How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 4)

In the forth part of the research, we will continue investigating the most promising ways to increase traffic flow to the Blog. Earlier, we already discussed several methods of the site promotion, related to the Blog submission to the various search engines and directories. In this chapter we will review the traffic exchange approaches.

Part 4: Traffic Exchange

Manual Traffic Exchange
Manual Blog Traffic Exchange communities operate on a basis of a reciprocal viewing ratio: every member, by visiting other members’ Blogs in the network, is earning credits that could be exchanged for visits by other community members to his own Blog. Some traffic exchange networks also encourage members to buy additional credits, which will be translated to the non-reciprocal visitors’ traffic. Among the main benefits of using traffic exchange as a method of the blog promotion is opportunity of getting extra traffic from the fellows-bloggers that you would never get in any other way. The communities’ members are the blogging fans themselves, so you get the traffic from the people that might be interesting in what you can offer. However, I would not personally consider this traffic as high quality traffic. The reason of this downgrading is based on the fact that most participants review the sites for simple credit making without an actual interest in the Blogs they are viewing through, frequently not even noticing, what is happening on the screen. Another disadvantage of the manual traffic exchange – it is very time-consuming. Indeed, you click and click, and at the end you get several visitors to your site that even might not note what it is about. And, finally, this area comes too close to the borders of the permitted by AdSense traffic generation guidelines. Just wanted to cite to you a clarification on the topic from the AdSense official Blog:
“As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers. We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don't recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity”.

http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/04/note-on-traffic-exchange-programs.html

As you see, there is no prohibition to use traffic exchange services, it is just not recommended. So, it is your choice, if you want to use the traffic exchange program in your marketing campaign. In case you are not linked to AdSense income share program any, consequently, to any related obligations, you can simply disregard all the related warnings. The list of the most recommended Traffic Exchange services is provided in the Web List, hosted by RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24372-manual-traffic-exchange-for-blogs--free-online-services.aspx


Note that this list covers only the Web Sites that, in their service coverage, are dedicated exclusively to the bloggers. There are even more general traffic exchange services, which accept any type of the membership Web Sites in the community. I have not prepared the Web List of services in this category, but you can easily get multiple hits if you search on Google “manual traffic exchange”.

Automatic Traffic Exchange

An Automatic Traffic Exchange approach has one big advantage: your participation is almost not required. You sign for one, or for multiple accounts; leave your computer overnight, and the “smart” auto-trafficking program will guide your PC through Internet, earning you money, credit for your own site exposure, or both. These programs, however, clearly violate the AdSense instructions, and there is a good chance that you will be busted one day, if you use the scheme. Definitely, if you are working on your Blog or Web Site with no AdSense participation, you are clean from the legal viewpoints. Usually, the automatic traffic exchange program is activated by the participants overnight, while the account owner is away from the computer.

So, even thou your traffic statistics will show significant increase, no one from your “visitors” will actually see your site. The generated traffic is purely artificial, and can increase site exposure earnings per impressions, if it would be legal. As a bottom line, I would not personally recommend using the Automatic Traffic Exchange schemes, as it is illegal (for AdSense or others similar advertising brokers) and might cause your account suspension. You can loose more than you can gain.

To be continued…

Submission to the Search Engines and Directories

How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 3)

In the first two parts we discussed the tips and recommendations, related to the content preparation and presentation on your blog, as the basis for the successful site exposure. If the content is not very good, or has not been properly presented, there is no point investing in the advanced marketing steps. Even if you can attract the one-time readers, they will never be converted to your fans and returning visitors. "Content is a king", but if you will not be able to spread a world about it around, nobody knows that you have a "treasure".

You can access the first two parts of this publication through the following links:

http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without.html

http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without_13.html

In the third part of this research (I just approached to it as one of my college papers), we will review the marketing promotional techniques, related to the blog submission to the Search Engines and Directories, notifying the potential readers on your virtual presence and on the following blog updates per your fresh posts. Coming to the point of this part preparation, I got stuck. The amount of the information about the related services on the Web is enormous, and the new players are coming to the market on a daily basis. It is a good sign, confirming that this area of interests is really “hot”, and we are at the right place at the right time. So, let's use the free Internet opportunities for our own profits.

To make the article more flexible and let the readers leave their valuable inputs on the listed services, I have posted most of the services that will be mentioned below as Web Lists at RateItAll Rating Community (http://www.rateitall.com). This way, the listings might be updated without modifying this post. I will be also grateful, if you raise your voice to vote for your favorite services on the presented Web Lists.


Submission to the General Search Engines

First of all, let’s treat our blog as a regular Web Page. If so, we can simply submit it to the major search engines. It is obvious, that the high percentage of the traffic, coming to the blogs, is originated from Search Engines. If your blog is parked in one of the communities, the host will submit your pages to the Search Engines for you. However, you hardly can control and boost the process of submission. If you want to take this matter in your own hands, you can independently submit your blog to the search engines. As my promotion approach does not suggest any payable solutions, I am offering you to choose one of the free automatic submission Web Sites, which will do the job for you in no time. The quality of the promotion outcomes is questionable, but due to a small amount of time spent, you have nothing to loose. There is a small list of the available Web Sites, I have prepared for your convenience at RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24359-automatic-web-site-submission-to-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx

Yes, the easy and fast submission option, described above, exists, but I would not recommend using it for the most valuable Search Engines, where you expect most of the traffic from. You can get much better results, if you submit your blog manually, as some crawler based engines do not like getting the submission from the automatic sources. Besides, most of the Web traffic currently is coming from the few leading engines, anyway. Just spend little bit more time to ensure your submission efforts will get you the best possible results. I suggest performing your blog submission to the following top engines and directories manually:
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html - Yahoo!
http://www.google.com/addurl/ - Google, AOL, NetScape, iWon.
http://dmoz.org/add.html - Open Directory.

Submission to the Blog Directories

There are so many different search engines and directories, created exclusively for blogs. I am not even thinking to cover them all. If you wish to use automatic blog and RSS submission software to the multiple directories, consider buying Dummy Software's Blog and RSS Submit Software http://www.dummysoftware.com. The software is a shareware, but it can be tested for free on limited amount of the sites for submission. Establishing your presence in Blog directories will increase your link popularity, amplify the Blog direct traffic, and improve search engine rankings. I have prepared the appropriate list of the best Blog directories on RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24360-submission-to-blog-directories--free-online-services.aspx

Submission to the RSS Search EnginesFast increasing number of the content sources caused appearing new distribution channels to the public. RSS is one of them, as more and more advanced Internet users utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed on the latest news and posted information. As there are increasing amount of the RSS consumers, the Blog owner should invest some additional time on giving them ability to access the blog posts through RSS Search Engines. If until now, online content was optimized solely for SEO (search engine optimization), a growing popularity of RSS requires additional site optimization for RSS readers. Usually, the submission process for the RSS search engines is fast and easy. On most sites it is limited by posting the RSS feeder URL from your Blog without registration or filling much information on their sites. The list of selected RSS search engines is posted on RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24374-submission-to-rss-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx

Submission to the Social Bookmarking Sites

The original and the main purpose of the social bookmarking sites is ability to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages, similarly to saving bookmarks in your browser. The difference is that you can access the social bookmarking sites from any computer, and easily share them with your friends and colleagues. In addition, these sites are actively used for blog promotion, similarly to the blog directories, increasing the potential value for the blog owners. All the sites require membership to access their services. The list of the best selected social bookmarking services is posted on RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24375-social-bookmarking-sites--free-online-services.aspx

You might not need to subscribe to all the services currently available currently, choosing only those that will provide you set of features you like.

Pinging Blogs

Pinging services are specializing on updating the various search engines and social bookmarking sites on the Blog recent updates. Blog owners are interested in getting the widest possible publicity to the newly posted data as fast as possible. Therefore, the bulk pinging services will be handy to fulfill this task. The list of the best multi-ping services, I could find, is posted, as usual, on RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24378-blog-pinging--free-online-services.aspx

To be continued…

How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 2)

You can access the first post, related to the Blog Content highlights and recommendations (part 1), through the following link:

http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without.html

In the second part we will discuss the posting techniques and approaches to improve overall blog visibility and get the genuine traffic of your visitors – people, who are interesting in the same topic as you are, and who eventually might become your virtual friends, fans, and supporters.

Part 2: Blog Posting

1. Content Posting.
* Post your content during weekdays, since you can get a wider audience.
* Post your content on weekends, as there are fewer posts, and your post can get more attention from the readers.
* Post at different hours of a day. The post is the most active as it is brand new. At the time it is fresh, it has the biggest exposure opportunities in your community. Later, the newer posts will push your publication lower and lower, until it disappears completely from the recent posts listing. Posting at the different schedules will help you reaching the customers from different time zones and with various computer-using routines.
2. Tagging your posts. Tag your content accurately and smartly, so your visitors can find you post by focusing on their particular area of interest. Do not try using the tags or keywords, just because they are popular and will attract the most expensive AdSense advertising. If the tags do not match your content, your visitors will never come back.
3. Linking to other Blogs. There are several valid reasons to make a link in your post to other blogs or publications. Giving legitimate references to the articles and posts, which you used for your blog entry, or providing more information on the other sources related to the topic of discussion, will not divert your visitors away out of your page. Instead, it will reach the following potentially positive outcomes:
* You help your visitors to get the full picture on the topic of interests, and they will appreciate your openness and extra-efforts to assist them.
* You build the audience that will trust your judgment, as you are not just a source of the posted information, but also an expert in the deeper informational research on the topic.
* You save yourselves from the legal consequences, if you are accused in plagiarism. As far, as you point out on the text author, you are free from the possible accusations and banning from your host for unethical behavior. Just, be sure to check your hosting site, if the non-original content is allowed, when you intend to copy the borrowed article, or any part of it, “as is”.
* The authors of the posts, you give references to, might notice your links, and take a look on your posts. It is especially useful, when you refer to the blog, which is much more established, than yours.
* And finally, when you notify the author on linking to his posts, it can be considered as a polite way of hinting on the possible link exchange. Just remember, that it is not your main target at the moment. Do not be aggressive on the link exchange requirements, otherwise instead of getting the good reputation, you are striving for, you will end up with a bad one.
4. Leaving Comments and Participating in Discussions. Improve your rating by giving quality comments on other people’s blogs. Your point of view and your thoughtful remarks might also drive visitors to your personal blog. There is nothing wrong to post link to your blog in the comment, if it is relevant to the comment topic. Posting irrelevant link or non-informative comment will bring you more harm than good, as readers will consider your comment as spam. Anyway, if you have a good post, the link in your signature can help; even in the case it does not match the topic of discussion. Readers, attracted by your nice comment, might want to explore your other posts as well. Give them the opportunity.
5. Replying to the Comments on your Posts. Always make sure to reply to the comments and questions, your readers are leaving on your posts. If they spent their valuable time to write the note, you should respect that and show your gratitude by replying, or giving them the advice they are asking for. It also makes the post more interactive and drives more visitors.
6. Inspect the reading statistics from your current posts, and learn which posts were the most successful. Investigate in depth your own content and try to understand, what exactly in these particular posts could contribute to the booming exposure. It might not be just content, but also formatting, timing, hosting community influence, else. As you figured out what all your popular posts have in common, try reproducing the success in the future publications.

To be continued.

How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (Part 1)

You created your first blog, and made several well-written posts on the important topic. You also linked your blogging account to the AdSense, and you are looking for visitors. But, visitors are not coming. You see that clearly on the post statistics and AdSense statistics. If you established your Web presence in the big communities, you can just wait for the community members to find your post, or for your hosting site to submit your post to the main search engines according to the topic of relevance. But, you want to see results immediately. I want the immediate improvement of my traffic statistics as well. So, I went online, and made the thorough search for the recommendations from the professionals and fellows bloggers.
The following article is an overview result from the multiple sources on the topic: “How to increase blog traffic without financial investments.” The list of the links that were used for the article preparation, will be enclosed in the final part of the topic, for your convenience. I want to thank all the authors who contributed to the topic’s review.

Part 1: Blog Content

1. Provide quality content. It is hard to explain in simple words, how the quality content can be separated from the non-quality content. But, if you read an article on topic of your interests and you see say to yourself: “That’s it. I knew that, but the author put the staff on the blog quite nicely”- this is a quality content. Share your expertise generously with other people, so the readers recognize it and depend on you and your opinion.
2. Provide original content. There are many sites with free content for your blog, and there is nothing wrong to use once a while an article that fit to topic of your discussion (definitely, if you provide the information about author, and your blogging host supports non-original content posting). But, the most readable blogs are not those that collect articles from other primary sources, no matter how good the posts are.
3. Personal Voice. Through your posts readers should see an author – you. As blogs are more like personal journals, they need to have a personal touch of the creator, giving the visitors feeling that you personally like they came, you write for them, to make their life easier and more fun. This personal touch might be provided through the humorous comments, examples from your experience, etc.
4. Provide an interesting and expert content. Everybody has the topic(s) where she or he is an expert. Choose the topic for your posts that it is interesting for you. Do not choose the topic, before they seems to be the most profitable. If you do not have fun, writing your posts, the visitors will not have fun, reading them. Be constantly aware on all new trends on your topic of interest and became an expert in this area.
5. Look on your posts from your visitor’s perspectives. Try to review your post as the post of some stranger you stumbled online. Is this post is keeping your attention till the end, or you get bored right away? Try to be objective. If this post would be written by somebody else, would you like it?
6. Controversial Content. If that is applicable to the topic of your discussion, prepare the posts with controversial content, that might evoke the discussion and polemics, which will increase the blog exposure and will eventually drive more traffic. One of the methods of increasing user’s participation is posting provocative questions and touch “hot topics”. These posts should be related to the topic of your discussion and you should use them carefully, as your blog stylishness and integrity are more important for your long-time success.
7. News and long-lasting content. Try to create articles with the long-lasting content to ensure your posts readability next year, next 10 years… Definitely, it is from not easy to impossible for the topics related to the Internet, technology, or other topics with enormous speed of development. If your content will loose actuality fast, be first to deliver the news, taking the traffic the other way.
8. Track back links to your other posts. While writing new post, try to include the relevant links from your older posts, promoting them the most natural way. These intra-links should not be accepted as shameless promotion, but should be integral to the post.
9. Writing Style and Design. You should develop your own, easy-identifiable style as a writer. But, anyway, reader will always appreciate if you make his comprehension easier by using the proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalizing letters as needed, proofreading you posts, and using the blog design and Themes and will help your reader to focus on the post, and avoid distraction by the reading obstacles. By investing your time in these simple actions, you will actually show the respect to your reader.
10. Regular Updates. Update your blogs regularly, let your fans to be addicted to the new post they can enjoy on the regular basis. The rule is “the more regular you blog, the more traffic you will get”. It is increasing the overall knowledge base, you are presenting to the public, combined with keeping the most devoted your readers not to be disappointed by your extended absence.
11. Pictures and Videos. Use pictures and videos naturally incorporated in your posts. They give more flavors to your articles, make them more readable, and attract the public attention.
12. Blog Title and Description. Do not think that it is not important! It definitely is! Gets a cool relevant, straight-forward, and keywords-rich title that makes people check your site for the first time. And the description should match the title, giving the brief presentation on your topic, approach, and character of presentation. This will also assist you in getting better indexing results in the search engines.
13. Most Popular Posts. You have the posts that you like most, and your readers like most. Why not putting them the permanent links to them on the sidebars, or add the few “killing” posts in your signature, when you are finalizing your regular posts? Your best weapon should be utilized as much as possible.
14. Length of the Posts. It is recommended to keep the overall posts and paragraphs inside the post short. It is better to offer your visitors to come daily, checking your new pieces of the information, than to get them tired reading one long article. It does not mean that you should always right the short posts. If the long article can be divided into the self-sufficient components, it is better to split it and arrange separate parts submission.

I am going to use the last recommendation for myself, and leave other aspects of the blog traffic increase to the following posts. Happy Blogging!

Blog Promotion through Technorati

Claiming the blog to Techonorati will help you to maximize your blog's exposure to those looking for information you provide. Your visibility will be significantly improved if you post your Blog to the proper category of the Technorati's Blog Finder. Hey, you need visitors, and visitors are looking for you! Help them find your artciles. You have a chance to improve the attendance even more, if your Blog will be published on Technorati's Home Page.

Website: http://technorati.com/