Why Should I Put Links in My Blog Posts?

You should try to write at least one link inside your blog post back to your own blog, a site linking to your blog, or some other location which eventually can lead back to your site or a product associated with your site. Why should you put links in your blog posts? It's simple... websites that rip your content and paste it on their own sites will take credit for your work no matter what measures you take to prevent it. Therefore, why not allow these sites which steal your content to become billboards? Why not turn this around and use those sites to drive traffic to your own?

Sounds simple and easy, but it actually takes some thought as you don't want to annoy your regular readers with links to your home page, so try to spice things up by linking back to old articles or sites which in turn link to your own. You can also put the name of your site in there without using a link, and I highly encourage this so that people will google and find you. The reason you should do this is because many of the sites which steal your content and reproduce it word for word will take out your hyperlinks which destroys the whole point of putting links into the posts in the first place. Therefore it would be wise to put your blog's name inside the article for users to search for it.

Best Article Sites for Generating Blog Traffic

There are many sites to choose from when attempting to generate traffic for your blog. I have found from personal experience that the sites with the most restrictions are generally the best ones to use. Sure it takes longer to generate content but they will give you the best results in the long run. While you wait for major article sites to publish your content, it is also wise to use less restrictive ones to publish immediately and get your content out there. Here are the sites I use for generating traffic to my blogs:

http://articoolz.com/

http://www.articlesbase.com/

http://ezinearticles.com/

http://www.3stepads.com/

http://www.squidoo.com/

http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/add.cgi

Every time I create an article on my blog I then modify it and submit to each of the above listed article sites. This guarantees that my content will start generating traffic for my blogs and the longer I've been successfully submitting to each of these sites the better the results. Of these sites, ezinearticles and squidoo are the most restrictive, followed by articlesbase and then the remaining three. Having a healthy mix of restrictions allows for content to be released over time and reach a wider audience.

Is Blogging a Dead Medium?

It's a sad fact that most blog readers are bloggers themselves, hence why blogs which focus on the blog writing audience do so well. I've had many friends and family members look at me like I have two heads when I show them how much money I make from blogging each week. "Seriously," they say, "... isn't blogging dead though?" The answer is that yes, blogging the way it used to be done is dead.

People who blog just for the sake of blogging are certainly a dead medium. Nowadays you have to compete with a thousand other bloggers in your same niche and the only way to do that is to provide content no one else can or to create a community which will attract even more visitors.

These are changing times but blogging is certainly not a dead medium. You just have to adapt and become a better blogger in the process.

Getting on a Bloglisting Site (Not a Blog Roll!)

Blog directory sites are basically directories for website categories, similar to EzineArticles but for blogs instead of articles. This is not the same thing as say a site roll, which is nothing more than a list of blogs one person in particular reads. Often you'll find site rolls on the right hand side of a blog and it will contain the title of the site in question as well as the latest post by that author.

Blog listing sites usually require that you leave a small rectangle on your site with a piece of code which allows them to track your website. This will help them when they show people using their site and searching through a category to find your blog.

To find a directory site, simply Google 'blog listing sites' and look around at what you find. Pick a free website that requires you to put a small bit of code for tracking onto your site and you're ready to go. Add the tracking software somewhere out of sight (I use the very bottom of my website for this purpose) and you will now hopefully start getting more visitors from the listing site you signed up with.

Don't stop at just one site though, be sure to get on as many as you can to improve your readership!

Getting on blog rolls is a great way to get readership, but if you want fresh new visitors who perhaps haven't even heard of your blog yet then you want to get on these blog listing sites. Remember, you can never get enough of this free traffic!

Hello? is Anyone Listening to Me?

Blogging can be frustrating, especially at first, if you see no comments and believe no one is really reading your content which you worked so hard to create.

Getting a program like google analytics goes a long way in helping you grasp just how many people are really visiting your site and reading your content.

The best way to get started generating readership is to simply google around and find sites in your niche. If you've been blessed with google searchers finding your content (which you noticed because you went and got google analytics) then you will know what key words to focus on when looking for blogs with similiar content. Getting those blogs with similiar keywords to link to you is huge for google search engine optimization.

Don't despair, your readers are really out there, you just need to get within ear shot and be ready to impress them when they finally read your content.

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Importance of the Share Feature

You can add a 'share' feature at the bottom of your posts (simply google how to do this as it is really just a cut and paste job) on blogspot.com.

What's the power of this? There's no way to tell just how beneficial this feature can be for your site, unless of course you test it out. The share feature allows people to use any number of social networking sites (over 200 actually) to tell friends about what you've blogged about. This create a mediocre free link to your site which helps boost your rankings on google. What's more, your content gets passed via viral marketing to another person.

What's not to love?

I definately recommend getting a share feature for your blog!

Click Away! vs Catering Mentality

There are two very different ways to deal with comments on your blog, mainly complaints.

The first way to deal with complaints is to say "Click Away if you don't like the content!"

The Second way to deal with complaints is to say "Ok I will change X and modify Y to fit your needs, please don't go away!"

Obviously a happy medium of accepting the validity of complaints is where you will most likely succeed with blog comments. However, for some blogs it is better to simply be a jerk or an appeaser. It really comes down to not only the personality you blog as but also how many people are complaining.

Do some thinking on this concept and iron out for yourself how you will deal with complaints and suggestions on your own blog. Will you be an appeaser, a jerk, or somewhere in between?

Posting Tip - Quality vs Quantity

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That phrase applies to blogging too! If you don't have anything of value to add to your blog then don't post crap! Now, if you have a schedule for your blog then you are going to want to work ahead and post items in advance (blogger and wordpress both have features which allow you to automatically post from a queue).

Quality is the biggest part of both attracting an audience and making google like your site. By 'like' I mean index it for the keywords you include in your title and in most paragraphs of your article. For instance, my keywords are quality, quantity, and posting tip. Quanitity does not mean google will like you and if you use your keywords too much in any one paragraph (this one is pushing it) then you will get flagged as spamming and it will hurt your google seo.

So when I say post quality and not quantity that refers to good google seo as well! Apply this posting tip to your own blog and if you have free reign on when you post (like this blog) don't post crap when you have nothing of quality to say.