Blogging Tips and Traffic

Some bloggers use their blogs as a means to advertise, and a lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs.

Here are some tips and effective ways to start generating quality traffic that could help you get through and make your blog one of the interesting blogs online:

Optimize the Search Engines.
Make sure that your site is rich in keywords. This is probably the most important thing you can do for your site. Most traffic comes from search engines, people looking for something in particular. You want it to be your site they see when the results page displays. For best results, you need to be in the top thirty sites displayed. Being in the top three is best, but of course, very difficult to achieve. Here are some free popular you can submit to :
- Google
- Yahoo
- MSN
- Pingoat
- Freewebsubmission
- Submitexpress

Update Blog Frequently.
The main value of a blog verses an ordinary webpage is that people expect it to be updated often and so they are more likely to return. In addition, the articles which are cataloged allow visitors to read not only what you said this week, but in all the weeks that your blog has been online.

Create Articles with Strong Keywords.
Keywords targeted by your competitors are not always what people are searching for, building content around ten such low competition keywords brings you more target traffic than what you get by targeting just one keyword that has high competition. When you submit an article, put your web address and blog address in your signature. If your articles are picked up by other websites, links to your site will begin to proliferate across the web which gives your site more credibility. The search engines love credibility. In addition, if readers find your articles of value they will begin to see you as an expert and want to visit your site or blog to get more information from you.

Use Social Networking Websites.
There are millions of users in these social networks and each member has their own sub-network of friends that relate and listen to them.

Exchange Links with other Quality Websites.
Find sites that are relevant to yours and request that they exchange links. Don't use link farms though. The search engines don't like them. They may penalize your site for using them.

Create a Newsletter.
Everyone hates spam so you will do more harm than good if you spam your potential customers. Send only quality information and only to people who have opted to receive it.

Using RSS Feed.
RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet. Having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site. You can choose FeedBurner to promote your blog content, build and measure audience with RSS advertising.

Submit your blog to Directories.
Directories bring more traffic for your website. For any site, most of the users come from search engines and then from directories. Submission to web directories increases the link popularity. It helps in raising site’s ranking in various search engines.

Below is the list of important blog directories with high Page Ranks :
Technorati | Bloglines | Blogdigger | Mybloglog | Blogcatalog | Blogpulse
Blogrankings | Blogflux | Blogtoplist | Getblogs | Blogarama | Portal Eatonweb
Blogstreet | Bloghub|Dmoz | Blogs Botw | Bloghop | Bloggernity | Delightfulblogs
Bloggeries | Lsblogs|Blog Search|Britblog | Weblogalot | Globeofblogs | Diarist
Bloguniverse | Search4blogs | Top100Bloggers | Findingblog | Blogsweet
Sportsblogs | Blog Directory | Readablog | Iblogbusiness | All Blogs | Bloglisting
Blogcode | Blogannounce | Sarthak | Blogdirs | Addurlblog | 5starblogs | Blogtagstic | Industry Blogs | Blogbib | Kmax.ws | Blogs-collection | Blog-watch | Geekyspeaky | Photoblogdirectory | Blogsforsmallbusiness | Findory | Thevital | Highclassblogs | Bestblogs | Grokodile | Topblogsites | Worldtopblogs|Blogscholar | Misohoni | Chinabloglist | Etalkinghead | Emarketingblogs | Jenett | Bloogz.com | Blogdup | Tomstopsites

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Web and Blog Glossary

API Support. Many blog tools implement some kind of programming interface, making it possible for external tools written in any programming or scripting language to automate repetitive operations, or to integrate the blog tool with other software, or to provide rich editing tools for creating and editing blog posts.

Archives and Permalinks. The home page of the blog displays the current items, as configured by the editor. The posts scroll through the home page. Some blogs show you the last 15 posts or the last 7 days, no matter what, eventually the item will scroll off the home page, but it will be permanently stored on an archive page. When people point to a specific post, they link to the archived version, the permanent one, using a permalink. The permalink is often displayed as a pound sign (#), sometimes it's the link from the time of a post. It tells others how to point to the item. It's a good idea to include a permalink if you want others to be able to point to your posts.

Archive Page URLs. The Web addresses for archive pages, if properly constructed, can form a user interface for the blog. For example, if the addresses are in this form: YYYY/MM/DD, one can easily type in a URL for a specific day without navigating.

Author Information Page. Each member can have a page where information gathered about the user is displayed. The editors of the site can decide which information is displayed.

Backlinks. Also called an incoming links. Backlinks are a links at another site, leading to a website. Backlinks are often used as part of a SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy search engines use the number of backlinks a site has as a measure of its popularity.

Blog. Is basically an online journal and contains these features:
Post date -the date and time of the blog entry
Category - the category that the blog belongs to
Title - which allows you to label your post
Body - this is the content of your post
RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites
Permanent link - every article that you write has a URL
Comments - this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

Blogroll. Blogs often have a blogroll, linking to sites that the author thinks are interesting, informative, or useful. The blogroll is where you can see the political relationships between this blog and other elements of the blog community. Blogrolls are often stored and shared in OPML, and edited with an outliner.

Comments. A post might link to a popup window containing reader comments and responses from the author. Three bits of information are generally requested from each commenter, and are optionally retained in a cookie sent back to the reader but not generally retained by the blog software: name, email address, and website url (usually a blog).

Calendar. The home page and each archive page of the blog usually displays a calendar, in the familiar format, that allows the reader to easily locate the archive pages by time. All dates but the one currently being viewed are linked; the current page is displayed in bold, or a different color, basically with some visual attribute that makes it stand out. Movable Type has a way of displaying a calendar in full-screen mode where you can see the titles of the individual posts on each day.

Categories. A post can be categorized or placed in a department. There's a way to view all the posts in a given category, and the RSS rendering indicates what categories a post is in using the category element.

Discussion Group. Some blog software comes with a complete threaded discussion group. All posts have a dual existence, in the form that's viewed by readers of the site.

Decrypt. To convert encrypted data or text back to plain data or text.

Encrypt. To encode (scramble) information. Encryption is the use of a mathematical based method of "scrambling" the data before it is sent over the data network so that it becomes unreadable except by authorized users. The current de-facto standard for encryption for web based traffic is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).

File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes. FTP becomes a major Internet service which giving the users to upload or download files on Internet servers. Use FTP Client software (File Zilla, Cute-FTP, WS-FTP) to login and accessing files on FTP servers.

Keyword. A word searched for in a search command. Keyword s are searched in any order. Use spaces to separate keywords in simple keyword searching.

Link. The URL imbedded in another document, so that if you click on the highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the outside URL. Link can refers to another location in the same page, outside page, or a email address.

Mailto. It's possible to send an email message to the author of a post without knowing the email address of the user.

Media Objects. Include various Microsoft file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Macromedia and Apple movies, PDF, downloadable applications, basically any type of data that might be included with a blog post or as an RSS enclosure.

Membership. More sophisticated blog tools have the concept of site membership, to allow editorial roles as below. A user registers with the site, provides a configurable set of information that may be customized by the editors of the site, and receives back a cookie that identifies her as a member of the site. Members can decide if they want to receive bulletins, and if the bulletins should be formatted in HTML or plain text.

Notification Via Email or IM. Some blog software can automatically notify editors or community members if new posts, pictures, media objects, articles, or comments have been posted. To date no software can do this over instant messaging, although it would be relatively easy to implement.

Netscape. A Web Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape browser was originally based on the Mosaic program developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). A very popular web browser before Internet Explorer dominate the user market.

Pings. When the blog updates, the blog system automatically pings blogger.com, subject to a preference.

Podcasting. A form of audio broadcasting using the Internet, podcasting takes its name from a combination of "iPod" and broadcasting. iPod is the immensely popular digital audio player made by Apple computer, but podcasting does not actually require the use of an iPod.

Pictures. The Web can display text and pictures, so good blog software not only can store and display pictures for you but has convenient facilities for combining them into sequences and to display them for readers of the site.

Queue. A sequence of work objects that are waiting to be processed, a print job for instance.

Redirect. The process of automatically sending a site visitor to another Internet location. The location can be a subdirectory on another site or even a particular web page.

Referrer Tracking. Some blog software automatically tracks the client browser's referrer attribute so that authors can easily see where the hits are coming from.

Rankings. Communities of blogs love to see who's getting the most traffic and who's pointing to whom. Various rankings are available in some blog tools to provide this information.

Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication (RSS). XML-based language which represents information on the World Wide Web in a form which may be syndicated (subscribed to) in special news reader applications or supported browser. RSS allows you rapidly scanning information from blogs, news and current event Web sites, and other Web sites that update content frequently.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Creating and improving a website so that it will rank high in the search engines and help potential customers or clients find the website. SEO using techniques that specifically aim towards gaining higher rank in search engine results. The higher the ranking, the more findable it is.

Stories. Consider a blog that includes longer articles (like this one) linked into the home page. There are two ways to accomplish this, by adding a summary field to the blog post (Movable Type), or with a story list, manually linked to from a post.

Spider. Computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots" that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). A protocol for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. A secure web protocol designed to ensure cardholder information is safe during the ordering process.

Static Rendering. This is an area of great variability among the different tools. Most tools only do static rendering, e.g. Movable Type and Blogger. Radio does static rendering by default, but if you run the Radio app on a server it can be a fully dynamically rendered.

Syndication. An RSS feed is available for the blog, so people who use news aggregators can subscribe to the blog. If the blog has categories or departments each has its own RSS feed.

Shortcuts. A shortcut is a quick way to link to a page without having to use HTML, a highly valued feature for non-technical users. In User Land blog tools a shortcut is invoked by embedding the name in "double quotes". If something is unintentially hotted-up because of this, the author can override shortcut replacement with a backslash.

Templates. The posts are rendered through a set of templates where the designer decides how the standard item elements are to be rendered on the page. There may be a post-level template, a day-level template, an overall template for the page, a template for the home page, or other templates. The rendering features, the separation of content from presentation, are the core of what makes a blog system a content management system.

Trackback. When a post links to a post on another blog that supports trackback it can ping the other blog to notify it that it has been referred to. In this way each post can serve as a collection point for posts on a given topic.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The unique address of any web document. May be keyed in a browser's Address bar, Open, Location, or Go To box to retrieve a document. This is the instance of an URL structure: http://www.domainname.com/subdirectory/fi lename.html.

XML (Extensible Markup Language). A markup language for documents containing structured information (ie data). The XML specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents. XML provides a very rich system to define complex documents and data structures. A widely accepted way of sharing information over the Internet.

Yahooligans, Yahoo Kids. Was the original name of Yahoo's web portal for children. All entries in its directory are screened for appropriate content. The site also hosts games, e-cards, movie schedules, and educational resources for parents and teachers. As of late 2006, Yahoo has changed the Yahooligans brand to Yahoo Kids.

Zip. The compression of data files to enable them to be saved and transferred more efficiently. Data is compressed in a particular format, sent, and then decompressed. Specialist software programmes such as WinZip and WinRar are available to zip and unzip files.

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Get your Articles Read

That is going to vary from person to person, and a lot of other factors are involved as well. It's not simply how good a writer you are, but the subjects you choose to write about, how you address the subject, where you place your articles, how many sites you get your articles on, how valuable the information is, and the site you link to with your articles. A few small, 600 to 1000 words, articles properly placed can create regular customers and sales while enhancing an internet business website ranking within the search engines which also increases traffic to the website. Increased traffic can translate to increased customers, therefore more sales, and, in some cases, repeat sales, which translates to residual.

There are many people who dread having to write articles. Many just feel like it seems to be too much work and it all just goes to waste when no one reads it. To some people, reading articles seems like work to, especially if the article is boring and very bland. Well, articles are supposed to be read, that's their purpose to impart your message and information. If it is not read then it is a waste of time and effort.

Writing articles must be about something you know about, in most cases, the first step is to decide on what the general subject is you wish to write about. In this case, I have chosen to write about writing. The general subject is then narrowed down to a niche. That's why if you own a site, you probably is knowledgeable about that certain topic and theme. When you write about it, you won't have a hard time because you already know what it is and what it's about. It's just a matter of making your articles creative and interesting.

To make sure that your articles get read and enjoyed, here are some tips to get your articles read. These tips will make your articles readable and interesting.

- Use short paragraphs. When the paragraph are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it. It can get quite confusing and too much of a hard work to read. The reader will just quickly disregard the paragraph and move on to much easier reading articles that are good to look at as well as read. Paragraphs can be a single sentence, sometimes even a single word.

- Make use of numbers or bullets. As each point is stressed out, numbers and bullets can quickly make the point easy to remember and digest. As each point, tip, guide or method is started with a bullet or point, readers will know that this is where the tips start and getting stressed. Format you bullets and numbers with indentations so that your article won't look like a single block of square paragraphs. Add a little bit of flair and pizzazz to your articles shape.

- Use Sub-headings to sub-divide your paragraphs in the page. Doing this will break each point into sections but still would be incorporated into one whole article. It would also be easy for the reader to move on from one point to another, the transition would be smooth and easy. You will never lose your readers attention as well as the point and direction to where the article is pointing.

-Provide a good attention-grabbing title or header. If your title can entice a person's curiosity you're already halfway in getting a person to read your article. Use statements and questions that utilize keywords that people are looking for. Provide titles or headers that describe your articles content but should also be short and concise.

- Use titles like, "Tips on making her want you more", or "How to make her swoon and blush" .You could also use titles that can command people, for example, "Make her yours in six easy Ways". These types of titles reach out to a persons' emotions and makes them interested.

- Keep them interested from the start to the finish. From your opening paragraph, use real life situations that can be adopted by the reader. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point, just don't over do it. Driving your examples with graphic metaphors and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about. Making the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.

- Utilize figures when necessary and not just ordinary and insipid statements. Using specific facts and figures can heighten your article because it makes it authoritative. But do not make it too formal, it should be light and easy in them and flow. Like a friendly teacher having a little chat with an eager student.

Obviously, if you have several articles on a subject, you can always create your own website. A benefit of having your own website is that you control the setup of your articles and you have complete editorial control of both the articles themselves and the website. You can add, subtract and edit as you wish, and you can create any potentially profitable links as you desire.

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