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Driving Traffic: Ten Tips from Yaro Starak
July 29, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.
Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.
It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.
Top 10 Tips
10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.
You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.
8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).
7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.
Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.
6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.
This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.
5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.
4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.
To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.
3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!
2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.
How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.
1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.
I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.
This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.
To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:www.BlogMastermind.com
Who is stealing your blog’s content?
July 8, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
I was browsing some links for my website when I noticed this odd page (see image). And I started reading a ‘response’ to an article I wrote in October, 2007 about the problems of Adsense (original here), I noted that the organisation tone of the article seemed similar to mine, so I checked it out. Voila! Another content thief. This guy stole my entire article, added ten reasons why Adsense is good at the beginning (some most of which is similarly copied - from Problogger’s Article on the same topic, some seems original ) and posted it on his blog.
You can see the original. Then look at this jpeg of the article on his website.
This guy stole my article, and even kept the original funky formatting that I used in this article. He didn’t even bother to change anything… just copy and paste. What is a blogger to do? Well, I posted a comment in the article, then fired off a polite cease-and-desist type of letter to his hosting company. It’s amazing how much you can find out from doing a whois search. Within an hour or so, it seems that the owner of this site removed the content as I was forced to go to Google’s cache to see the original entry. It’s still there (though it will be gone soon), and it’s still linked on his blog in his article directory.
Basically, though, the site is a splog for articles from article directories and (probably) other stolen articles from innocent bloggers. In fact, the articles from the directory are all unattributed as well, which means that the break the article directories’ TOS. I doubt that anyone would find useful information on the site, which is why I didn’t post any links to this site. No sense giving it link-love.
I guess it’s flattering but it still makes me mad when someone copies my entire article or blog without any attribution or permission to do so. Who knows? If he bothered to ask, I might have said okay. If he had asked. But then thieves don’t ask. They just take.
Get Started Blogging #3: Writing Content
June 1, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Comments Off
We’re now into Lesson #3 in our Quick Guide to blogging. In Lesson #1 we looked at how to get started blogging, and what it’s worth. In Lesson #2, we examined some of the different choices bloggers who want to get started blogging have.
In Lesson #3, we are going to have a look at writing that first post, what you can blog about, and so on…
Writing that first post
When you sit down to write your first post, no doubt your head fills with the countless blogs and examples of great articles that you have read in your excitement to get started. You sit down to draft your first blog post, and bam! all those thoughts and ideas that you have been collecting just evaporate leaving you staring at your monitor, and your fingers poised over the keyword. “What on earth am I going to write now?”
Step 1: Put your keyboard away and get out your pen and paper.
There are a lot of bloggers who fail at the first post. So let’s make it easy: you’ve probably got a simple idea of what your blog is supposed to be, but you may not be sure of what to write - try listing. That’s it: simply list all the ideas you have on a piece of paper for that first post. Spend five minutes simply listing the ideas. After you’ve reached the time limit. Stop.
Step 2: Examine your list.
You’re going to look through your list of ideas to see if you could find something you could blog about. The criteria should be simple, too: can you write 100 words about it? Do I feel comfortable to write about that? Once you’re done, see which of the topics you feel more strongly about.
Step 3: Choose your topic and write 100 words.
Your first post needn’t be long, the whole point of blogging is that you get into the habit of writing your ‘journal’ on a daily basis. So, write that 100 words or so. Don’t forget to hit ‘Save’ so that you can return to your post later. It’s amazing how many people forget to do that, then there’s a power cut, an accident, or you just close your window. Woops! It’s gone! - I know I had to rescue a post from somewhere else once!
Step 4: Edit it, esp. if your writing is weak - do pay attention to spelling and grammar.
It’s worth checking your spelling or grammar. If you’re intending to be serious about blogging, you will need to put more emphasis on this. Nothing is worse than a blog that is carelessly written. Really. But it’s crucial: you should only edit the text when you’re pretty satisfied with WHAT you want to say. If you try to edit as you write, you will find that you don’t write very much.
Step 5: Hit “Publish”.
Re-read your post once you’ve checked the grammar, spelling and so on. Then hit that button. Don’t dilly-dally. Hit it. Once you hit that “Publish” button often enough, you will stop feeling self-conscious such that pushing the ‘Publish’ gets easier. You’ve got no idea how many great writers have got novels stuffed inside their disk drives, in old parchments, in notebooks, … great writers who never had the confidence to publish their writings. Hiding your posts in your ‘Drafts’ section will ensure that you get NO recognition, NO traffic, NO comments, and NO readership!
Finding other content
Publishing content may not come easily at first, most likely you will want to stick to short posts until your comfortable with the technical side of things at the very least. In the meantime, you can post a wide range of intermediate posts, while you struggle over your longer postings. This is a short list of things you can post without much work. As you get more confident, you’ll find it easier to add extra comments.
- Picture of the Week from snaps that you have taken yourself.
- Video from YouTube on music, products, or whatever.
- Quotations from people you are interested in.
- Buzzes for sites and products you like.
- Good Reading for articles that you thought worth reading and sharing.
These are some samples for content. Of course, if you are interested, download my top 20 money making feeds and see how the top 20 bloggers deal with this, what they post, and what works.
Look out for lesson 4 soon, which looks at some ways to get traffic for your blog and which ways are a waste of time in this regard! I’ll be posting this shortly.
Are your posts being eaten by Wordpress?
April 30, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Read these 2 comments
Image by Chesi - Fotos CC via Flickr
Is the latest version of WordPress eating posts or not?
This is the second time I’ve had to write this post. I posted a stub just a little while ago, and it’s gone. Since this is the second time I had a problem with a post in the last week, I’m beginning to think there’s a serious bug in WordPress 2.5 that eats posts that are just published.
I recently posted a long article on WordPress that I had reason to edit after the posting. When I went to find the article (I had seen it on the front page), I hit ‘Save’ only to find the article gone when I came to view the front page. I then received an error message when I tried to edit the post again. Luckily, the post was already archived on BlogLines so I was able to paste the entire contents in, bar a few minor edits, though it did not show up in Reader.
So for the meantime, I’ll be writing posts on other media then uploading them or pasting them. Have you had any experience of this? Could it be my fervent imagination? Let me know.
Buzz #7: Strategist.org.uk - or how NOT to run a blog
April 24, 2008 | Posted by InvestorBlogger | Read this comment
In 2007, I started doing a few BlogBuzzes for people, and in 2008 I am still doing my BlogBuzzes for websites! This is a great way to get your blog seen around the Net, and I get my blog seen on your blog… We all win!
We’ve already had a bunch of Buzzes handed out to great bloggers… If you’re still interested, drop me a line in the contact form. Do complete the opp first. The buzzes can be short or long, but at least a minimum of 50 words, please!
Unfortunately, for number 6, Strategist takes a bow on this blog! Strategist has been churning out a lot of posts over the four months since it started! I tried to find the first post to get an idea about the writer but no luck. The topics this blog covers are somewhat similar to this one but the blogger covers in much more depth and very high frequency.
There’s no about page at all. Nor is there a contact page! So I was unable to find out much about the author. In fact, I only found the review to my blog when I was checking SocialSpark’s update page.
strategist.org.uk. Then I went onto search for the first post, which I didn’t find. What I did note was more alarming, there was no way a blogger could turn out this number of articles on a daily basis. So then I chose several articles, and searched on Google for duplicate articles. A look at the results will show you what I mean:
This article is supposedly published on this blog but …
a quick search from Google highlighted the article in its search engine as being from another blog:
A second search produced results from Google here. A third and fourth search produced similar results. So I stopped at that point. This may fit the definition of a “splog”, or more accurately, a scraper blog, which Wikipedia cites:
“Blog scraping, is the process where automated software scans hundreds of thousands of blogs per day, searching for and copying content. The process is sometimes referenced by the name given the software or individuals responsible for the action, “blog scrapers.—
It is likely that this blog is breaking the law (though I’m no lawyer), and I would encourage the owner of the blog to stop this practice immediately, delete the entries (or at the very least limit entries to a few basic words, ie. a teaser and a link to the original blog), and create something worth reading with his or her own unique input. At the very least, the blogger runs the risk of having the Adsense account pulled, his SocialSpark status revoked, and losing all the money earned so far. At the very least.
To anyone who submits a request for a Blogbuzz, the quality of your blog determines whether you will be blogged about on this blog. I reserve the right at all times to monitor the quality of submissions. Editorial decisions are final. Sometimes other people leave me with no choice.
On a final note, I’d just like to say 90% of the submissions for Blogbuzzes have been outstanding, but this is the first and last time I will ever blog about a Scraper Blog.
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