Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Quick Recap : Keys To Success

My Yahoo


A quick way to get your blog indexed is to add it to My Yahoo. If you

do not have a My Yahoo account, I would recommend that you register

one right now.

Link: http://my.yahoo.com

Assuming that you have now registered, be sure to add your feed to

Yahoo's RSS Directory, you can do this in your My Yahoo user area.

This method is considered one of the fastest ways to get your blog

indexed by Yahoo

Quick Recap : Keys To Success

1) Blog Frequently, at least a few times per week. The biggest mistake

made by bloggers is to let weeks or even months go by without

blogging. If your blog is not being updated it will no longer be

considered "sweet" to the search engines, by that I mean it will be

considered a "dead" blog and they won't visit as often.

2) Start leaving comments on other successful blogs, and then

eventually leave a link back to your site after creating a relationship.

3) Research the most popular blogs within your category; you can use

bloglines.com for your research. Look at what they are doing and try

to model their success without copying.

4) Add your links to the blog directories to gain more backlinks.

5) Monitor your web stats to see where your traffic is originating. It is

important that you use a web stats program that can show you how

many people are "bookmarking" your site. A good bookmark ratio is a

good sign that people are interested in your blog and have plans on

re-visiting it.

Follow these steps and you will be moving forward with a very

successful blog. Please remember each blog post does not have to be

pages in length. It can be as little as one to two paragraphs. Keep in

mind that whatever you post should be valuable to the user and elicit

a response.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Blogging Directories

Blogging Directories


A great way to promote your blog is to have it indexed in the blogging

directories. I've listed below the most popular directories that you can

submit your new blog to.

Blogarama

Link: http://www.blogarama.com

Blogdigger

Link: http://www.blogdigger.com

Blog Catalog

Link: http://www.blogcatalog.com

Blog Hub

Link: http://www.bloghub.com

Blog Rankings

Link: http://www.blogrankings.com

Blog Street

Link: http://www.blogstreet.com

Blog Search Engine

Link: http://www.blogsearchengine.com

Blog Wise

Link: http://www.blogwise.com

Blogz

Link: http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/

Blog Lines

Link: http://www.bloglines.com

Bloogz

Link: http://www.bloogz.com

Blog Pulse

Link: http://www.blogpulse.com

Blog Universe

Link: http://www.bloguniverse.com

Blog Tree

Link: http://www.blogtree.com

Contents Matter

Link: http://www.contentsmatter.com

Feed 24

Link: http://www.feed24.com

Feeders

Link: http://blogs.feedster.com

Findory

Link: http://www.findory.com

Get Blogs

Link: http://www.getblogs.com

Globe Of Blogs

Link: http://www.globeofblogs.com

LsBlogs

Link: http://www.lsblogs.com

Postami

Link: http://www.postami.com

Plazoo

Link: http://www.plazoo.com

Read A Blog

Link: http://www.readablog.com

Technorati

Link: http://www.technorati.com

Your Web Log Here

Link: http://www.yourwebloghere.com

My Yahoo

A quick way to get your blog indexed is to add it to My Yahoo. If you

do not have a My Yahoo account, I would recommend that you register

one right now.

Link: http://my.yahoo.com

Assuming that you have now registered, be sure to add your feed to

Yahoo's RSS Directory, you can do this in your My Yahoo user area.

This method is considered one of the fastest ways to get your blog

indexed by Yahoo.
 
 
My sites: http://www.energyandautomation.net/
http://www.tatkraftsolar.com/
http://ezwealthsolution.com/?benttattoo

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Blogging Regularly

Blogging Regularly


Now that we've got the theme setup, the URLs for all your posts being

search engine friendly, your pings being automated, the next step is to

start blogging. Here comes the tough part, what am I blogging about?

It's important that your blog be about something you actually have

knowledge on, and can write about fluently. For example if your site is

about recipes, you can have your blog posts related to anything about

recipes, perhaps experiences you have had while preparing dishes,

etc.

When blogging remember you must be very personable, friendly and

seem easy to talk to. The reason for this is that with each post you

make you are trying to elicit a response from users. With WordPress

you have the option to enable comments. By having comments on

your blog enabled, it increases your popularity rating. The search

engines will visit and update your blog more often as it is constantly

changing by having new content. I recommend that in each blog post

you make, that you always ask questions, request feedback to ensure

that the people viewing your blog find a reason to actually post a

comment.

Successful Blogs

The best way to learn how to have a successful blog is to review other

blogs that are proven success stories. To do this I recommend that

you visit a site called Bloglines.com

Link: http://www.bloglines.com/dir

Do a search to find blogs that are similar to your blog and review each

to see what they are doing. It's easy to tell if a blog is doing well by

how often they are updating and how many comments each blog post

receives.

Blog Links

Take another trip back to Bloglines.com/dir and do a search again for

blogs within a similar genre as your blog but not necessarily identical.

Start replying to some of the blog posts made, giving your thoughts

about the post or topic. Do this a few times with various blogs, then

once you've done it on a regular occasion end your post with a

signature link that goes to your site. Take note do *NOT* do this in

the initial stages or with your first post. You must first acquire a

relationship with the blogs, first by posting comments and leaving

positive feedback. After gaining trust you can simply place a link with

your next post comment. I recommend replying at least 5 to 10 times

before attempting to place a link.

Blog Commenting

When you've first started your blog as I mentioned prior, comments

help your blog look more active. Initially you may find that users may

not post comments to your blog. It's going to be up to you to get

things going. Have your friends or family members start leaving

comments on your blog as it can make your blog seem more active.

People like to see activity; if your blog seems dead you'll likely get no

responses. If you would rather not have your family even know about

your blog, then you can post comments yourself but as a "Guest" or as

registered user instead of admin. Respond to your own posts initially

to create activity, then you'll start to see other real users placing

comments as well.

What usually works best is to leave a controversial comment. Start

making comments that are guaranteed to elicit a response. I've

created "characters" before that post controversial statements on my

blog to really get user interest going. This "character" may disagree

with a blog posting I made, creating a sequence of posts that increase

the activity comments of my post. Once you see that users have taken

interest in your blog you can now rely on their posts rather than

creating fake ones of your own.

Remember if you are going to do fake comment posts, to space the

timing between posts. For example never post two minutes after

you've posted as admin, as it's too obvious that you're the same

person. Allow some time to pass by before making your "fake user

comments post".

If you would rather not do the "fake posts" yourself, some bloggers

have actually paid users to reply to posts on their blog. If you go to

popular webmaster forums, you'll find that users get paid for making

posts on forums. The usual rate is about .10 cents per post or

something within that range. The same theory applies for blog

comments. You can hire a set of 10 to 20 people to comment on your

posts and pay them a small fee, this way you generate some interest

in your blog.

If you post a project on the sites I mentioned previously such as

Scriptlance.com or Getafreelancer.com for "Blog Posters", you can find

people who can get your blog active, by making comments and paying

them a small fee. You can do this until you get users posting on your

site in reply to the posters you have paid. Within a few weeks your

blog should be very active. This benefits you in the long run as the

search engines will be visiting your site often due to the constant

updates.
 
I am walking you through how went from no hits a day on one of my web sites, Tatkraftsolar, to 180 plus, unique hits a day. I did this in just four days and it grew daily. I tested an Affiliate site and it went from 0 hits a day to 80 hits in the same four days.

Hosting Your Own Blog

Hosting your own blog gives search engines a reason to keep revisiting

your website. It is important as I mentioned before that you update

your blog several times per week. Below you'll find some

recommended free software for hosting your own blog.

WordPress

All my blogging sites use WordPress as I believe it is the best blogging

script available. It's very easy to install and you can go live within just

a few minutes.

Download: http://wordpress.org/download/

By default WordPress gives you the ability to choose if you want

Search Engine Friendly URLS for your blog, but I've taken that a step

further. You will only be able to follow the instructions I'm giving below

if you already have WordPress installed.

If you have WordPress installed add this line of code to your

"Permalinks" section:

/%postname%.htm

Input the above code into the line that says "Custom Structure" and

ensure that you have the check placed in the "Custom, specify below"

under Common Options.

What this does is give your blog highly optimizable search engine

friendly URLS. Every blog post you make will have a keyword rich URL

based on the subject of your blog. For example if your blog post was

"Caribbean Recipes" your URL would be

http://yoursite.com/caribbean-recipes.html.

It's a nice handy trick to get more search engine friendly URLS out of

WordPress to ensure that your keywords appear not only in the

subject but also in the page URL.

Blogging Themes

Now that you've got your blog setup, I know that by default WordPress

skin may not be too pleasing to you. Let's change that by installing a

new theme. The sites below offer some free themes that you can use

and customize.

WordPress Themes Viewer

http://themes.wordpress.net/

Alex Kings' Theme Viewer

http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/themes.php


Kaushal Sheth's Themes

http://www.kaushalsheth.com/themes/


Theme Porter

http://www.themeporter.com/tags/themes/


Browse through those four websites and select a theme that you like

best. You simply download the theme and upload it to your wp-content

themes directory, then activate the theme in the admin area of

Wordpress under presentations.

Blog Pinging

Here's one of the reasons I believe that WordPress is a great option for

blogging. WordPress has a built in "Ping" option that will notify all the

major blogging and RSS feed directories that you've made a new post

on your blog. This is automatically activated in the "Writing" section of

Word Press. If you scroll to the bottom of the "Writing" section you will

see a section called "Update Services".

Below that you will see a URL link: http://rpc.pingomatic.com/.

Whenever you make a post on your blog, this option sends out a

notification to all the blogging directories that you have made a new

post and they usually automatically index it. Each time you make a

post this ping is automatically done ensuring that your feed is sent.

Blogging Regularly

Now that we've got the theme setup, the URLs for all your posts being

search engine friendly, your pings being automated, the next step is to

start blogging. Here comes the tough part, what am I blogging about?

It's important that your blog be about something you actually have

knowledge on, and can write about fluently. For example if your site is

about recipes, you can have your blog posts related to anything about

recipes, perhaps experiences you have had while preparing dishes,

etc.

When blogging remember you must be very personable, friendly and

seem easy to talk to. The reason for this is that with each post you

make you are trying to elicit a response from users. With WordPress

you have the option to enable comments. By having comments on

your blog enabled, it increases your popularity rating. The search

engines will visit and update your blog more often as it is constantly

changing by having new content. I recommend that in each blog post

you make, that you always ask questions, request feedback to ensure

that the people viewing your blog find a reason to actually post a

comment.
 
So if you’re new to this, I would use an existing blog service, which I mentioned in my pervious post.
 
I am walking you through how went from no hits a day on one of my web sites, Tatkraftsolar, to 180 plus, unique hits a day. I did this in just four days and it grew daily. I tested an Affiliate site and it went from 0 hits a day to 80 hits in the same four days.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Setting up your first blog

There are many free sites on the internet

that will allow you to create your own blog and they will host it for you.

I'm going to explain both options you have for blogging. I'll

first start by providing the options for Free Blog Hosting.

Free Blog Hosting Sites

1) Blogger.com

This site is one of the most if not the most popular free blog hosting

site. You can instantly create a blog and start writing on various topics.

The positives about using Blogger.com are that it is spidered often,

and your blog link will be in the path of the spider, enabling your new

blog to be spidered quickly. Once your blog is spidered, the search

engines will continue to visit your blog for updates.

Signup link: http://www.blogger.com/
 
2) Journalhub.com


This is a newer site, not as popular, but is a very solid choice for blog

hosting. Your account is setup instantly.

Signup link: http://journalhub.com/

3) Aeonity.com

This site also gives you the ability to create an instant blog site.

Signup link: http://www.aeonity.com/

4) Ebloggy.com

This site also allows free blog hosting.

Signup link: http://www.ebloggy.com/

You can register with any of the above sites to start your own blog,

but as I mentioned earlier I prefer to have my own site host my blog.

Another option is to have two blogs. My recommendation would be to

create what I like to call a sub-blog, where the blogger.com blog would

be a blog you update from time to time that discusses topics dealing

with your main blog. You should have links pointing from your

blogger.com blog to your main blog site. The reason you are doing this

is because blogger.com is spidered often and by default your blog with

blogger.com, which is your sub-blog will also be spidered. Since your

sub-blog will have links to your main blog it can also aid in having your

main blog site spidered more quickly.
 
Ok, next blog will be on how to host your own bolg.
 
I am walking you through how went from no hits a day on one of my web sites, Tatkraftsolar, to 180 plus, unique hits a day. I did this in just four days and it grew daily. I tested an Affiliate site and it went from 0 hits a day to 80 hits in the same four days.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Using Blogs To Generate Traffic

It's a proven fact that search engines love blogs.

The question we should ask ourselves is why do they love blogs?

 It's pretty simple,

search engines love to search and find new quality content. It is their

goal to index high quality information as quickly as possible. If you've

not been blogging then you've been missing out on an incredible

opportunity to bring instant traffic to your website. The key to blogging

is to update regularly, as just creating a blog and having no updates or

content is useless. You need to update your blog several times per

week to really reap the benefits.