Entries from September 2008 ↓

I haven’t posted at Net writing for over 2 weeks. My rather feeble excuse is that I have been distracted by the ongoing financial panic which has gripped stock markets, banks, currencies and even the presidential race.

Because there is so much interest in economics and finance I have been blogging more intensely on my finance and economic blog. Traffic and subscribers have both increased and I have been trying to make the temporary boost in traffic a permanent one.

When your blog niche hits the news there are ways to make sure you can benefit from it.

• Choose keywords titles that people are searching.
• Don’t try to be a news service, you will get underwhelmed if you are a single blogger.
• Don’t just be an echo of what you read in newspapers. Offer your own analysis and try to develop a simple style.
• Don’t take things for granted people appreciate simple explanations of what is going on.
• Do create timeless content amidst the fast changing news. You don’t want to just blog on events which will become outdated soon. Write articles that are timeless whilst using present events as examples.
• Do blog. When there is interest capitalise on this. In particular try to encourage people to subscribe by writing a regular writing schedule of excellent content.
• When blogging do the most important tasks. For example, at the moment the most important thing is to be writing articles. It is not time for a redesign or leaving comments on other blogs e.t.c.

In our previous post, we looked at what a beginner blogger should spend his time on. In this post, we will look at some suggestions for the experienced blogger who has done the hard work of getting a blog established.

1. Look at Statistics.

Find pages which give most traffic and optimise them. They may be posts you wrote a long time ago and had forgotten about. 80% of your traffic could be coming from 10-20% of your posts. If one posts is getting a lot of traffic, improve it - impress all these visitors. Make sure there are links to other related posts and try to encourage the visitors to explore more aspects of the blog.

2. Exploit successful keywords

In your statistics you will see some  keywords that are bringing you lots of traffic. Try variations on these keywords. If you do well for ‘Blogging tips’ You will probably do well for ‘Blogging tips for begginers’ ‘Top 10 Blogging tips’
If a keyword is very profitable, it is also worth trying to get higher rankings for this keyword. If you are number 5 for one profitable keyword. Try getting links with this keyword in anchor text; if you can go from number 5 to number 1 on google, you will see a 200-300% increase in traffic.

3. Create more bookmarkable content.

When I was a new blogger I spent a lot of time writing quantity. However, I know feel you make more progress from writing memorable content which might do well on social bookmarking sites and attract links.

It is better to have 1 post that gets 2-3 links than 5 posts that sink into mediocrity.

4. Increase RSS readership.

Work hard at building an RSS readership. Try to develop a consistent posting schedule of 2-7 posts a week. This is a good volume

5. Try different things.

Don’t keep churning out the same kind of articles. Try something different like:

• A video post
• Interview with someone outside the blogosphere.
• Collection of interesting photos.
• Inspiration from past archives.
• Think like a journalist rather than blogger.

Related

• Finding topics to write about

I write this as something of a slow convert to the importance of RSS subscribers. The reason is that a while back I had gained good traffic levels and a reasonable income without having any RSS subscribers. However, whenever I read articles about blogging, I heard people talk about the importance of RSS subscribers. So slowly I tried focusing more attention on this aspect of blogging.

Why I focus most of my blogging attention on RSS subscribers.

• Chasing Google search traffic is a limited business model. What happens if you get a google penalty or you lose rankings?
• It is hard to fool Google with artificial links. In this article - quality of links, I mentioned how ‘easy to get links’ are generally not very valuable. The really valuable links are the natural ones from visitors. My feeling is that these natural links are most likely to come from your subscribers. I don’t try to get subscribers just so I can get links. But, if you have hundreds of subscribers, it is likely you will get a lot more natural links than if you have just one (yourself)
• RSS subscribers will help vote for you on social bookmarking sites.
• RSS subscribers is a sign that people like your blog. This is good for advertisers. It is a sign to Google you are not a spam blog. I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow Google used RSS subscribers in determining rankings. A high subscriber guarantees a certain level of quality. Anyone can try manipulate search rankings but manipulating rss subscribers is much harder.

Continue reading →

I have 2 friends who have recently started blogs. They both have created a certain amount of content. In a way this is the easy part because anyone can write articles. The art of blogging is getting links to what you have written, so you will get reasonable Google Rankings.

These are some of the suggestions to Get Links

Write Articles For Ezines

Write articles of 400 words include a link to your site at the bottom and submit to ezinearticles.com. There are many others, but, this is the best. These articles should not be on your blog, but written specifically for the ezine. You don’t want to spend along time writing these articles, but, they want to be good enough so other sites will copy and give you more links. Use article titles like 10 tips for getting links. More on ezine articles here. e.g. vary the link text. The benefits of ezines may have become devalued because everyone is doing it these days. Therefore, don’t rely on this strategy.

Get to Know Other Bloggers in Your Niche.

Look at other bloggers in your niche. In particular look at blogs at a similar stage of development. It is more difficult to get links from a top blog, but, easier to develop relationships with blogs of a similar stature.

• Leaving comments,
• Linking to them
• Dropping an email

All these will get the blogger interested in your blog. If he likes your blog and you have good content, the above strategy’s may result in links. However, I would point out I never expect links from other bloggers. I never ask for them directly. Think about building relationships rather than just a mindset of ‘getting links’

Linkbait.

Linkbait is an article that is unique, highly interesting or something people will love. As a new blogger, you may not appreciate what link bait is. For example, this post is not linkbait. It is  not exactly the first article on getting links on the internet… However, if you had an interview with a celebrity in your field on your blog, that is unique - it is a first. People will be interested in viewing it. Another strategy is to get collections of photos which are particularly interesting for your blog. After writing the linkbait, you need to let people know about it. Email specific bloggers (it is of course helpful if you already have some relationship). Also this is something not to overdo.
The second thing, is to mention it on a forum in your niche. This can work if you know the forum members will really like the content. If it is unrelated or selling a product, it is dangerous. It also helps if you have contributed to the forum in other ways than promoting your own content. If the content is really good, it can lead to appearing on several forums and blogs. Getting several links like this is definitely worth the effort of creating superior content and the effort of letting people know.

Continue reading →