Archive for the 'Increase Traffic' Category

Over the past month or so I’ve been trying to link more within my blogs. I run Blogtown Press and with that many blogs I have to write a lot. Which leaves little time for promoting my posts and getting links elsewhere.

So what I’ve been doing, and noticing that it helps, is linking around. After all, websites are stores of information and if your blog is a narrow enough niche your readers will most likely want more information than what they came for. Why hide it then. Link around and allow your users to read more of your posts and increase your pageviews and increase the potential for your readers to read something worth linking to.
An added bonus of these links within your blog is that you create more links for search engine spiders, those little creatures that help Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft know that you exist, to see more of your pages more often. You’ll also start seeing an increase in the Google Link results for your pages.

Although most think that having these types of links don’t rank as high as an outside link, every little bit counts as you try and build your content and links on your way to higher Google search ranking. There are of course more ways to get outside links but inside links will help too. (See now wasn’t that easy)

If you’re strapped on time but want a top blog that everyone reads here’s one thing that can help you gain blogosphere fame, Build up content.

Launching a blog or even promoting a blog or blogs with little or no content may create some initial buzz, but you won’t get any return or regular readers. You’ll get some people stopping by initially, and then nothing. You’ll go back to your three or four unique visitors per day and be frustrated as to why that is. It’s content. Unless you’re putting up pictures of half naked women all over your blog you won’t get people coming back.

You have to build up content.

What I suggest first is to just blog for your friends. Start putting up content, tell your friends about it and put up some more. Having a few readers will be enough to keep you going through the initial phase of building content. Then as you have a good base of articles, maybe 30 or 40 spanned over a month, start stock piling. With just 30 or 40 minutes a day, rather than 15 or 20 minutes you can write two articles. Save one, (I suggest the non-time-sensative one you save), and post the other.

Once you have about 30 articles saved, you can then launch a blog to the masses. The time you spend promoting your blog will be well spent, and you’ll always have something new for the readers to read with your stockpiled articles, and you’ll have your content from your month or two of content building blogging. People will see that your blog is serious and ready to stick around and will for one thing keep you in their blog roll and for another, keep you around their regular reads.

I’ll say again, don’t launch or promote without content up, more than 30 articles, and content waiting in the wings, more than 30 preferrably. It’s like insurance in case you get bored, then your launch won’t be for nothing.

I’ve had several people write about the new Blogtown Press launch contest Link to a Coconut Contest, with regards to linkbaiting.

I think mine is unique because I’m giving away something so unique, a coconut! Who would’ve thought of that? It’s interesting and I’ve always wanted get a coconut in the mail. My girlfriend (at the time) fiance now, once bought me a coconut from Hawaii that sits in my parents basement, I requested it be sent to me when she went as senior in college on a tennis trip for The Michigan Wolverines, but she finally found it at the end of the trip and was unable to send it. Oh well. But the coconut is what I’ve wanted so now I’m sending it away, and requesting pictures of jubilation in exchange.

However, I’ll get links in exchange for the contest which really is the reason for the contest, but I’ve always wanted that darn coconut and hopefully will get some pictures from some excited people.

Another contest idea that I’ve had to generate buzz about the network is to give away an Apple IPOD, maybe a couple of iPOD shuffles in some sort of RSS contest that was suggested by another person, who once I digg through my emails I’ll gladly give a nice link to. But it looks like I’ve been beaten to the punch. It turns out the marketing pilgrim, who I must admit I haven’t ever been to their blog, but has started a contest which they’ll be giving away an iPOD to a certain RSS subscriber. What a great idea!

I may still get around to that as owner of Blogtown Press, so be excited about another contest. I love giving stuff away, I love buying things for people and I love thought of getting some sweet pictures from some super psyched people.

With the recent launch of blogtown press, the network home of Blogging On Empty, I have begun to see “The Power of the Network.”

With the Link to a Coconut Contest helping gain traffic to individual blogs, I’ve been tracking visitors behind the scenes and noticing that the network helps! Having that nice little block of links in the bottom right of every blog in the network, I’ve noticed that one visitor will be linked into the network ultimately see the network box and click through to another blog, and do the same on the next.

This just continues to build awareness of other blogs in the network, building traffic, page impressions and repeat visitors with subscribers to their RSS feeds.

With each blog that I add to the network that’s another blog that I don’t have to link exchange with for the blogs already in the network and another link for each of those blogs as well. That will ultimately build pagerank in Google, which will increase my traffic hits, subscribers, so on and so forth. It’s great!

Being an individual blogger, getting 12 links into your blog would take a lot of emails and a lot of link exchanges with other blogs. These links are now automatic within my network and will continue to grow as my network grows, 12, 15, 20, 100 links! Just like that.

At first I wasn’t sure what the impact of having a network would mean. I’ve heard it’s great just to get linked exposure from a network. But if you can build a brand from the network, which I hope to do with blogtownpress and it’s many contests that are going to be coming up, you can have exposure on every blog and every site in the network that builds traffic to every other blog or site.

It’s an exciting process to be going through and I’ll for sure keep you all informed on what the contest has done for Blogtown Press and just what being part of a network does.

It’s here! It’s here! The blog network that Blogging on Empty is part of is finally here and we’re allowing you to win a Coconut straight from Hawaii, where Blogtown Press is headquartered!

That’s right we’re launching the network with the first ever Link to a Coconut Contest.

You can visit that link to read about it but the basic idea is that you choose 1-3 Blogtown Blog Network posts per post on your blog to link to and if you link to the right on you win a coconut!

Seeing as how this is a blog all about Blogging easier I’m going to be following the contest progress here and let you know if launching a Site or network of sites, with a contest is a good idea.

Hope you enjoy and hope you join the contest.

Aloha,

Erik

technorati tags:Blog, Network, Contest, Launch

Do you need more quality one way links related to you sites content? These are the best links you can get to your site, no  link exchange links, just top quality links from related sites.Well if you don’t have the time to promote your site and send a bunch of traffic your way you may be intersted in a new service from Text-Link-Ads called ArticleLinks.

Article LInks is a link building service that writes an article related to your site’s content, places a link in the article to your site’s related content and then submits it to many many sites across the web until you get at least 20 permanent links.

They claim keywayd rich articles, relevant sites and at least 20 links in 40 days, you may get more if your article is picked up by a lot of people.

Cost to you, $600! Ouch. It seems like a bit much but get 20 links of this nature is a big big deal and can boost your ranking considerable if the articles are picked up by big name none spam sites. Not sure what the chances of that are and what constitutes a quality link but I’d be interested in finding out if anyone has tried the service and had any luck. You can also submit articles to article directories for free that some people publish on their sites.

technorati tags:Blog, Link, Linking, Traffic, Backlinks, Google, Rankings

I recently read an article at microsoft’s Small Business Resource Center
titled 10
steps to getting links to your site. It’s a long road to travel, you gotta
search out links, send out emails, follow up on emails, check links, email
again, and on , and on.

It’s a long road but as Microsoft points out “it is very effective, and easy
to do.” It just takes time.

An out line of their steps are.

1. Set a Goal

2. Make sure your site is worth a link

3. Determine the
type of sites you want to trade links with

4. Get equipped to evaluate your
link partners

5. Locate quality link partners

6. Organize you
findings

7. Prepare for contact

8. Check for links

9. Follow up with
the cream of the crop

10. Set a schedule

I’ll say it again, it’s a lot of work to keep up at this every month but it’s
well worth it. Just make sure you have a site that’s worth the link and you’ll
be on your way to higher Google ranks

technorati tags:Links, Google, Microsoft, Blogging, Traffic

Are you looking for traffic this fall? Remember it’s back to school time which means there are literally millions, yes you heard that right, millions of eyeballs that are back in college and being influenced by their peers.

It’s a new year which means new freshman to get into all the hip and trendy new college hangout sites. When they should be studying, they’ll be uploading college sillyness to YouTube.com. When they should be studying they’ll be reading about how thousands of people make thousands of dollars just by placing ads on their sites. When they should be studying they’ll be reading your blog!

Now, what to do with all these new eyeballs. Think viral, think college, and think useless useful info. Just get in front of those eyeballs and you’ll be sure to get some new traffic. Get talked about and use all those new college sites to promote your own must have trend.

It is no secret, you don’t need to dig through all the blogs out there to know, writing consistent content is what brings readers to your blog.

Blogs are taking the Internet by storm because their setup provides for fresh new content. There are currently millions upon millions of blogs out there about thousands and maybe even millions of topics. What’s the key to getting your blog noticed?

Writing new content. Your content doesn’t have to be show stopping, call CNN type content, but it does have to be consistent and it does have to provide your readers with something useful.

Within the blog network that this blog is part of the writers, particularly me, notice one thing that attracts readers above all else to it’s blogs. Content. If even a day is taken off traffic drops. When all 10 blogs that are part of the network have new content readership is it’s highest. If you take two of those blogs and skip a day posting, traffic drops by 30%. If you skip posting on 4 of those blogs traffic drops by more than 50%. Yes 50% by skipping posting on less than half of the blogs.

When there is new content, maybe directing our readers to quality content provided by other users, like was done in a previous post about AdSense for beginners, traffic arrives.

To give you an example think of your blog like the gap (or abercrombie, prada, armani, guess, whatever). If those stores don’t have a new clothing line coming out people won’t go back. The clothing line is their content. The way they get people to come in the middle of the season is to offer sales. Sign-up for their mailing list (newsletter or RSS feed) and they’ll conveniently email you when skies are occurring. They try and keep their content fresh by offering it at a lower price.

You have to do the same but you have the ability to put out a new shirt every single day! People will always won’t to swing by to get the latest shirt from your store (or the latest scoop).

Just keep the content coming and your readers will follow the words.

A great way to keep posting through a writers block or just when you have nothing good to say is to write quick little posts. If you take a look at some of the top blogs, Engadget, TechCrunch, and Problogger, you’ll notice that they all post several times a day and have quite a few simple two paragraph posts.

These posts are more than likely linking to other information on the Internet that they more than likely got from their RSS feeds or just surfing other blogs.

All it takes is a simple subject that relates to the content of your blog that maybe your readers would enjoy reading. A few words about what you are linking to. And then just through a link up there and presto. You have a post where you’ve been stagnant for a few days, or maybe, gasp, a week.

You should check out Problogger.net and some of his speedlinking posts. I find those to be some of the most useful posts he writes and all they are are links and little blurbs to other peoples blogs or services. Simple, useful and keeps your readers coming back for more.