tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74449472609288686132024-03-13T19:55:49.847-07:00SEO with Daniel HearnAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-13551038009693224642013-05-30T20:30:00.001-07:002013-05-30T20:30:18.474-07:006 Twitter Tips To Help You Build A Following<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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If you want to market your small business, then you need to be on Twitter. Why? Because everyone is using it of course. If you're not on twitter, then your business is seriously behind the times. If you haven't started yet, then follow these 5 tips to start building your Twitter following.<br />
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1) <b>What are your goals?</b> First establish what you want to accomplish with your Twitter account. Are you trying to build buzz for your brand? Or maybe you want to use Twitter for customer support. Think carefully, because different goals require different interactions with your account.<br />
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2) <b>Leverage your existing properties.</b> If you have an established blog for example, why not use it to build your twitter following? You could write a post describing how you intend to use Twitter for your business, and then ask your readers to follow you. This works, because you are asking your already established audience.<br />
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3) <b>Use a social sharing platform.</b> Sites like <a href="http://justretweet.com/">JustRetweet</a> and <a href="http://viralcontentbuzz.com/">ViralContentBuzz</a> are excellent ways to build your following by allowing you to share your content for credits. Take your time to learn each platform, and you'll really get some great results using them.<br />
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4) <b>Give people a reason to follow you.</b> That means only tweeting out high quality content. Stuff that your followers can't find anywhere else. Perhaps offering deals that are exclusive to your Twitter followers would be very effective.<br />
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5) <b>Add Twitter sharing buttons to your blog.</b> Adding these social buttons is so easy these days using just a short snippet of code. And it really makes it much easier for people to share your stuff. And the easier it is, the more likely one of your readers will do it.<br />
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6) <b>Outsource your social media. </b> Don't have time to follow these tips yourself? Why not hire a social media expert on a site like ODesk. As you can see from this review, <a href="http://freelancesitereviews.com/odesk-review/">ODesk</a> is an excellent place to find a social media expert because it has such a deep pool of talent to draw from.<br />
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Don't these Twitter tips seem easy to implement? You can start doing them today, and start getting results tomorrow. It really is that fast.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-7526818291352672352012-06-15T01:56:00.000-07:002012-06-25T20:59:48.398-07:00How to Get Organic Traffic from Google<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is a question that I’ve been asked by bloggers,
writers, internet marketers, entreprenuers and webmaster many-a-times: “How
long does it take for a website to start getting some organic traffic? Especially
if it’s a website that is updated with unique content regularly, and has also been
submitted to all search engines, such as Google and Bing.”<br />
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This is a valid concern for many bloggers, especially those
who have just started off. However before we get to the answer to this problem,
it is important to first understand what organic traffic is, and why it is
important in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is Organic Traffic?</h4>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Organic traffic refers to free traffic that comes in from
search engines, such as <a href="http://google.com/">Google</a>, <a href="http://yahoo.com/">Yahoo! Search</a> and <a href="http://bing.com/">Bing</a>. It is the traffic that
you get when pages from your blog or website appear in the search results. It
is referred to as ‘organic traffic’ because it comes freely and naturally from
search engines, for instance if someone searches for a particular keyword (or a
phrase), and is redirected to a page on your blog/website from the search, you’re
getting free ‘organic’ traffic to your website.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Benefits of Organic Traffic</h4>
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As you would understand, the ability to get organic traffic
from search engines is extremely essential, as traffic from search engines is
one of the biggest sources of traffic (and revenue) for any blog out there. <o:p></o:p></div>
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First off, organic traffic is free, and understandably, it
is highly-targeted traffic. Visitors who come on your blog from Google were
searching for a specific keyword/phrase which was related to the content on
your website. For instance if you run a blog on the NBA, and someone looks up
‘Jeremy Lin stats’ in Google, and is referred to your blog from there, you are
getting extremely targeted traffic from people who are within your website’s
niche. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is why all bloggers do whatever they can to get organic
traffic – search engines get you targeted traffic for free, as opposed to PPC
and other per-click, per-impression or paid advertisement campaigns.<o:p></o:p></div>
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How to Get Organic Traffic to Your Blog</h4>
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Now that we’ve defined what organic traffic really is, as
well as how beneficial it is, we come to the matter at hand: what can blogs and
websites do in order to get organic traffic? The following is a set of points
which will help you to achieve this feat: <o:p></o:p></div>
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1. <b>Unique Content</b>: The most important thing to be able to
get organic traffic is unique content. If you don’t have unique content on your
blog, Google will not even consider indexing your site for popular search
engine keywords and queries. Furthermore, if you blog contains a lot of copied,
plagiarized and spun content, and Google gets a whiff of it, you will in all
probability end up getting de-indexed and/or permanently banned from Google. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Google has become particularly strict with its indexing
criteria and policies, especially after the Panda update. Websites with plagiarized
content (among other things) have all been penalized. This means that these
website have stopped getting traffic from Google.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If your blog is updated with unique, well-written,
well-researched content on a regular basis, Google will list your website for
keywords, and visitors will be referred to your blog when they search for those
keywords. <o:p></o:p></div>
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2. <b>Provide Value, Engage your Audience</b>: It is also important
to remember that your blog exists solely for one purpose: to provide the people
with solutions/information. Provide people with valuable material, valuable
information, present them with solutions, and discover innovative ways to
engage and entertain people with your blog so that spend the maximum amount of
time on your blog reading your posts, putting up comments, and being a part of
the community. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When people are engaged, they actually spend some time on
your blog and your bounce rate is low, Google immediately ranks your better for
your keywords. <o:p></o:p><br />
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To provide value, you need to have passion for whatever you are writing about. Pat Flynn wrote an awesome post titled <a href="http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/passion-profit-online/" target="_blank">Do You Need Passion to Profit Online?</a> which really summarizes this.</div>
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3. <b>Backlinks</b>: If you are updating your websites with unique
content on a regular basis, but you don’t have a lot of relevant backlinks,
your content might be of interest to some people, but Google probably still
won’t list it in the search results. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Without relevant backlinks, and particularly those from
authority sources, Google has no way to know how credible your information
really is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Even if you’re getting traffic from social mediums and other
forms, having backlinks and link juice is extremely essential, especially from relevant,
authority and high-PR websites. Each backlinks counts as one vote in your favor
in the eyes of Google, the more ‘votes’ you have, the better. When Google
discovers that your blog is getting traffic from authority sources, it will try
to list you as high up as possible for your keywords. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And unless you start getting some link juice from these
sources, you’ll never receive a large amount of organic traffic, even if you’re
putting up fresh content on your blog regularly. <o:p></o:p><br />
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To see how you're doing with your efforts, spend some time every month <a href="http://misterfong.com/how-to-check-backlinks">checking your backlinks</a> using services like Google Webmaster Tools or <a href="http://majesticseo.com/">Majestic SEO</a>. That way you can see if what you are doing is working or not.</div>
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Concluding Words</h4>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Basically, what you’re aiming for is for Google and other
search engines to take notice. Once they do, they will start ranking you better
for your keywords and traffic from these search engines will start flowing in.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is unrealistic, however, to expect any miracles
immediately. But if you’re updating your blogs with fresh content, and
establishing a network of quality backlinks, organic visitors will soon start
flowing in. It might not be a very large amount of visitors in the beginning,
but at least you’ll know you’re headed in the right direction.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Lastly, the purpose of all this is to be ranked on the first
page of the SERP, or as close to it. It is a well-established fact that
visitors rarely go beyond the first page when the look something up in a search
engine (according to a statistic, 80% of search engine visitors never go beyond
the first page!), therefore it is important to be able to rank as high up the
SERP as possible for your keywords. Aim for that first page!<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-7033401486600312012012-06-14T02:33:00.000-07:002012-06-14T02:33:33.600-07:0010 Kickass Blog Ideas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In the past 10 years or so, blogging has come a long, long
way. From being a little known word, to becoming the hottest buzzword out
there, what started off as a platform for keeping an online account of the
happenings and events in one’s life (aka. personal blogging) has now expanded
to corporations using blogs to connect with their clientele, individuals and companies
using blogs to market and sell, people running businesses, as well as blogs
which provide assistance, aid, advice and breaking news from all over the
world, to name just a few!<br />
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Yes indeed, blogging has evolved and taken off big time in
the last decade or so. And now, the possibilities are endless! All you need is
your laptop, a little bit of commitment, passion and desire!<o:p></o:p></div>
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As for blogging ideas, there is a ton of stuff that you can
do. Here are a few ideas to get you started:<o:p></o:p></div>
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1. Personal Blog – Yup, the good old ‘traditional’ form of
blogging. A personal blog is like your online journal or a diary, published and
maintained on the internet for everyone to see and read. You can use it to
simply detail stuff happening in your life, or post pictures and videos of your
travels, post reviews about your favorite TV shows, movies or sporting events,
share ideas or dreams, post celebrity news, and do a lot more! <o:p></o:p></div>
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2. A Business/Corporate Blog – The thing about blogging is
that it is extremely simple, easy and straightforward - thanks to publishing
platforms like Wordpress and Blogger. Other web-publishing platforms might be
difficult for most to use or come to grips with, making it difficult to maintain
websites on these. However platforms such as Wordpress have made it easy to run
full-blown corporate websites, and this is why a lot of corporations have
started doing precisely this. Just about anyone with even the most basic
knowledge can now build and maintain professional-looking business websites,
thanks to Wordpress!<o:p></o:p></div>
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3. Question-and-Answer/Advice Website – Quite a few bloggers
and websites want their readers to be able to ask question and get advice and
asnwers, in a way which is similar to Yahoo Answers and Quora. This is pretty
doable on Wordpress, especially if you pair your blog with a theme such as the AskIt
from Elegant Themes. Once done, you can start posting advice, tips and tricks,
DIYs, manuals, take questions and provide all sort of help to your readers.
Remember to use this blog with your corporate website or spread the word if you
don’t have another website – you need to get the word out so you can start
taking reader questions or interact with people. It also helps if you’re
already an authority blogger in your niche and have a strong group of
followers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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4. A Classifieds Ad Blog – Using Wordpress and the plugin
‘Another Wordpress Classifieds Plugin’, you can easily create a blog that
rivals Craigslist, or you could simply choose to complete with local classified
advertisement websites. There are tons of ecommerce plugins out there, which
not only let you run your very own buying-and-selling business easily, but
manage each and every aspect of it – from orders, to payments, to shipping and delivery,
to after-sales support! A lot of corporate and home-based businesses have set
up online stores in order to sell their wares. If you plan on doing so, it
would be a good idea to check out the WooCommerce plugin for Wordpress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5. Online News Website (Newspaper or Magazine) – Oh yes,
extremely easy and simple to set up your very own online news website, such as
an online publication in the form of a newspaper or a e-magazine, or just about
any other news website like a sports news website, celebrity news, etc. If
you’re into journalism or the media, having such a website might be a good
addition to your resume and get you a ton of exposure (not to mention ,
potential job offers). However before you do so, it is important to set up your
blog, especially in terms of the look. I recommend going for Wordpress, and
once again, pairing your blog with a mag-style theme for Elegant Themes, or
Theme Junkie – both of which have a nice collection of news-styled themes. <o:p></o:p></div>
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6. Affiliate Marketing Business – Affiliate marketing is
another popular form of blogging. To put it simply, affiliate marketing
requires people (affiliates) to market and sell a merchant’s products. It does
not involve any direct selling, all the affiliate has to do is market the
products and/or services on the merchant’s behalf, and in return the affiliate
gets a cut of each sale made as a result of the affiliate’s marketing efforts. It’s
an extremely effective form of earning online, and one that is extremely
straightforward since the affiliate is not responsible for actually making the
sale or anything else involved in the process of selling (such as shipping),
apart from the marketing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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7. Review Website – This could also be used in conjunction
with your affiliate marketing efforts. Starting a review site could see you
review products and services from different manufacturers and vendors. Often
times, many businesses which sell stuff are looking for people to test their
stuff out for them, to check and see how their products perform under real-life
usage and real-world conditions. This ‘beta testing’ is often done before the
product ever sees the light of day. You could become a beta tester for a game
studio such as Activision or Electronic Arts, or a software manufacturer such
as Microsoft. Not only doing such reviews gives you access to some cool gadgets
and products way before anyone else, your reviews can also help you establish
yourself as an authority in your niche. You might even have some gadgets and
hardware sent right to you, for free!<o:p></o:p></div>
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8. Online Resume/Portfolio – On Wordpress, themes such as
the ‘MyResume’ theme from Elegant Themes allow you to create an
attractive-looking, single-page online resume. These online resumes are usually
one-page websites, however you can add additional pages to create a
brilliant-looking online portfolio for yourself and your work – particularly
useful if you’re a freelance web designer, photographer or a journalist. Or
even if you are simply looking for a place on the internet to showcase your work!<o:p></o:p></div>
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9. Property Listing Website – This is another great business
idea. A lot of property dealers and real estate agents are getting onboard
blogs and social media in order to reach out to potential customers and
clientele. A well-designed website on Wordpress (using a theme like the real
estate WP theme by Domestica) would enable you to get your listing under one
roof, including locations of the
properties very easily (and of course, the ability to woo your clients by
posting images of the property!). This is sure to leave a lasting impression on
your customers. For inspiration, be sure to check out the
HollywoodHillsHomes.com website.<o:p></o:p></div>
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10. Bookings and Reservation Website – And finally, if
you’re the owner of a hotel, restaurant, B&B, spa, or even an airline, you
could set up a blog and have a fully-functional booking-and-reservations system
in place for the easy and convenience of your customers. Most internet-based
booking systems are expensive to set up, and probably unfeasible for a lot of
small and medium businesses. However with Wordpress, all it takes is purchasing
a good theme and a booking-system plugin (both one-time expenses), and you’ll
have your fully-functional booking and reservation system live in no time!
Check out the awesome Hotel Booking theme for Templatic, and use it in
conjunction with a plugin like the WP-Reservation plugin.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-419732545636648312012-06-13T03:06:00.000-07:002012-06-13T03:06:48.514-07:005 Things To Do Immediately After Your Blog-Post Goes Live<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
No matter how good a blogger you might be, or how long you
might’ve been in the business, it’s downright frustrating when there’s no
traffic. You spend hours creating and crafting the perfect post, doing your
research, adding images and spending hours on it, only to find that you’re the
only one reading it!<br />
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And even after a good amount of time has passed, you wake up
in the morning and are able to count the number of visitors on one hand. </div>
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If you want people to read your blog, it is important to let
them know that it exists! It is important to spread the word, and while this
might be glaringly obvious, a lot of bloggers forget to do it, or lazy in doing
so or simply choose to ignore it. </div>
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Writing a good blog post is only half the job, the remaining
half is about telling people about it – something which is as important (or
arguably, even more) than writing the blog itself.</div>
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If you have a checklist of things to do after your blog post
goes up, you’ll not only have an idea of the things that you should be doing immediately
after posting, it will also allow you to get massive amounts of traffic and
readers very easily. </div>
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1. Send out an update on all your social networks: this
includes Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest and any
other social networks you might be a part of. If you’re not on one or any of
the social mediums, you’re missing out on probably what is the largest source
of traffic after Google! </div>
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Post an update on Facebook, Tweet about it, share the link
on your G+... the whole shebang. </div>
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Use a plugin for the purpose if you want, something like
Cliqset which automatically send out an update to all your social media
profiles on auto-pilot. In addition, use the popular Wordpress plugin by the
name of WP Socializer that put share buttons on your blog, allowing your
visitors to share your content easily as well.</div>
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2. Submit your post on content sharing websites: I’m talking
sites like Digg, Propeller, Mizz, StumbleUpon, Newsvine and ShoutWire. These
content-sharing websites exist for the sole purpose of content sharing, sharing
blog posts with the world. And the number of bloggers who don’t use these is
surprising!</div>
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When doing your submission, write catchy titles, try
relating your content to a popular buzzword, a popular trend or something happening
in the media, or you could even try being controversial. It will increase your
chances of a front-page appearance. If your story is good enough, your content
gets enough votes and makes it to the mainpage of these sites, your visits and
traffic are pretty much guaranteed to go through the roof!</div>
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3. Hit those forums: Posting on forums in your niche can be
a good idea, especially if you put a link to your blog in your signature. This
is as effective a method as commenting and could get you some excellent high-PR
backlinks very easily. </div>
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The internet’s filled with a ton of active forums where
people come together and speak about certain topics with other like-minded
folks. Be a part of the community. Share and add some value to these forums. If
you do, with the passage of time you will establish yourself as an authority
figure on the topic and people will start looking at you as one. This will make
it more likely for them to click on that link in your signature, in order to
find out what you have to say.</div>
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If you’re unaware of any such ‘big’ forums in your niche, try
to Google it up, with the query “<your topic> forum” and you’ll probably
find a whole bunch of good forums to start posting!</div>
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4. Comments: Like forum posts, comments too are a great way
to build up some valuable backlinks. Post comments on other blogs in your niche
and leave a link to your post or your blog when you do so. </div>
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In order to find blogs similar to yours, just do a Google
search on the topic, click show options and under that, click blogs. You’ll
probably stumble upon a goldmine of blogs that are blogging on exactly what
you’ve been blogging on as well. </div>
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Read the posts there, leave a comment or two, and above all
leave comments that are valuable and add something to the post. AVOID SPAMMING
AT ALL COSTS! Not only will spam comments ensure that your posts are never
approved, they will almost always guarantee you getting banned from the blog. And
don’t forget to link back to your blog by leaving the URL in the ‘website’
field. </div>
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Similarly, Youtube offers an excellent ‘related videos’
feature, which lets video bloggers leave the link to their videos on someone
else’s video. Imagine having the opportunity to post your link on a video seen
by thousands, such as a viral video or someone who has a large number of
subscribers!</div>
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5. Article Marketing: In addition to all of the above, it is
also a good idea to submit your blog post on article sites, especially high-PR
sites such as EzineArticles and AssociatedContent. This allows for your content
to be published by other in their own blogs, websites or publications
(newsletters for instance). </div>
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If someone reproduces your content on their own
blog/website/publication/anywhere else, he or she is required to accredit the
original source, which means link back to you. </div>
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If you’ve written a post that is good enough, it could
potentially be picked up by blog owners, or newsletter publishers that have
thousands of subscribers or visitors, and might even get put up on their front
page (as a featured post, for instance). This would give you a LOT of exposure,
and a nice traffic spike as well. </div>
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In addition, it will also get you that all-important
backlink to your website, and Google seems to love backlinks from high-PR
sources! Once those backlinks start racking up, it would almost guarantee a
healthy ranking for you. </div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-72335164853085069332012-06-12T02:40:00.000-07:002013-01-25T21:54:42.780-08:00Great Tips for Building a Profitable Blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Let’s all be honest with ourselves and admit it, most of us
(if not all) will certainly have making money on our list of priorities when it
comes to blogging. Yes, there is a significant chunk of folks out there who are
not in it for the money, especially the aid and charity blogs, and a few
personal blogs as well. However there is no shame in admitting that making
money is an important aspect of blogging, among other things. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is particularly true for businesses which exist for the
sole purpose of profiting from their blogs. Especially those businesses which
are selling products and services online, or intend to do so in the future. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reaping profits and making money from your blog(s) can only
be a good thing. If you’re not doing so, it means that you are doing things the
wrong way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point, it is important to note that profiting does
not simply refer to making extra money. Profiting refers to building a
sustainable business that not only covers its own expenses but earns you money
after doing so. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are 3 powerful ways of ensuring that you build a profitable
blog from the ground-up:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
1. Targeted Traffic</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Problem:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ability to be able to drive targeted traffic is an
invaluable asset for any firm, business or organization. Above all it is
detrimental to the profitability of said business. Driving 1000 visitors to
your blog who don’t care about your products/services is a waste of time and
resources. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most bloggers who fail in their blogging efforts and
especially the ability to turn in a profit from their blogs fail because they
choose to ignore this glaringly obvious principle. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ability to drive in massive (or even reasonable) amounts
of traffic is a good thing, but only on paper. People have certain interests,
and everyone on the internet might not be interested in what you have on offer
– it is simply no use to them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there are people out there who are interested in your
services. If you’re the owner of an Internet Marketing blog, you would want
internet marketers, SEOs and entrepreneurs to visit it. If you run a blog on
Formula One racing, you would want F1 enthusiasts and fans on your blog. It all
comes down to knowing what your niche is, and then the ability to attract
people in your niche.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Solution:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Focus your efforts on knowing who your audience is, and try
bringing in traffic from that niche: make sure the ‘right’ people visit, share
your posts and comment on them, buy stuff, subscribe to your list, tweet your
posts and the like. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
For more ideas, check out this informative post by Ana Hoffman titled: <a href="http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/increase-website-traffic-guide/">The Ultimate Blueprint to More Profitable Website Traffic</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
2. List Building</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Problem:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most bloggers fail to understand and appreciate the
importance of building lists. It is one of the most invaluable and important
tools for a blog that ultimately starts making some dough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Right from the beginning, put an opt-in box either on your
blog header or the sidebar. Alternatively, try getting one of those pop-up
subscription widgets which welcomes your visitors and presents them with the
option of signing up for your mailing list. The latter could be intrusive and
annoying, but it is generally known to be an effective way to capture leads. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
If you're using Wordpress then you can use one of the many list building plugins out there. Popular ones include Popup Domination, Opt-in Skin, WP Subscribers, and Hybrid Connect. I've played around with each of them and the winner is definitely Hybrid Connect. It has a very easy to use form builder, it's super flexible in terms of where you can place your forms and it keeps track of your stats for you.<br />
<br />
There's a lot of Hybrid Connect reviews out there so I won't rehash one here. But my favorite review that I've looked at so far is this one published here on <a href="http://misterfong.com/hybrid-connect-review">MisterFong.com</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cold, hard truth is that no one will really keep
visiting your blog on a regular basis, however with the use of optins and
subscriptions, you have at your disposal a way which lets you remind people
about the existence of your blog, new posts, new products and/or services,
promotions, deals, announcements and other things which could be of benefit to
them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without such a list, you will, in all probability, fail to build
up a consistent source of traffic to your blog, especially targeted, responsive
traffic that is in your niche and interested in what you have to offer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Solution:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do not underestimate the importance of list building and the
ability to be able to get targeted traffic in the long run. Remember, that
targeted traffic is the most profitable traffic. People who have chosen to be
subscribed to your blog by giving you their email address obviously rate it
high-enough, and have given you their approval/permission to get in touch with
them. This list is a goldmine for you from a business perspective. And without
such list, you’ll be missing out on an invaluable opportunity to make some real
money. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
3. Call-to-Action</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The problem: </b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if you’ve done everything right – which includes having
a good-looking blog, setting it up correctly, and the whole deal, if you don’t
have a clear, strong call-to-action, you will never be able to earn a lot of
money, let alone make a profit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A strong, clear precise, well-defined and a prominent CTA is
essential, for obvious reasons. A good CTA works like a good road-sign and provides
a visitor with direction and lets him or her know what the purpose of your
website is. This is particularly important if you’re selling something on your
blog, such as a widget, plugin, a service, a tool or anything else. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Solution:</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A CTA with the aforementioned attributes will instantly call
upon a visitor to easily take the required action. Your CTA should be
authoritative, presenting the visitor with the same confidence that you have in
your products. It should specifically tell your visitor what you want them to
do (what action needs to be taken). It should never be over-exaggerated or
over-hyped. There should be focus on a single CTA rather than having multiple
ones. And above all, it should be the most prominent and instantly-noticeable
object on your blog!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The text that accompanies your CTA tells your product’s
features to your customers (why your product is worth your visitor’s time and
money). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If your CTA is good enough, it will encourage people to make
the purchase. The more the purchases, the better it is for you and your blog’s profitability.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a concluding note, <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/09/23/7-point-checklist-for-bloggers-who-want-to-create-a-profitable-blog/">this</a>
is a great 7-pointer on how to build a profitable blog, by the good folks over
at ProBlogger.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-89485298631655863432012-06-11T02:18:00.001-07:002012-06-11T02:18:45.570-07:00Conducting a Backlink Audit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After Google’s latest update to its search engine algorithm
(titled the ‘Penguin), a lot of websites and blog started getting the
now-infamous ‘unnatural links’ warning message. This has forced everyone in the
industry to conduct a review of their backlinks. For some, it has been an
eye-opener, especially those which have been in the industry for a large period
of time. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many in the industry were of the opinion that other websites
linking to yours couldn’t possibly be harmful in any way. Penguin, however, has
changed this notion forever. Now, websites that have built an unnatural looking
backlink profile have received Google’s spam alert. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This has forced everyone in the industry to run a complete
and thorough review of their backlinks – even those who haven’t been affected
by Penguin (yet!). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regardless of which of the two groups of people you might
belong to, it is extremely important to do a backlink audit. Whether you have
someone do it for you (outsource it), or do it yourself. Whether you’re one of
the unfortunate ones who has been adversely affected by Penguin or even if you
haven’t (always better to be safe than sorry!), a good ol’ backlink audit will
let you know exactly which places link to you. Chances are that there are a lot
of links that you probably have no idea that you have! Some might be good
quality, which are accepted by Google, while others might be of the poor
quality, termed as unnatural, suspicious and/or negative SEO – and these are
the ones you need to get rid of. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first step, however, is actually knowing what sort of
links you might have. Once you have that knowledge, you can easily go about
getting rid of the ones deemed unnatural by Google. A word of warning: it won’t
be easy!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In order to evaluate your backlinks, I recommend using
either the SEOMoz Open Site Explorer, the Ahrefs Sit Explorer or the Majestic
Site Explorer. All three would provide you with detailed and comprehensive
reports on your backlinks, the sources you’re getting your traffic from and even
anchor text distribution. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are the 4 most common type of backlinks that you might
have, which might also fall into the unnatural category:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Article Directory Links: Article marketing is
used by a lot of internet marketers for exposure as well as SEO. And
generally-speaking, it’s a fail-safe method, especially if the submissions are
handled manually. If you’ve made submissions in a semi-automatic manner, there
is a high chance that your links might have ended up on low-quality directories.
Unfortunately, there’s only one way of removing such links, apart from doing it
one-by-one and manually from each directory. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Forum Profile Links: You might also have
unannounced links show up on forums. This could include profile created by you,
or someone else entirely. For the former, you can easily log into the forums
and remove the links (manually, once again), however for the latter, it gets a
bit tricky since the profile is someone else’s and there’s no way you can
remove the links yourself. In this case, send out a message to the forum
administrator or the owner, asking to remove the profile, or at the very least,
the links. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Authority and High-PR Links: If you keep an eye
out on your traffic and the analytics, you’ll find out whenever a high-profile
source links to you (what a feeling it is!). You’ll also notice a spike in
traffic in a relatively short amount of time. However for websites which are
already getting a high amount of traffic from many different sources and/or you
don’t watch your traffic sources too carefully, such high-profile links might
go unnoticed. Upon running a backlink audit, you might be pleasantly surprised
to discover these authority backlinks. Some you might know, others you might
not have heard of. Regardless, it is a good feeling to know that you are
creating quality content that is being picked up off social media and is also
being shared on social mediums.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Spam Blog Comments: This tends to be a big
problem for some people – blog comments, mostly spam, that link back to you.
Most of these are done through automated programs, with generic text in the
comment which means that the person who commented never read the post, but in
all probability put one comment in a program and blasted it over the internet. Spam
comments might even go into hundreds and could mean negative SEO for your
website. Unfortunately, there is no real way of removing these, other than
getting in touch with the administrator (also asking him to install Captcha or
an alternative on the comments section). On the bright side, if a site has too
many of these, Google will probably ban and de-index it the next time its bots
crawl the page, rendering all spammy comments useless.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Listings: There are numerous website out there
which build and maintain a catalogue of all the other websites on the internet.
These website usually use bots to create a page for your website (including description,
stats, other data and of course your URL), and create such directory pages
linking to other websites. These are natural links, since you had nothing to do
with creating them. The more actively you promote your website, the more likely
it is that these website will find your site and catalogue it. You’ll find
plenty of such links when doing the audit. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
6.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span>Hidden Links: Even if you’ve been extra careful
with your link-building practices, exercising the utmost caution, never paying
for links, been involved in any link exchange problems or used any such grey-
or black-hat methods, you might still have some hidden links. These links –
could be trackbacks, hidden header or comments, etc – stem from your activity
and promotional activities on social media, the blogging world, forums, and
various other sources that you might’ve used to promote your blog. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you outsourced your backlinking at any point of time, it
would also be a good idea to get in touch with the firm or individual it was
outsourced to and speaking with them about the problem. If you’re thinking of
outsourcing it, use one of the tools mentioned above to keep a check on where
exactly your links are going.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lastly, perform a link audit regularly. It would be a
mistake to slack off on this, especially after the Penguin! </div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-87364839358720647212012-06-10T14:16:00.000-07:002012-06-10T22:16:47.589-07:00Things to Consider before Evaluating Guest Post Prospects<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Guest posting is a great way to build backlinks, getting
some link juice from authority sources, and networking with bloggers in your
niche. Personally, I am a big proponent of guest posting because:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
a. It is
win-win for both the guest poster and the host – the guest poster gets exposure
and valuable backlinks to his blog, and the host gets fresh content on his blog
in return.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
b. It is completely white-hat and a safe method, especially
in the eye of Google.<br />
c. It opens a whole new world for you and your blog, in terms of exposure, being
able to engage with new audiences.<br />
d. It allows you access to untapped sources of traffic. <br />
e. It allows you to be seen as a leader and as authority in your niche. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So in essence, it is a great practice – an invaluable
link-building tactic as well – which above all, is win-win for all parties
involved. However it is very easy to get wrong, because just like any other
link-building tactic out there, the execution is important or you might end up
doing more harm than good. Furthermore, guest blogging might be picking up
right now, but what if Google introduces another update to its search engine
somewhere down the road, that filters out low-quality guest posts, which in all
probability will be widespread by then. This will result in blogs, who thought
were building legit links, get banned, penalized, and/or de-indexed
permanently.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is pretty much what happened after the Penguin update,
where a lot of blogs were penalized for ‘having unnatural backlinks’, even
though they were not doing a lot wrong (seemingly), or were not involved in any
blackhat or illegal link-building practices.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But coming back to the matter at hand, even if the purpose
of your guest posts isn’t to build links, it is important that one considers some
of its do’s and don’ts before starting off. It will aid you in making your
decision easier, get you maximum return on investment (time, in this case), help
you against any future Google updates, and it will also help you evaluate
whether it is a high-value guest posting prospect or not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. For starters, check the levels of reader engagement on
the blog you’re guest posting on. For this purpose, look at the traffic levels
the website is getting, as well as other metrics such as the number of comments
their posts get on average. A low number of comments or none at all, will in
all probability point to it being a weak and/or inactive community, which will
make it unlikely for your links to be seen by a large number of people or help
promote your content. Similarly, stay away from a blog with too much spam in
the comments section. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Secondly, check the blog’s social metrics, such as the
number of times the blog and each of its posts have been shared on social
mediums such as Google Plus, Twitter or Facebook. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A large number of social shares would point towards it being
an active community where readers are not only engaged, they are also helping
promote its content through the sharing buttons. Look at the number of people
who have ‘liked’, ‘+1’ed’ or ‘RT’d’ the last 10 posts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. In addition to looking at the traffic and the social
metrics, it is also advisable to look at the number of people subscribed to the
blog. A high number of email and/or RSS subscribers is a great way to determine
if the blog has been producing quality content on a consistent basis. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Use Google Reader for this purpose, or check the website
itself. However it would be a better idea to ask the blog owner to provide you
with a number of total subscribers (email + RSS). If it’s a good number, he
will be more than happy to oblige. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. One of the most important things to do before you guest
post is check the backlink profile of the blog. For this purpose, check the
following factors: how many people are linking to the homepage, and how many to
the individual posts? A high number of inbound links means that the blog is being
linked by a lot of source – a clear indicator that it is a reliable and quality
source of information, and precisely the kind of blog you would want to write
on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, it would be particularly encouraging if the
blog gets a lot of inbound traffic from high-PR and authority backlinks!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand, stay away from a blog having a lot of
suspicious and/or spammy backlinks, or one whose backlink profile seems
suspicious in any way. Trust me, you do not want your link up on such a blog!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We spoke of how to go about conducting a backlink audit in a
previous post on this blog. To check a blog’s backlink information use any one
of the available tools out there. I personally recommend the open site explorer
by the good folks over at SEOmoz. The free version comes with certain
limitations, and purchasing the pro license is recommended!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5. Lastly, it might also be a good idea to check the content
of the blog, and judge its quality your own self. Look at the posts – do the
posts have clear and compelling headlines? Is the content interesting,
high-value, good-quality and interesting? Is it free of spelling and
grammatical mistakes? Does it incorporate images and multimedia to boost reader
engagement? Is it broken down into paragraphs properly in order to make it more
clear and reader-friendly? Does the website have a clear call-to-action? Does
it integrate social media, and link to other sources properly, as and where
required?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All these aspects are essential to the quality of a post. </div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-50315816421169379482012-06-09T22:14:00.000-07:002012-06-10T22:15:30.139-07:00Why Attending a Blogging Conference Might be the Best Thing You Do!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Reasons to Attend Blogging Conventions and Conferences</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Believe it or not, attending blogging conference can be fun,
and an absolutely terrific way of making some new blogging friends, contact,
and let’s not forget, the opportunity to network and connect with fellow
bloggers (think guest blogging opportunities)! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For starters, such conference allows you to <b>interact</b> with a lot of like-minded
people and learn from their experiences, as well as share some of your own. It
might even put you face-to-face with some of the biggest names in the blogging
industry, and just like any other conference which puts such people in one
room, you are bound to pick something up out of the experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember that such conferences are bound to have all sorts
of bloggers – niche bloggers, marketers, SEOs and SEMs, affiliate marketers, strategic
partners, consultants, and maybe even bloggers belonging to your own niche.
This means that people with diverse experiences will be present.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chances are that you will pick something up from at least 9
out of the 10 sessions – even those boring ones which might not seem very
useful. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In addition, it is good for <b>exposure</b>. By meeting people, speaking with them and interacting
with them, you are spreading the word about your own blogs and/or the work that
you do. This could potentially be a great, previously-untapped resource of
traffic and subscribers, and the ability to get more visitors as well as fortify
your existence in the blogosphere are two excellent aspects for being a part of
such an event.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It might even <b>hook
you up</b> with people ‘in the know’, such as industry-leaders and established,
authority bloggers and pave a way for you to be able to connect with them
professionally in a direct manner. This might also allow you to follow the
footsteps of these leaders, and do what they have done with the need to do all
the legwork that they had to do to establish themselves when they started off. As
a bonus, you might even get to meet some of your favorite blogger in real life!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I personally recommend that whenever you attend such a
blogging conference, get out there and converse with people. Have your blog
URLs printed out on cards and hand them over to whoever you speak with. If
you’re an SEO, SEM, IM or belong to the industry, ask if you can speak at the
conference and tell people what you do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you do decide to speak at the conference, do so with
confidence and authority. It could do you a world of good in establishing
yourself as an authority on the subject you’re speaking on (a topic in your
niche).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you already are an authority figure, blogging conferences
could help you meet and connect with young leaders and entrepreneurs. Speaking
with such people could give birth to new ideas, inspiration and allow you to
look at things from a fresh perspective. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Conferences such as these <b>promote innovation</b> and sharing of ideas. Mostly because there is a
large pot of expertise and experiences, all in one, single place. Attending
such a conference may give you ideas that you never would’ve gotten otherwise. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Such conferences allow you to give something back to the
community. When you speak with the attendees, you share your own experiences
with them and give something back, because when you do, you will grow as a
person and a professional. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And let’s not forget that almost all such conference have at
least one session exclusively on making money through blogging or monetizing
your blog in a better manner. It could
be an superb way of discovering new methods for earning some money. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lastly, blogging might very well be what you do fulltime, it
might be the sole source of your income and your blog could be your business.
In which case you probably need to be able to constantly find work, attending a
conference might just do that for you!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Conclusion</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Conferences such as BlogHer in New York are great for all
the reasons mentioned above. Also look for other blogger conventions or
conference in your area that you could attend. If you’re really serious and
passionate about your blogging, I strongly recommend attending one of these
conferences, especially if there’s one in or near your area. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you know a group of bloggers in your own area, you could
even arrange one of your own! Decide upon a venue/location, time and start
sending out invites. Make a Facebook page, advertise it on your blog (and ask
all of the attendees to do so as well) and get the word out. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-3588515181574816122012-06-08T02:59:00.000-07:002012-06-08T02:59:52.084-07:00Enhancing Your Local Search Visibility and Rankings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In today’s world, it is simply imperative for all
brick-and-mortar businesses and organizations to be visible online. An
essential part of that is to show up in the local search results.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What exactly are local search results? This can perhaps be
best explained through an example: hit Google right now, and search for ‘pizza
in new york’ (replace with the city you’re currently in). The search results
will show the locations of all pizza places in said city on a Google Maps map,
along with their business address/location, website, and the link to the business’s Google Places
page.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This allows your business to stake a claim on the
internet, have your presence put on the world wide web, and be found on Google and on the map easily. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It can be greatly beneficial for numerous reasons – it is
good for visibility, exposure, sales and revenues, especially in a world that
now lives and breathes on the internet! It helps you get found and makes your
business more accessible. And for me, a business that has an online presence leaves
a good reputation on its potential and existing customers as well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am a firm believer on the fact that if you and your
business can be found on Google, you’re already a winner and head-and-shoulder
above your competition. It is still quite surprising when I learn businesses do
absolutely nothing about improving their local search rankings. For newer
establishments it is understandable (although not excusable) if they’re not
spending a lot of resources on local search, but it is absolutely inexcusable
for larger, more established firms. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Local search marketing has started to pick up, and if my
predictions are correct, it will blow off pretty soon, thanks to Google Panda (updates
to Google’s search engine, which now places more emphasis on local search
results). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s what you can do to stake your claim on Google Places,
and establish a good online presence to enhance your local search visibility
and ranking:<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. List your business on Google Places: If you’re the owner
of an established business, the first thing that you need to do is have
yourself listed on Google’s business directory, aka. Google Places (if you
aren’t already listed). It is as simple as going on Google Places, signing up
and filling it out with your business information. Do the same with Bing and
Yahoo! search. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Put complete contact and location information on your
website: This includes a proper address phone number, and any other details
essential to determining your business’s location. This makes your listing more
trustworthy as well as improves usability. Above all, it helps Google ‘find’
you and helps displays those results so that others can find you as well,
improving local search rankings. Personally, I would urge business owners to
make separate ‘contact/contact us’ pages for their businesses, add it to the
menu/navigation-bar so that it is easily accessible and add all contact
information there.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. Make sure that you enter the same information everywhere:
consistency with the information that you put in is essential, regardless of
where it goes on the internet. The same principle applies when a piece of
information (such as phone no., address, etc.) of your business changes – you
need to update the information on all places that it was listed on. In order to
be consistent, create a business listing file for your organization – which
includes complete business information – and store it somewhere centrally for
easy access.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. Make multiple pages if your business has multiple
branches/stores/locations: Pretty self-explanatory. If your business has
branches, stores or exists in more than one place, city or country, make
separate pages for each location, in order to enhance your chances of showing
up in the Google results. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
5. Home Page Header Tag: Very important to use your
business’s location as one of the keywords in the home page meta information.
For instance if you’re running a paper company, the title of your website’s
homepage should read: Dunder Mifflin | Best Paper in Scranton, Pennsylvania. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
6. Look beyond Google Place: in order to be found online and
have a strong presence on the internet, it is also important to look at other
places where you can have your business listed. Yelp, for instance, is a
popular service that provides online local search capabilities, including the
name of places the user might be seeking, along with the business location,
address, contact numbers, office hours, as well as a 5-star based rating and
reviews. FourSquare is another popular location-based social networking
service, which has a lot of users (mostly used by people on their smartphones),
and lets people ‘check-in’ to place, sending an update of where they are to
everyone in the friend list, and leave recommendations, tips about businesses
and the like. Extremely essential for your business to be listed on these
services.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
7. Reviews: Online reviews provide a trustworthy, reliable
source of information about a business, particularly if a business has a large
number of positive reviews. Reviews are also detrimental to your local search
rankings, if you have reviews, Google will definitely rank your website, and if
it has a large number of them, expect your website to be ranked quite high on
the local rankings. Ask for reviews from your customers. Check which of them
have Gmail accounts and ask them to leave reviews about their experience. Ask
people that walk in to your store or purchase a product for review. You could
even try giving them an incentive to do so.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
8. Online Directories: Get yourself listed in online
directories: there are tons of them out there. Getting as many listings (aka.
citation) as possible is better. Try the Internet Yellow Pages, and Getlisted.org
for starters. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-91856318622216499512012-06-07T01:39:00.000-07:002012-06-07T01:39:07.899-07:00Looking at Your Website from Google’s Perspective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ever since the Panda first saw the light of day, Google has
been hard at work, releasing algorithm updates to its search engine after every
couple of months, at times even weeks. For instance in 2012, Google announced
40 updates in February, while another 50 were announced in March!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The purpose of these updates, as most of you would know, is
to find and de-index low quality websites that don’t provide people with
high-quality content, and ranking the websites that do provide better content
and rank them as high as possible. At least that is what Google claims is the
purpose of these updates. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There has been suspicion and secrecy about what exactly is
Google’s criteria when it comes to evaluating websites and the methods used by
Google to rank certain pages lower or higher than others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Luckily, there are quite a few tools out there – free and
paid – that enable you to look at your website from Google’s perspective – the
way Google and its bots look at your website. These tools are extremely essential,
in the sense that they let you look at certain elements of your website and your
SEO that Google considers to be important, especially in terms of your organic
search. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of these products
in any way. The following is quite simple an honest review of the products that
I’ve personally used)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
1. Google Webmaster Tools</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A lot of SEOs and webmasters don’t use this, but in order to
understand how Google works, why not go to Google. Webmaster Tools is a free
service, which is beginner-friendly and explains the basics of how Google Search
functions well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What it does is that it lets you see how Google views
webpages and what criteria it deems important, which of these things are
high-up Google’s assessment list, and the parameters that are used by Google
search algorithms. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After you sign up at Webmaster Tools, you can see which
keywords Google looks at when it crawls your website. This makes it extremely
simple to see and assess if your keyword strategy really is up to par or not,
and also if you need to be ranking for keywords that you’re targeting. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Furthermore, Webmaster Tools also lets you see the number of
search queries and the CTR for each keyword. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another rather excellent aspect of Webmaster Tools is its
diagnostics section – it lets you check for potential malware and crawl errors.
The former can get your site blocked and de-indexed pretty quickly, the latter
stop search engine crawlers from indexing your site completely, which could
mean that parts of your website are never indexed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
2. SEOmoz PRO</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another gem of a tool for SEOs, SEOmoz scans your
blog/website and conducts a comprehensive and complete evaluation of all of its
SEO-critical aspects. Be warned however that it takes time to prepare the
report (sometimes even up to a week!).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tool provides you with information on how your pages
rank, how Google crawls your website, as well as individual aspects of your SEO
such as URL, title, meta information, links and common yet critical SEO errors
that are found on your website. Furthermore, it then presents its own
recommendations on what you can do to help Google find your website. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the best features of this tool is its ability to let
you see the SEO of as many as three of your competitors. It does this in a
side-by-side manner and lets you see the strengths and weaknesses of your SEO
at a glance, and how your efforts fare against your competition. This is
brilliant if you want to know how or what exactly your competitors are doing
and where potential opportunities are present. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The SEOmoz PRO Tool costs $99 a month to use, however it
comes with a 30-day refund option, and you can cancel your subscription at any
time within these 30 days if you think the service is not worth it (I highly
doubt that you’ll think that!). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
3. SEO Spider (by Screaming Frog)</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A brilliant tool for SEMs and IMs, and designed especially
for SEO’s SEO Spider crawls websites, examines the URLs for SEO issues and
returns with recommendations to make optimization easier – all automatically.
Doing this manually, especially with large website, is a near-impossible task,
and probably something that would take ages to do. It allows for data to be
exported to Excel (.CSV format), if you want to run it through further
analysis. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
SEO Spider assesses your on-page SEO, such as meta
information for all posts and pages, images for ALT information, titles and
headlines, to name a few. The lite version is free to use, but comes with
limited features. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
4. Broken Link Checker (by CheckMyLinks)</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the worst things that could happen to your SEO is
broken links. Having broken links (internal or external) simply destroys your
SEO efforts, however that is where Broken Links Checker comes in. It
comprehensively scans your website from A to Z, in particular the links. Or if
you choose, it can also simply scan a single webpage instead. One of the best
aspects of this tool is that it takes just a few seconds to do so (although it
does depend on the size of your website). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The program then highlights the legit, working links in green,
and the broken ones in red, on the page itself. This makes it easy for you to
simply spot the ones that are no longer working, and helps you to replace those
links. You can also do this before the page goes live, which lets you make the
required corrections before the page ever sees the light of day and well before
it is indexed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tool even gives you the total number of broken and good
links on the page in a separate box.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the best part? The tool is totally free to use! <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7444947260928868613.post-53464619143499850792012-06-06T05:05:00.002-07:002012-06-06T05:05:39.295-07:005 Brilliant Ways of Building Backlinks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Building backlinks can be a tedious and a cumbersome job for
any and all SEOs and SEMs, but it doesn’t have to be that way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, you’ll probably be resigned on spending a large chunk
of your time on this practice, which is basically why a lot of marketers, SEO
specialists, blog owners and webmasters avoid
doing it or simply choose to ignore it – a damn shame if you ask me, because
backlinking and building backlinks is the backbone of good SEO.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The fact of the matter is that if you choose to ignore the
power of backlinks, you’re not only missing out on a large chunk of traffic,
you’re also missing out on revenue and maybe even some serious money! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is downright foolish to ignore SEO, especially backlinking
and the importance of inbound links to your content. In my opinion, the reason
most bloggers choose to do so is lack of information and not know how to get
links to their content.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are 5 great ways of getting excellent, powerful
backlinks to your content that actually send you traffic back to your blog:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
1. Competitor’s
Backlinks</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This for me easily has to be one of the best ways of getting
good backlinks to your blog – checking what your competition is doing. There
are tons of tools that let you do precisely this (a quick Google search on ‘how
to check competitor backlinks will bring up quite a few results). One of the
good ones out there is Open Site Explorer, worth checking out. The free version
of the aforementioned software provides you with information on where the links
are coming from, however it would be a far better choice to invest in the
premium version which offers you with quite more insight. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Use these tools to find where you
competitors are getting that link juice from – a blog, resource page(s),
publication, or other websites in your niche perhaps. Get in touch with the
authors of those blogs directly, offering them an article that you did, which
could be put on their blogs. Don’t ask or beg for links, offer them an
incentive or at the very least something in return (in this case, you’re giving
them valuable content for their blogs).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
2. Be Visitor-Oriented, Instead of
being Google-Oriented</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
This especially holds true after
Google’s recent updates to how its search engine functions and indexes pages.
Google and its bots are progressively getting smarter, and especially after the
‘Penguin’ update, Google now places special emphasis and focus on quality,
valuable content, and has started penalizing ‘over-optimized’ websites. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
As a result, Google has now
started to rank blogs and websites that provide such valuable and quality content
much higher than others, and determine its worth based on how well it serves
the people, rather than if it is just built for Google – something that could now
get you in some serious hot water, and cost you all of your traffic and
revenue.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Yes, links will always be
important. However it is also equally important to focus on creating a site
filled with content useful, and is valuable to people. Following such a model
will always be beneficial to you, especially in the long run, as such websites
will almost always be able to withstand any changes that Google may make to its
search engine. Also, ‘good’ websites will provide the reader with excellent
content, automatically boosting enegagement, traffic, the time someone spends
on your website, and above all, useful content will automatically be shared by
people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<h4>
3. Guest Posting</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Guest posting on good on many levels: it gets you more traffic
(obvious), it is good for exposure and recognition, and allow you to build free
links. If you guest blog somewhere regularly, you can easily build links
consistently, even to your old articles.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Guest blogging on more than one
blog, especially high-PR, authority blogs, get you invaluable link-juice.
Inbound links from these authority blogs will most certainly make Google sit up
and take notice. Do this on a consistent basis and you’ll soon build up an
invaluable network of backlinks on these blog, linking to your new as well as old
content.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<h4>
4. Roundups </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
A roundup is an all-inclusive and
exhaustive collection of articles, resources, products and services that covers
one topic extensively. It could be a 101, a guide or anything else – it has to
be really extensive. Add links to these roundups, which would mean that you are
linking out to hundreds of people – most of whom are likely to link back to you
as well (or at the very least, share your post on social mediums), giving you
many valuable backlinks easily! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Furthermore, these sorts of posts
will also get a lot of visits, as they tend to provide a lot people with
solutions to their problems, all in one single place. People will also share,
and maybe even bookmark these posts for later referral.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
5. Creating a Blog that Looks Good</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
Ask yourself this: what are your
own chances of staying on a blog for a long time if it looks beautiful (and
maybe sharing the content), rather than staying on a blog which doesn’t looks
good at all? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
While it may not be the most
important factor when it comes to building backlinks, having an
attractive-looking blog, which looks good, certainly does play an important
role here. It is good for conversions, it increases the chances that people
will respond to your CTA, it will help reduce your bounce rate, and above all,
it encourages people to read the content of your blog.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
What’s the use of all the
backlinks and traffic in the world, of people aren’t staying on your blog for a
very long period of time? Because even if you are getting a lot of inbound traffic,
a high-bounce rate would do your blog no good. You want people to stick around
and read your stuff. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
In addition, it has also been
proven by research that people tend to trust well-designed blogs more than
poorly-designed ones. Trust worthy blogs will automatically generate more
links, and more people will share them within their social circles. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">
As far as actual backlinking is
concerned, many websites on the internet let you submit well-designed websites
(or their logos), and get backlinks for it. Plus, an attractive blog might even
have someone do an article on it and use your blog as a case-study!<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901410260324914443noreply@blogger.com1