Archive for the ‘Blog Traffic’ Category


Tips on blogging: pinging, SEO and more

* Is “pinging” dead? It used to be one of the top tips on blogging: always use “pinging” services to tell important sites, like Technorati, that you’ve just updated your blog. Pinging helped your blog get more traffic and backlinks. Today, however, one blogger says pinging is no longer necessary. What do you think?

* Like this blogger, I too have just discovered the free and easy note-taking took called Evernote. I now keep Evernote open all day long, and copy & paste juicy stuff from around the web there. It’s a great way to permanently store urls, thoughts (mine and other people’s), post ideas and more.

* In the Christmas spirit, check out “12 Days of Blogging”:

“…every day, you’ll get a post filled to the brim with links to tips from some of the best bloggers around the world. Some of these names you may recognize. Others will probably be brand new to you. Either way, there will be over 75 bloggers featured as part of this series!

“Every day, you’re invited to leave links to any post you have that is relevant to the topic of the day – and I’m hoping you’ll take full advantage of this opportunity to promote your own work!”

* Is it possible to “Learn SEO in 30 Seconds”?

* Speaking of SEO, here are “9 SEO Insights You Must Follow” — for instance, here’s what you need to know about your blog’s page title:

“The page title needs to be under 70 characters and no more than 3 long tail keywords in the page title. Your most important keyword should be first and each keyword should be separated by pipes (|).”

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Google first page: free tips for higher ranking blogs (part one)

Unless your web site shows up on Google’s first page, the chances of your site being found by customers and clients is close to zero. Nine out of ten people searching for something on Google don’t look page the first page of search engine results that come up (SERPs).

Here are techniques I’ve used to get my sites and my clients’ on Google’s first page.

NOTE: This article is designed for people who already have a main company website, but it isn’t getting lots of traffic. You already have a “tree” — now we have to create some “branches”. In other words: You need other web sites to link back to yours

Remember: your customers and clients are searching for your product or service using certain keywords.

Let’s say people looking for what you sell are searching Google using the phrase:

“discount electronic widget adaptors”

Now, because Google looks at how many other sites link to yours, you must create “backlinks” to your web site.

You can start creating backlinks easily, using free web site and blog creation tools.

Sign up for free accounts at:

  • HubPages
  • Squidoo
  • DevHub
  • WetPaint
  • Tumblr
  • Xanga
  • MyBlogLog
  • Xomba
  • LiveJournal

* SET UP A FREE SITE, page or blog at ALL of these sites, using their simple templates.

When the set up wizard asks your for the title of your new site, type in: Discount Electronic Widget Adaptors

* MAKE SURE you create sites and pages that someone would learn something from. In this case, share some of your expert advice about buying discount electronic widget adaptors — after all, you sell them, right?

(Here’s an example of a HubPage dedicated to one very specific topic and set of keywords. Here’s a similar article page at Xomba.)

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How to get visitors to stay on your blog — and share it with friends

One of my favorite blogging, social networking and website enhancement tools is also FREE!

It’s called Apture.

Here’s what they offer you, at no cost:

“One line of code can triple the time readers spend on your site. Interested?

“Apture’s Contextual Search keeps users engaged with your content by giving them the tools to search and share without even leaving your page. Give your readers the power to search the web for rich content from Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Flickr, YouTube and others all through your site.”

Here’s what happens: you install a bit of custom generated code you get from Apture, after you give them your basic blog information.

After that, when someone visits your site and scrolls down, a slender toolbar appears and invites them to share what they see on your blog using email, Twitter and/or Facebook.

In other words, the Apture toolbar immediately connects your blog to the most important social networking tools on the web today. This means visitors can easily share your blog more easily to their friends and followers.

And that means more traffic and links for your blog.

Visitors can also use the built in search field to find information in your blog’s archives. This easy to use search feature keeps visitors engaged on your blog longer.

Here’s a recent report I received from Apture, telling me the different installing the toolbar has made to one of my blogs:

Apture Report for 2010-11-22 to 2010-11-28

  • Readers spent 1.2x more time on your site when they used Apture
  • Readers searched 118 times on your site using Apture
  • Your readers want to know more about: kathy shaidle, ., tura satana.
  • Readers shared 8 articles via Apture
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