Having a blog is just as popular as it has ever been. Sure, blogs may not get as much attention as they once did, but they are one type of website that looks as if it’s here to stay. No matter why you have a blog–to earn money, to promote a product, or just as personal journal–it’s only logical that you would like to know how to increase blog traffic. After all, you have it online for a reason, right? Wanting to get more traffic to it is only natural.

First, some good news: search engines love blogs. This means you have a good chance of picking up what’s known as ‘organic traffic’. The main search engines are looking for is to return relevant results to the people who are searching. Blogs fit the bill on two counts:

1. Blogs are centered around one topic. Maybe it’s a personal blog where you talk about the stuff that happens to you, or the ideas you have. In that case, the focus is. On the other hand, if you’re blogging to make money, then your blog will have a more narrow focus. Either way, the search engines like this type of content.

2. Blogs are updated on a regular basis. Search engines tend to place more importance on those websites that have newer content. Once you understand this, it should give you all the motivation you need to post to your blog frequently. Every day or do should be just fine, but try your best to not wait more than one week between posts.

That explains why blogs are a good choice for sharing your message with the world, but what about ways to increase blog traffic? One thing you can do is learn some of the basics of search engine optimization (also known as SEO). This will teach you what things you can do to make your blog look better for the search engines, and that can bring you more traffic.

Choosing the right keywords to build your content around is one of the first things you need to do. You need to find out what terms people are entering at the search engines, and then find out how many are searching for each keyword or phrase. It’s not really a complicated process, but it takes a bit of time to find the best keywords. Doing so will help you to write your posts in a way that will give you the biggest return on your efforts.

The other way to increase blog traffic is to submit articles to article directories. You should have already done the most important step, which is keyword research. You then simply write articles based on those keywords, and then submit them. At the end of the article, you will be allowed to add a link back to your site. This is a double whammy because one of the things that search engines like nearly as much as blogs is search engines.

You may decide that you don’t have time to optimize your site and would prefer to hire an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert. One important thing to note is that the best SEO expert’s websites don’t always show up first in the search rankings. Sometimes SEO experts who show up top in the rankings have clients who don’t. The reason for this is that a really good SEO expert may be too busy to keep his website in the top of rankings, because he is busy getting and keeping his customer’s websites in the top of the rankings. When you choose an SEO expert make sure that they can show you that their client websites are getting good traffic from their work and that their clients are happy with them. Ask them if you can contact their clients for references. If they give you the run around, then YOU should run… run to find someone else. Google® has some good recommendations for what to look for when hiring an SEO expert, so I suggest you look at their information:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

The general idea is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

You may also want to look at hiring Website Promotion or Search Engine Marketing expert as opposed to a strictly Search Engine Optimization expert. It is best to get traffic from a variety of sources and not rely totally on the Search Engines. Search Engine Marketers and Web Promotion experts focus on the whole picture and not just the SEO.

One Response to “Choosing an SEO Expert”

1. SEO – Search Engine Optimization Says:
   
   March 18th, 2007 at 12:24 am

   I had some thoughts on a similar SEO / Search Engine Optimization related topic, maybe i’ll start a new thread

There are many excellent places to submit your article. My personal favorite is GoArticles. It is very easy to submit articles to GoArticles and my articles have spread fairly quickly by submitting them to GoArticles. Writing quality articles can REALLY help publicize your website. Here is a list of a few other places you can submit articles to:

http://www.articlesfactory.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content/
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/
http://www.web-source.net/article-announce.htm
http://www.ideamarketers.com/

There are many other places online to submit articles, just use your favorite search engine to find other places.

In addition, I highly recommend that you check out Jim Edwards ebook, “Turn Words Into Traffic”. It explains in detail how to maximize the use of articles to bring traffic to your website. It is an excellent resource for those of you who plan on writing articles to bring traffic to your website.

Posted in website promotion, SEO Basics, Website Traffic, Search Engine Optimization, On Page SEO, Off Page SEO, Link Building, Advanced SEO, Blog Promotion, Blog Traffic, Advertising, Online Marketing, Articles ||

2 Responses to “Places to Submit Articles”

1. Alan Liew – make money online Says:
   
   September 6th, 2006 at 9:14 pm

   I try submit an article to newssprings.com/ but it seem that site has closed.

2. George Manty Says:
   
   September 7th, 2006 at 12:39 pm

   Looks like it has changed to some sort of subscription site. I will remove it.

   Thanks,
   
   George

I mentioned earlier that directories are a great way to get one way links. Directories have been used by those in the Search Engine Optimization world for some time, to increase rankings and bring more traffic to their site. However, many SEO experts believe that the Search Engines are giving less power to directories.

There are still many ways to get good links, writing articles (like this one), trading links, buying links, etc. But I have never noticed people talk much about one of the BEST ways not only to get a powerful link to your site, but also to drive traffic to your site. And that is….

Review Sites!

There are more and more website review sites, and product review sites popping up on the Internet. For one thing, creating one can be a good way to make some extra money. Some people can even earn a living by owning review sites.

That said, review sites can bring you TONS of traffic. Sites that I have worked on have had over *3000 visitors in a week by being featured on a review site. Not only that most review sites archive their reviews, which can mean a continual flow of traffic to your site, and a permanent link.

If you want a ton of quick traffic to your site, search for review sites that review websites in your industry. It can be a great way to drive traffic to your site.

I know you might be wondering what review site brought my site over *3000 visitors in a week. It’s called family first and you can visit them here: http://www.familyfirst.com/

They review family friendly websites. When I had my site reviewed it was free, but now they charge a small fee. Most reveiw sites are like that.

If you have a really cool or different site, you might want to submit it to Cool Site of The Day (http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/). We had a site reviewed on cool site of the day and got over 2000 visitors from that link the day it was featured.

There are many more review sites out there just waiting for your site to review. Review sites (especially the bigger ones) can be an excellent way to drive traffic to your site without the Search Engines.

*Note: I have had other sites reviewed on Family First and not generated nearly the amount of traffic as my first site, probably because they have changed the way they link out to sites. They used to link out to sites on their main page, but now they bury the links deeper in their site making it less likely to get visitors from being reviewed on their site.

To learn more about getting tons of traffic to your site click here!

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