Offering freebies on your blog has it’s advantages, if it’s done right:

• Generates Traffic;
• Generates Relevant BackLinks;
• Creates Awareness;
• Increases Readership;
• Improves Subscriber Count;
• and so on, and so on…

Not everyone is looking for all of those advantages. Each blogger has his/her own reasons for putting free stuff on the internet. Some bloggers are in it for the potential profit, while others just do it simply for the fun of it. Personally, I do it for both reasons.

Does offering free giveaways benefit me? It sure does, but to really benefit from free giveaways one must follow a few simple rules:

1. Offer Useful Stuff

   The first and most important thing about offering a Freebie is that there must be some kind of demand for what you are trying to give away. If nobody wants it, you won’t be able to give it away. Simple as that. The more useful that your Free Giveaway is, the more people will want it and share it with those in their circle of influence.

2. Offer Quality Stuff

   You’ve managed to create interest in your Free Offering. Next you need to make sure that what you are offering is worth the time people are going to spend looking at your giveaway. It’s not enough to make the offering look attractive to people. You must provide some benefit to the consumer for grabbing your giveaway. If your Free Giveaway is not worth it, you will not get the word of mouth advertising that comes along with Freebies.

   Think of yourself, would you find value in what you are giving away? Would your freebie benefit you? Would you recommend this freebie to others if you came across it? If not… then don’t bother offering it in the first place.

3. Offer Original and Unique Stuff

   I’m not talking about reinventing the wheel. Now dressing it up and calling it a car doughnut might be an option. If you do it right and add your own personality to the product, it could be highly successful.

   What I’m talking about is most commonly called re-sharing.

   If a product is not unique, chances are that your target audience has already seen it. When releasing a *FREE* product, the one to benefit most is the original source. The “ultimate lists” have managed to do quite well rehashing on the success of others, but in the end, they are just shuffling traffic back to the original source.

4. Market Your Free Offering Like It’s A Paid Product

   You’ve managed to meet all the above qualifications… Congratulations!!! You have a viable free offering that is going to certainly make waves. Assuming of course that you can muster up the traffic that you need to provide your free product with the awareness and exposure that it needs to take off effectively.

   For example: Say I was to create a Free Template for Wordpress. First I would create a professional sales page detailing why one should use the Free Template that I have created. I would outline what the benefits and features of the Theme are. I would also focus on what is unique about this theme that one would not be able to find anywhere else. Then, a carefully written press release would be sent out to all the design magazines and blogs. Hopefully, creating enough interest from the publishers so that they run an article on what a great product my new free theme is. This in turn would lend credibility to my new free release.

   When done correctly, the effect will be like a snowball rolling down a hill picking up snow along the way turning into a massive ball of raw energy attracting a good deal of traffic, backlinks, comments, community involvement and of course… many, many downloads.

   This last point requires more time and attention to detail than the rest of the process, but the satisfaction is guaranteed — The more seriously you treat your free offerings, the more successful they will be. Sharing free things with others can be worth it’s weight in gold when done right.

No related posts.

It doesn’t bring a lot of direct traffic - I’m sure that like everything else, this varies from site to site. From my personal experience, there isn’t much of a traffic boost from being mentioned in mainstream media — as far as newspaper or magazine mention goes. I have not had the pleasure of having any of my sites mentioned either on radio or television as of yet… I will update you if that does happen.

There are many reasons that a mention of your blog on mainstream media may not bring in traffic. This is usually because no URL is mentioned.

Although traffic is not usually boosted, there are some benefits of being mentioned by the media:

1. Branding/Profile/Awareness - whether you’re mentioned in mainstream media or any other media, your brand is being placed in front of potential readers. There is something to be said for having infamousy without ever having been read. Viral word of mouth is GREAT publicity.
2. Contacts - every time you’re mentioned on mainstream media you will receive calls, emails, etc. from people that want to connect. Many times these are not very lucrative connections, but like other methods of acquiring contacts, you may come across potential business opportunities.
3. Flow on Media Attention - there’s something to be said about being mentioned in one paper or magazine article that tends to trigger other media outlets to do similar or follow-up stories. Being mentioned in mainstream media lends much credibility which gets the attention of other journalists.
4. Credibility - whether by family and friends, potential clients, book publishers or potential readers — some people just respect the mention of a mainstream media outlet more than a mention on another blog.
5. Widening Circles of Influence - true to the above points, an appearance in mainstream media tends to widen your circle of influence and gives you access to a whole new audience that may not have found you otherwise. The problem that most bloggers face is that they exhaust the normal channels (or reach a saturation point). Mainstream media can help open up a new audience to you. This may not be a large audience — but it is an influential one and you never know what may come of it.

I don’t spend a whole lot of time and effort trying to get mentions in mainstream media publications, however, I don’t ever turn them down — for the above reasons and one more. The last reason being that with every time that I’m interviewed, quoted or featured in an article I learn something new. I strongly believe in embracing every opportunity to learn something new. This makes me a better blogger and more capable of providing useful information to you, my readers.

Have you had any experiences with mainstream media mentioning your blog? What was the result for you? Let us know by leaving a comment.

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A Landing Page is a page that focuses information targeted toward a particular user – and according to Seth Godin, optimized specifically to encourage 1 of 5 actions:

1. Get a visitor to click (a link to another page, either on your site or someone else’s)
2. Get a visitor to buy
3. Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up (by email, phone, etc.). This includes registration of course.
4. Get a visitor to tell a friend
5. Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback

Landing Pages are how business is done in Internet Marketing Campaigns, especially email and PPC marketing management.

Aside from optimizing for user action, Landing Pages can make it easier to track/analyze visitor actions, and modify as required.

So the key aim of a Landing Page is to optimize the user experience when visiting a site, especially for the first time.

This in itself is a great reason to apply landing pages in SEO.

After all, there’s little point aiming to rank if you fail to convert.

And unlike PPC and email marketing campaign’s, we’re not going to orphan these pages, but instead set them up as major navigational links across the site.

In doing so, we’re aiming to:

• Increase the efficiency by which we can target primary keywords
• Increase the ability to capture related Longtail
• Increase the ability to convert visitors
• And, heck, maybe even track the ROI on the SEO campaign.

Why Landing Pages for SEO is good

Simply linking and directing visitors to a home page can leave visitors confused, or unclear, as to the action they need to follow to order to find the exact information they need.

After all, it can be difficult to provide a distinct call to action for each category of keyword search you target.

Some sites will try and address this process to some degree, such as through main category links to help direct traffic to the most useful page.

However, these pages are often not best optimised for either SEO or visitor purposes, with only a cursory attempt at putting keywords in titles, etc, rather than making it a pivotal element in a SEO campaign.

For example, with ecommerce sites, the presumption is often that if you throw enough products in a category, the user will find what they wanted.

It works if the visitor has already made a purchasing decision, and you can provide the product they’re looking to buy.

But what if the visitor hasn’t made a purchasing decision yet? What if they’re looking for a related product not listed?

This is the benefit of having dedicated Landing Pages - optimised for full user experience, while also optimised to full SEO capacity,

Landing Page SEO

Chances are, the target website covers a number of niche areas.

Therefore we look to distil these areas into a handful of pages focused on each niche - and then make these pages the best source of information on these niches, for directing a targeted call to action for search engine visitors.

We’re not simply aiming to convert our visitors better - we’re also aiming to catch more of them.

A page dedicated on a specific keyword category can not simply target primary keywords, but also be leveraged to capture a far wider selection of Longtail searchs - a huge variety of longer search phrases based around and related to your primary targeted keywords.

Overall, our Landing Page strategy aims to turn specific deep content pages into major portals for their keyword areas that works for both search engines and users, especially by utilising:

1. Content

By focusing on a specific topic area, we can throw in more keyworded headings, keyworded text, and keyworded links within that keyword category.

We’re not talking about simple keyword stuffing here - but by having a content page focused on a more defined subject niche, we can better develop the content towards visitors interested in specific and related niche topics.

We’re not simply trying to capture a larger number of keyword variations/related keywords. We’re also trying to drive that traffic forward into using either that page or targeted pages within that site to achieve our call to action.

TIP: Keep your pages fresh by publishing RSS feeds from within the site - product lists, latest articles, and forum discussion topics - all based around that keyword niche.

2. Links

If we’re serious about ranking, at some point we need to apply a link development campaign.

However, we’ve already read that that a site with links only to the index page can look top-heavy and unnatural.

This is where Landing Pages truly come into their own.

Setting up Landing Pages means we can immediately spread links around to make the ratio of homepage/deep pages much more natural.

We also need to ensure that we use varied anchor text to all targeted pages.

Ideally, we don’t want different versions of the same keywords in our links to these Landing Pages, but instead different keywords used in different ways.

We can throw in both generic keywords and product-specific keywords, and cater for the search engine user finding something related to these, and being offered a relevant call to action.

TIP: Combining On-Page and Link keywords

Another key adavantage of Landing Pages is to make your link anchor text work in tandem with page headings/subheadings and, in order to leverage an even wider number of related keywords.

For example:

Keyword Headings:

• blue widgets
• green widgets
• red widgets

Keyword Links:

• cheap widgets
• best widgets
• discount widgets

means powering up capture on keyword searchphrases and Longtail based around:

• cheap blue widgets
• cheap green widgets
• cheap red widgets
• bestblue widgets
• bestgreen widgets
• bestred widgets
• discount blue widgets
• discount green widgets
• discount red widgets

3. Tracking

Of course, the fact that you’re focusing so much of your link juice on your Landing Pages means it’s easier to track actual results from organic search.

Visitors whose first entry page is one of your Landing Pages, must have come about as a direct result of your targeted SEO strategy.

You can then track visitor behaviour who come in via Landing Pages and their performance, making tweaks and modifications as required.

For example, the chances are, one of your Landing Pages accidentally captures strong traffic from a search phrase you never realised to focus on.

You can then modify your page as required to better convert this traffic, and attempt to target similar terms in order to capture similar lucrative traffic streams.

Summary

Ultimately, a Landing Page is the portalisation of a keyword category that provides an immediate call to action for the general keywords being targeted - but provides additional routes to related niche pages with their own call to action.

By combining good content with good links, we can leverage Landing Pages not simply for ranking for primary targeted keywords, but also for major targeting of Longtail search based around our keywords.

And, more importantly, Landing Pages can seek to better cater for - and convert - those very visitors who have come through via the search engines in the first place.

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I’ll outline 10 ways you can increase the participation rate in the comments section of your blog below.

Jakob Nielsen’s latest study finds that: “In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.”

What this means is that only 1% of your blog’s readers/users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributors.

This particular study is not focused solely on blogging. It encompasses all forms of online community communication, so it could be more or less than these numbers on your blog and it would greatly vary site to site — but the general principal is true. The vast majority of your blog’s readers will leave your blog without ever commenting or contributing to your blog in any way. Some bloggers take advantage of this by turning commenting off completely.

This unfortunately, is the way it always has been and most likely, the way it always will be. However, when it comes to comments, there are some ways to encourage more interactivity on your blog:

10 Ways to Effectively Increase Comment Numbers on Your Blog

1. Invite Comments - It has been noticed by many that when you invite comments that people leave them in higher numbers than when the invitation has not been given. This can be somewhat confusing, as generally, if commenting is enabled on a blog, the blogger welcomes the input and opinions of the readers. An invitation, though, triggers a response to some extent. Keep in mind that those new to blogs and blogging may not realize that commenting is acceptable and welcomed. Invitations to do so in each of your articles with a well laid out and easy to use comment system are a great way to help them to get into the habit of commenting.

2. Ask Questions - Including specific questions in your articles that entice the reader’s response definitely helps get higher response rates. Including questions in your headings is a particularly effective way of getting a response as you set a  question in their minds from the first moment of your post.

3. Be Open Ended - If you say everything there is to say on a topic you’re less likely to ellicit a response. This is mostly because you have already covered everything that could be said on the topic that someone else may have added to the conversation. While you don’t want to purposely leave too many things unsaid, there is an art to writing open ended articles that leave room for your readers to provide their expert advice as well.

4. Interact With Comments Left - If you’re not willing to use your comments section, why would your readers? If someone leaves a comment, interact with them. Respond to what they have written. This gets harder as your blog grows, but it’s particularly important as you’re building traffic and readers in the early days… It shows your readers that what they have to say is important and valued. When people feel that their input is worthwhile, they feel more ready to provide their input in the future. This will help foster more conversational types of comments that will make others want to contribute as well. As the activity level in your comments grows, it may become less necessary for you to reply to each and every comment, as the other readers will start to take over answering questions and providing answers to new readers — Don’t ever completely neglect your comments sections though, as people will notice that you no longer put forth the effort to maintain the community conversation.

5. Set Boundaries - Some have noticed that with a clearly set Comments Policy outlining the rules for the comments section that their comment section became more active. This may be a coincidence, or a response to knowing exactly what is or isn’t acceptable on your blog. This is just speculation, but a well managed and moderated comments section that is free of spam and that deals well with people that step out of line creates an attractive environment for potential contributors. This is not to say that differing opinions should not be allowed, but more that if things become too heated, or too personal, a little moderation to keep the situation in order is called for. Non-Spam comments should VERY rarely be moderated in any way. People will in turn respond positively to this and the comment threads will stay constructive as a result.

6. Be Humbe - Readers respond very well to posts that show your own weaknesses, failings or gaps in your own knowledge. Noone likes a know-it-all… There is something to be said for someone that can admit when they do not know the answer. People generally are more receptive to genuine humility and more likely to respond to it than a post that is written with an air of superiority.

7. Be Gracious - Closely related to humility is grace. There are times that you are going to be in error on your blog. Be it spelling or grammar, misrepresented facts, or just about anything else. When someone responds to your post pointing out your short-comings it is very easy to react negatively and defensively. It’s times like these that you need to, instead, be graceful and appreciative of the assistance that this comment has provided. Remember, you are only human… An error can happen, regardless of how careful you are to avoid it.

8. Be Controversial? - This point can be tricky.. hence the question mark (I try to avoid it if I can) — but it can be a great way to get some comments on what you write if you can do it right. Of course, with controversy comes other consequences… one of which is putting off less vocal members of your readership.

9. “Reward” Comments - There are many different ways to acknoledge or “reward” good comments on your blog that can range from simplt including a “good comment” reply through to highlighting them in other posts that you write. Drawing attention to your readers’ comments affirms them and also draws the attention of other readers as to what a good comment consists of.

10. Make It Easy To Comment - I try to leave a lot of comments on the blogs that I read, that being said, there is one situation that I will never leave a comment — even when it is warranted — if a blog requires that you login to leave a comment. Call me lazy, but when I come across a blog that requires registration to leave a comment I rarely (more than 95% of the time) leave a comment. I understand the concept behind wanting to reduce SPAM, etc… but I believe that commenting on a blog should not be a daunting task. Registration is a hurdle that most readers are not willing to leap. Keep your comments section as simple and as easy to use as possible.

So… What do you think? Have you been able to increase the comments on your blog in any other ways?

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1.) Stay on topic.
Opinions are great for articles but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general related theme. Unless you have a knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Most readers won’t care that you eat Cheerios for breakfast. They may, however, be interested in the fact that affiliate marketing makes for great income potential and that making regular payments on your credit cards helps your overall credit score. Define a topic and stick to it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

2.) Stay informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. If you are recommending or reviewing products, be sure to check your facts; your reputation is at stake. If you are offering an opinion, be sure to qualify your post, making it clear that the content is intended as an editorial article only.

3.) Old news is not news.
While blogging every day can be a drain, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate, writing an article or blurb about something that happened 6 months ago, will be of little interest to most people. Telling your audience that Bill Gates is the richest man alive will make people question the value of your columns, since his earnings were first exceeded by Carlos Slim Helu and now Warren Buffet tops the list.

4.) Adhere to a schedule.
Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don’t create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don’t want to lose them due to lack of communication.

5.) Clarity and simplicity.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Remember, the web is global and what you write will not always translate correctly. Sometimes a little explanation goes a long way.

6.) Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each post should have a keyword rich title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words.

7.) Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

8.) Frequency.
If your blog is updated frequently with new content, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

9.) Spell checking and proof-reading.
Spelling and grammar are extremely important! It only takes a few extra moments to proof-read and spell check your work, and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. Remember that whatever you publish on the Internet can be found and archived. Think carefully about what you post before doing so.

10.) RSS.
RSS will increase your blog’s reach. It is important that you include your blog’s content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say. If maintained and marketed correctly, your blog could become an instant credibility factor to all that you market online.

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“5 months of hard work and no comments, or emails even!” One such blogger said to me. “What’s the deal?”

“The Deal” as I explained, not only to him, is Link Building.

Much to everyone’s dismay, the single most important ingredient to generating traffic to any website is incoming links from external websites. Unless you are already an Internet Guru with a whole network of hundreds of highly trafficked websites,  which is very unlikely, link building will be by far the single most important part of your start-up. Below are some tips and examples of some easy ways to get those elusive inbound external and permanent links.

Link Bait

The definition of “Link Bait”: Link Bait is any content on a website, that is especially interesting, controversial, or funny — content that will catch the reader’s attention and therefore be linked to from many other websites. Put simply, it is Viral Marketing for the web.

Examples of Link Bait

• The Million Dollar Homepage
  This site, created by student Alex Tew was a great example of link baiting. His idea to sell pixels on an ordinary website was so bold and outrageous, that it attracted mass amounts of attention and links from all over the web, and he raised over 1 million dollars in a few short months. This website is still amazing to see.
• The Redscowl Bluesingsky SEO Contest
  A much smaller example of link baiting that I did back in January of 2006. It was a simple SEO contest that drew some controversy because it was announced on the heels of a few other SEO contests. It was small, but very effective. Official Redscowl Bluesingsky Contest Page

Link Bait can be anything at all. It just needs to catch people’s attention. You don’t have to hit a home run like the “Million Dollar Homepage” every time… small steps in the right direction make for a huge success in the long run.

Practical Link Bait Ideas

• Write Articles: If you have a talent for writing, then go ahead and start writing. There are a lot of people that are on the lookout for quality writers that can put out professional and interesting content either to read, to link to in their blogs, or to steal and use on their own sites. (Content theft happens, although we’d all prefer if it didn’t. Hopefully, if someone is going to steal your content they will at least leave a link back to your site.)
• Take Pictures: Good at photography? Have a knack for getting that perfect shot? There are lots of us that cannot take a picture if our lives depended on it. Any kind of pictures will do: Celebrity Pictures, Event Pictures, Stock Photography, Product Shots, Fine Art Photography, etc. The key here is for developing Collections of photos.
• Aggregate other people’s Link Bait or Viral Content: Top 10 Lists are a great way to gain some popularity! Think of a topic and start doing some searches on your favourite search engine. Some great examples: Top 10 Money Making Blogs, Top 10 YouTube Videos, Top 10 CSS Tutorials, etc.
• Photoshop Something: Good with Photoshop? You’ve seen all the controversial, funny or downright unbelievable Photoshops of popular people. A gallery of before and after pics of celebrities could be somewhere to start. Give Arnold a mohawk… Madonna could use a fat picture… use your imagination.
• Make a Tutorial: Are you an industry leader in CSS design, Photoshop, HTML, PHP, or anything else? Whatever your talent, there are many others that want to know how to do what comes naturally to you. A good tutorial can be a source of some massive link traffic.
• Make a Video: There are tons of videos being made and shared on the net. Think of anything that you’ve seen on YouTube or any other such Viral Video site. Just about anything that people are going to find funny or interesting could be a great topic for a video.
• Make a Tool: Maybe you’re a programming whiz… Whip up a new plugin for Wordpress, a new blogging resource, or some new Ebay like site. The sky is the limit. If something that you come up with already exists, just make sure to improve on it.

Getting Your Link Bait Seen

Social Bookmarking and Social Networks are a big hit. There are many resources available in these areas to get your creations out to the general public. Sites like FaceBook, MySpace, Digg.com, SlashDot, etc. provide a medium for your works to be seen by countless others. There are numerous internet junkies out there scouring these sites for the next big thing. Just be sure that your Link Bait is quality, because these self-proclaimed saviest of the savy will be quick to shut down your lackluster, meager attempts at stardom.

Article Submissions

Submitting your articles (containing precious links back to your content, of course) to the free article sites is a great option for getting your writing seen and maybe even getting some quality links back to your site.

If you are looking for a more precise, sure-fire way of guaranteeing your article will be placed on a high quality, relevant site you should seek out like-minded bloggers and ask them if you can guest post on their blogs. This is a great way to gain some credibility for the stuff that you have written. Be sure that the site that you are linking back to in your article is full of great, quality content as well. This will guarantee that those people that follow your link back to your site will keep coming back for more.

Link Requests

This is by far one of the most tedious methods out there. Asking for links is not fun, but here are some tips  to make it a little easier:

• Ask someone you know: It’s always easier to talk to someone you know about link partnerships.
• Ask for a reciprocal link: If you are not able to get a one-way link, ask for a reciprocal link (You link to me and I will link to you).
• Are you a student, or a teacher? Do you know one? If so, this is gold! Students, especially college students and teachers usually get a personal website. If you have access to one — Use It!!!
• Donate Money: This option is really geared for the large corporation who has lots of money behind them. It’s hard to turn down a link request from someone who just donated a huge amount of money to your organization.

Hire a Professional

There are a lot of really good SEO firms out there who are willing to do all this dirty work for you. Be careful when choosing this option. Be sure to do your research! The last thing that you want is to be paying someone to do SEO for your site when they have no idea what they are doing. If something sounds too good to be true… Be sure to investigate. Make sure that they are able to backup the claims that they are making.

Buy or Rent Link Space

This tactic is highly discouraged by the likes of the Search Team at Google. Despite their warnings, this has been a veritable goldmine in the online world. The general consensus being: “How are they going to know that my links are paid for?”

Where you’ll find Paid Links

• eBay - ebay sells everything, links included. As always, you need to be sceptical and do your research. Check out the potential links before placing a bid.
  • First check to see if the site is listed in Google by searching for it’s domain name.
  • Check to see how many backlinks the site has on the big 3 search engines. No Links = No bid.
  • Make sure the site is relevant and ranks well for your site’s content.
  • Make sure the site gets great traffic. If you’re not going to get any ranking benefit, you may as well get some traffic out of the deal.
• Text-link-ads - This is a service that caters to link sellers and buyers. They allow buyers to pick any of the links from the link sellers.
• Paid Pages - Why buy a link when you can get a whole page? There are lots of new services that specialize in selling or renting whole pages on established websites.Presell Page Man is a service that offers space on tons of “crusty” old websites, which can be very effective for improving rank in the search engines. Publish Your Keyword is another example of a site that will sell an entire page on their site. Both of these options give you the opportunity to have total control over every aspect of the page that links to your site.

Directories

A directory is a categorized list of links from the Internet. Most sites that host directories allow anyone to submit a link to be added, however there are many directories that also charge a fee. One well known example of a free directory is DMOZ.org. A well known example of a paid directory is the Yahoo Directory. Of all directories, DMOZ.org is the most important, and also the hardest to get into. They’ve always reminded me of that “Soup Nazi” episode of Sienfeld.

Blogs and Forums

Blogs and Forums are always an option when it comes to getting links. This is because they usually allow you to have some type of signature, or they give you the ability to post links. But before you go out and register for every forum and blog and start posting links, be warned: Most forums and blogs that are worth having a link from are pretty heavily moderated by the locals, so any activity from a new member that looks even remotely like spam will instantly be removed, and your efforts will have backfired.

If you plan to join blogs or forums, it’s probably best to hang out a while and just familiarize yourself with the site. Post a few comments, and get to know some people before you try to post any links.

• Some Useful Queries to Find Relevant Blogs & Forums
  I am mentioning these queries last on purpose to weed out the skimmers. These queries are Google specific. Gov and edu links are by far the most valuable links, so these 4 example queries are to show the kind of link real estate that’s out there. Just replace keyword with your targeted keywords.
  • site:gov inurl:blog keyword
  • site:edu inurl:blog keyword
  • site:gov inurl:forums keyword
  • site:edu inurl:forums keyword

Link From Your Own Sites

Don’t overlook the links between your own sites. This too is a viable option. How effective this will be will greatly depend on how many sites you have and also what IP address those sites are hosted on. Of course site relativity does play a key factor in this as well. If you have 10 accounts all hosted on the same IP address, that probably won’t help you very much at all, but if you have 10 accounts hosted on 10 separate C class IPs (I’m not going to get into IP Addressing right now) that is going to be worth a lot more to you.

I hope that this article has helped you think of some ways that you can build your links up. Do you have any more suggestions that I have missed here? Don’t forget to leave a comment and share your opinions.

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Long paragraphs and big $30 words don’t word very well in conversation; the same could be said for blogging. Your readers aren’t coming around for the lecture and vocabulary lesson. Instead they are trying to extract the usable information from what you have to say.

Writing and developing a reader friendly blog doesn’t need to be a painful task. In reality, the guidelines are simple and actually make blogging easier than most other forms of writing, with some practice that is. This article will outline a few tips on creating a reader friendly blog.

1. Create Catchy Headlines - This is usually the first thing that potential readers see. More often than not, the decision whether someone is going to read the article that you have created comes solely from the headline itself.  Be descriptive, but ket it just alluring enough that your reader will be curious about the click that follows.
2. Explain Above the Fold - This is most important. If you are not able to grab your reader’s attention before the end of the first screen, they will not continue reading your article. Explain what you are going to be talking about in the rest of the article in the first couple of paragraphs. Make it enticing, not giving away all your secrets from the start.
3. Save the Eyes - Eyes are very sensitive, especially when reading from a back-lit, harsh screen. Make your blog friendly by using a font that is big enough for people to read without having to strain to make out what it is that they are reading. Be sure to make use of contrast, color and lots of white space. Do not make your paragraphs more than 4 or 5 brief sentences each.
4. Establish Scannability - Help your readers get to the meat of the content that they really want. Use bold headlines to break up the post at the transition points throughout. These headlines can be thought of as Sub-Headlines for your content.
5. Paint the Picture - Use illustrations and pictures to aid the reader in understanding your content. A picture may not always be worth a thousand words, but a well placed relevant image can very well increase your blog’s readership.
6. Chat Up Your Readers - When writing for a blog, or the Internet in general, it’s accepted practice to write in a chatty, friendly and conversational tone. When writing, picture your target audience and begin talking to them. Blogging shouldn’t be like a lecture — stuffy and boring.
7. Don’t Create Distractions - if there is just one caveat to the above point, it would be that it is entirely too easy to get carried away ignoring traditional rules of grammar. Although your writing needs to maintain a relaxed feel, it still needs to be gramatically correct for the most part.
8. Spell It Out - Spell Check and Proofreading: There is absolutely no good reason for spelling mistakes in your writing, unless of course it is intentional for expressive purposes - and even that is at times abhorable.
9. Break it Up With Bullets - Use bullet points and lists whenever possible. A blog reader is much more likely to finish reading an article that gets to the point instead of going on… and on with a bunch of drivel.
10. Use Even More Whitespace - When in doubt, Space it out! When using bullets or a numberic list, make sure there is enough space between the lines so it doesn’t all just blur together in the viewer’s browser. Not to mention — More whitespace makes it easier on the readers eyes, which will let your reader spend more time on your site without a headache.
11. Let Your Readers Share - There’s absolutely nothing worse than reading a great article on a blog only to to come to the end of the article to find that you are not able to discuss your own opinions on what you have just read. Let your readers share their thoughts!!!
12. Punctuate For Readers - Don’t be afraid of the … or the — These are little ways of readers being able to understand the tone of the writing that is usually lost in translation through written text. Put some emphasis on your words with question marks and exclamation points…. periods alone can be pretty boring.

Writing your blog with your readers in mind is more than just telling them what they want to hear. It also is about writing s that your content can easily be read and understood!

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1. Tips For Creating An Effective Blog There are no hard and fast rules on how to...

1. Comment at Related Blogs. This method is definitely the social norm when blogging. An added bonus to this method is also the interest in your blog and what you have to say that is created when you leave quality, related comments on other blogs. Just make sure that when you do comment on a post, or even on another comment, that you make it relevant, and useful to the readers of that particular article. Make sure to include a link back to your blog, but do not spam! You’d be surprised how many people follow a link included with a well written comment to see what other useful information may be found on your site.
2. Write a weekly “Best of” post. This is something that is overlooked by many in the blogging world. It works over and over to attract important visitors to your blog and help increase repeat readership, as well as subscribers. This can be something as simple as a list of the “Top 5 Blogging Articles I Read This Week“. This is nothing more than your opinion of the other content on other blogs that you have read and would like to pay homage to. Reviewing someone else’s blog posts without being a paid review allows you to share your own 2 cents on the topic as well as create some additional traffic for others in your niche.
3. Try the very latest gadgets. There are TONS of new widgets and plugins coming out on almost a daily basis.  Some of them are great… Some of them suck! Every once in a while something comes up that takes the blogospere by storm. Example: Entrecard or BlogRush — both of these started as unknown applications. Next thing you know, they’re everywhere.
4. Improve your blog’s identity. There are a lot of great free blog templates out there! There may even be one that you really like. Although this is a great way to start the site, there is no brand recognition being created on your site. To really hit home with your readers in creating an environment that is going to be remembered, you want to create your own brand. This means that you are going to want to have a custom “brand” or blog template that will differentiate your blog from the millions of others out there on the web. There are many ways to get customized template. You can do the work yourself if you’re good with Photoshop and template coding, or you can hire a professional to develop a highly effective marketing genius of a template for you.
5. Get to know your readers. Blogging is so much more than lecturing Tom, Dick and Harry from the pulpit. Chat with your visitors and get to know them. Be yourself, not some anonymous know-it-all behind the scenes. Create an accurate “About Me” page pointing out your real-life interests and accomplishments. In return, readers will also be more likely to share as well — you can learn a lot from them, also your network will continue to expand professionally. Be sure to make friends — It’s what we’re all here for.

Blogging is meant to be fun. Taking it to the next level takes a bit more time and energy, but it should still be fun. It’s the people that don’t have fun when blogging that end up disappearing after a short while.

Do you have any tips that you would like to share? Be sure to leave a comment and let us all know.

Be sure to check back next week for 5 more fun tips on Improving Your Blog.

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Some features:

• Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
• Generates META tags automatically
• Avoids the typical duplicate content found on Wordpress blogs
• For Wordpress 2.3 you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
• You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
• You can fine-tune everything
• Backward-Compatibility with many other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag Warrior and others

Credit: hallsofmontezuma, uberdose
http://semperfiwebdesign.com/contact/

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I have added several popular themes to the theme list. Feel free to change or preview the new theme by logging in to your blog admin area > Design. You may preview the theme before applying it to your blog.

Happy blogging!

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