dangerous or malicious code. You are alerted to it’s presence right away. There is even a function that pushes instant updates to your core files when new security fixes are released.

The $15 per month cost is NOTHING compared to losing years of work.

VaultPress is still in private beta, but you can sign up for an invite.

UPDATE: VaultPress is open to everyone now!

First of all, you can see that the local game is hot right now.  Sites like Yelp are cashing in on these opportunities.  Even Google has continued to drive their local search focus.  Local is starting to spread across multiple products within Google, including:

• Local Search
• Google Maps
• Google Directory
• Adsense
• Adwords
• Google Voice
• Goog411

All of these products rely on the thirst for local content and information.  Sites like Yelp are cashing in on the local directory and review market where users generate local content about everything from restaurants to dry cleaners.

How to cash in on “local” with your blog?

Try to incorporate a local element with every post you write.  It does not have to be local to you, but local to the post.

For example, right now I am posting about the importance of localizing content.  For this post, a great example of what I am talking about would be a blog called Hoboken411.  This site is all about the city of Hoboken, NJ, right outside New York City.  By mentioning how great this local site is and talking about their content in a local sense, I will increase my odds of someone finding this post when Hoboken is typed into the search query.

Ok, maybe not the best example.  Here’s a few more.

Running blog. When you review that new pair of Nike running shoes for your blog, you should consider talking about the stores, cities, addresses, and websites of the stores that are going to get the first shipments of these hot shoes.  (A great example)

Reality TV blog. When you’re giving the play by play review of last night’s episode of The Apprentice, you should try to find out the name and address of the diner that the episode was shot.  Or the corner that they setup their street cart.  Or really any major landmark/scene from the episode.  There will be a lot of people out there that want to find out the name of the place.  They may be able to figure out that it was New York, but they won’t know much more than that.  If your post answers the “where” question, you will rank well for that search term.

Baseball blog. Let’s say that you write a blog about the New York Mets.  Each time the team hits the road, you could incorporate a post about the most “Mets Friendly” bar in that town to watch the game.  You’d be surprised how many displaced fans are spread all over the country looking for places to watch their favorite out-of-state teams. Here’s a good example of what I mean.  Here is where you can see Yelp cashing in on this idea.

In most cases, you should be able to come up with a local angle for your post.

For anyone looking to start a new blog, starting as a local blog is the place to go.  Most small or even mid-sized towns/cities are in desperate need for good local content.  You could dominate the niche by turning out great content focused on that local audience.

It is much easier to start local and attempt to expand than it is to start with a national focus.  There are a lot more players in the national game right now.  Local is the place to be!

Are you tired of hearing about it yet?  Well that is unfortunate because it is not going away in our lifetime.   As the cost of video production continues to head towards zero, more and more videos are being uploaded to the web.

Why is this important for you?

If you’re business (or blog) plans to compete in this space, you need to embrace video.

So, are you going to do some video blogging or are you going to put some video on your blog.  There is a huge difference.

Video for your Blog (Meh).

What I’ve done below is put some video on my blog.  It happens to be a very cool video called, The Machine is us\ing us.  It is a 5 minute clip that sums up the coolness of the Internet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Normally, you would want this video clip to have some significance for being in your post.  In this case, I just thought it was a cool clip.

However, video is great for demonstrating your point, talking about a current event, showing and explaining a complex point, conveying humor, etc.  There’s no shortage of great video clips for you to include in your posts.

Adding video to your site will increase user engagement, and make your content even more valuable (provided you are finding great clips).

Video blogging (winner!)

If you’ve got the chops, video blogging is a great play for you to make.

Text is great.

Video is great.

Combine the two.  That’s awesome.

For bloggers and site owners, combining the power of well written text with a great, unique video cannot be beat.  The stuff is content gold.

The real trick is to produce the video yourself.  It is getting easier and cheaper to do with $150 cameras and free video editing software, but the prospect of being on camera intimidates most people.

That’s ok.  If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.  However, you still need to seriously consider it.

There is also an added search value when you create and publish video.  Users will find you through YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Facebook, etc. because of your videos.  They’ll eventually find their way back to your blog.

Keep in mind that most content can be made better with video.

Practice what you preach.

I know.  We don’t do much video (at all) here at BlogCraving.  But that is something we are quickly working to remedy.  We are planning on releasing some video training series on commonly asked questions when it comes to WordPress.  The goal will be to create a video based user guide for WordPress functions.

Each little lesson will be less than 60 seconds.  Just enough to show you what you need to know, and get it done.

More on that coming soon.