Blog Site

How To Set Up A Blog Site

The Right Way

The Internet has millions of blogs on it today. However

many of them are not designed correctly. In this article

let's talk about setting up a blog site the right way so

you can benefit both from search engines and repeat

visitors.

Blogging today is really a form of social media. Certainly

you are able to control the content you put into your blog,

but you can also control how people perceive your blog

when they come to visit it.

Blogs can become more attractive just by doing easy things

like adding banners to them. If you do affiliate marketing

you can give your blog personality by adding a few banners

for products you represent.

You should do this by placing banners that come in different

sizes and shapes. You also want banners that have different

colors so that your blog is more eye appealing.

Another thing you can do is add text links to your blog

articles. Search engines like this and so do your readers

as it gives them additional things to look at.

This is a good place to insert keyword phrases and hyper link

them back to targeted web pages. You can do this directly

to affiliate programs that you represent. You can also link to

other pages within your website or blog.

Blogs that are well written bring repeat traffic. A well written

blog article is one that provides useful information. It can

also be something that is humorous or even controversial.

Your simple goal is to get readers to your blog and then

invite them back. Giving them a way to subscribe to your

RSS feed via email is a good idea.

Another thing you want to do is add videos to your blog.

An easy way to do that is use Article Video Robot to create

videos out of articles.

This is very simple yet can have a major impact on how your

blog is viewed. You can also link back to your blog from the

videos as you submit them to shared video sites such as

You Tube and Yahoo Video.

There are numerous blog templates you can use that are

very attractive. Word Press has many of these available.

Blogger.com is owned by Google and also has some

attractive templates, but you will want to personalize these.

One thing you can do is add your own picture so people

know who you are. You can create an about us blog post

as well as describe a little bit about yourself and what

you are trying to accomplish with your blog.

The last point I want to make is keep your blog current.

Even adding 2 blog articles a week can make a big

difference to your readers and the search engines.

The worst thing you want to do is spend time setting up

a blog site the right way and then let it go to waste

by ignoring it.

Blogging

Blogging: A Wonderful Online Business

Opportunity

Blogging has gone from something fun to do to a great

online business opportunity. The technology makes it so

easy for people to get started today that anyone can start

a blog and eventually turned it into a full-time online business

if they do it correctly.

In the old days blogging was more like creating a diary or

journaling. It was also a good way for people to keep in

touch with each other. Social networking sites have changed

all of that and now people can keep in contact through sites

like Facebook instantly.

However blogging still has some nice opportunities as

a business tool. There are a few things you need to do if

you want to make money blogging.

1. First of all you need to spend some time writing content

before you will make any money. Depending on the type of

blogs you have you may have to create hundreds of pages

of content so you might as well pick something to blog on

that you enjoy writing about.

2. You can monetize your blog right away with advertising

such as Google Adsense. Eventually you can sell advertising

directly to promoters yourself as your traffic to your blog

increases.

3. You will have a little bit of skill needed in learning how to

add things like adding video to your blog. This is important

though because you want your blog to be interesting and

videos are big part of that.

4. Going out and looking at the marketplace is a good idea.

Take a look at what other blogs look like to get some ideas

on what you want to do with your own blog.

You will see that the most blogs today are using the

WordPress and Blogger.com platforms. Hosting one of

these yourself is a good idea, but you might want to pay

somebody to set it up for you if you are not comfortable

doing that sort of thing or it.

5. In the old days reciprocal linking was very big. Today

reciprocal blogging is big.

Mentioning other people's blogs in your own blog is smart

and something that you can expect other people to do for

you. You can also guest blog on other people's blogs which

gives you the opportunity to increase your own number of

readers.

6. One common strategy that works very well is to review

products in your blog. This works well for affiliate marketing

products that you can turn around and sell to people after

they read your review.

There are many tactics you can use to make blogging a great

online business opportunity for yourself. The key is to find

something you enjoy writing about and be willing to do it

even if you were not getting paid.

Blog Project

30 Traffic Generation Tips

First of all a big “thank you” for every one who

participated. As I said before the number

of entries surprised me (and the quality as

well, I will definitely apply some of

those tips myself).

Now, without further delay,

the 30 Traffic Generation Tips:

1. Sridhar Katakam
Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them.

A good way to keep the conversation going is to install

a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people

visiting your site.

2. Ian Delaney
Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value.

Consider writing posts with resources or explaining

how things work. Useful things get linked to and they

get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term

than a digg front page.

3. Scott Townsend
Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati

(using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated,

this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those

sources. (check the List of Ping Services)

4. Kyle
Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field

of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to

wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp.

Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version

with your own lessons learned and relevant tips.

When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the

simplified post will appear before the more complex version

in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased

traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the

subject will land on your blog.

5. Grant Gerver
Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things

political

from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous,

sarcastic one-liners.

6. Daniel
A simple tip that will probably boost your page views:

install a

translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this,

but if

I am not wrong there are some free ones as well.

The translation is not very good, as you can imagine,

but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent

in English.

7. Rory
Submit articles to blog carnivals

(http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to

your niche. Your article almost always gets posted,

and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.

8. Ramen Junkie
Newsgroups. I always see a spike when

I post a review to a newsgroup.

9. Eric Atkins
Create a new design for your website. Not only

will it be more attractive to your regular readers,

but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase

sites that feature great designs. This will give you

exposure on those sites while generating a lot of

traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.

10. Megan Taylor
Participate in conversations on related blogs.

Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just

post about a story and leave it at that, engage

your audience, ask questions and call to action.

11. Guido
Comment on blogs, write useful content and make

good friends on forums.

12. Brian Auer
You must be active to generate traffic.

I post comments on other blogs that are related

to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at

the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it

will certainly attract readers.

13. Shankar Ganesh
Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely

get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many

communities as possible that are related to your topic.

14. Andrew Timberlake
A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including

your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards,

letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage

if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.

15. Cory OBrien
Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your

blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social

bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).

16. Jester
Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them,

it takes just a couple of seconds to leave a message

agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site,

and you will almost

ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.

17. Goerge Manty
Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like

pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of

the ping services. Engage your readers.

Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes,

free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell

their friends about you.

18. Engtech
Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one

when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that

makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has.

Building a community around your blog will bring you

increased traffic, but how do you start?

The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO,

social networking sites, and commenting on blogs”

but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”.

The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already

existing community. But the only way to do that is to

be part of the community yourself.

19. Chris
Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic.

By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom “community” of

webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.”

Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of

generating traffic.

20. Splork
I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting

them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written

from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by

EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that

search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those

articles so the reader can visit my relevant website

has always increased my site traffic.

21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped

up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com

and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into

the concept behind and design for your blog,

I’d recommend submitting your site to a design

portal not only for

additional traffic but to build an additional community

around your site.

22. Kat
I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like”

community sites that focus on my target audience.

I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to

my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even

created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very,

very successful for me.

23. Inspirationbit
Well, obviously everyone knows that social

bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots

of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles

to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers),

and I always get not a bad traffic from there.

24. Mark Alves
Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers

where you can demonstrate your expertise,

get associated with relevant keywords and put

your URL out there.

25. Tillerman
Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten

Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in

any general search for blogs in your niche and

other bloggers in your niche write about the post

and link to it.

26. Nick
Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal

readers. Either link baiting people in your signature

or posting great advice and tips will give you high

quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.

27. Brandon Wood
A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is

participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s

what I’m doing right now.

28. Alan Thomas
Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup

of all interviews I did over the past seven months.

One of them generated a new link and a big traffic

spike from a group of users that look like they will

be loyal readers now.

29. KWiz
Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good

to write something controversial just for the purpose

of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for

that purpose and you’re being disingenuous),

but it works.

30. Dennis Coughlin
Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors.

Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog.

This might help them to discover your blog, read it

and possibly link to it.