Today is probably going to be a short post. I have a milliion things going on, but wanted to give a little tid-bit. I wanted to give you beginner bloggers a couple easy backlinks to get your ball rolling so to speak. I am not really going much out of the box on these so you may or may not have heard of them.
1.)Technorati.com
Submit your blog to Technorati. This is almost a must. Technorati is probably the most popular blog directory on the web. They are indexed regularly, they have a high PR, and will be a great first backlink for your blog.
2.)MyBlogLog
Mybloglog is a lot like technorati. Submit your blogs here too, for another solid backlink.
3.)Dmoz
Dmoz or ODP is the largest human reviewed directory on the web. Search engines love this list. But, its not the easiest to get on it. Since it is all human reviewed, it takes a long time, so submit as soon as you can and just hope that you are actually accepted.
4.)blogCatalog
Another blog Directory that gives good backlinks. Join and add your blog. This is a good place for good backlinks, and can generate quite a few backlinks too.
See. I told you it would be short but sweet. I consider these must have links though. They are always the first ones I go for. Hope this helps you all in finding backlinks.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Blogging for beginners| Widgets and Gadgets
Here at blogging for beginners I have spent a lot of time going over SEO techniques and ways to optimize key areas of your blog in order to improve your search engine ranking. And while that is some of the most important beginner blogging lessons, I figure it is time to spend some time talking about widgets and add-ons that can make your blog more appealing, or make it an actual tool in blogging for dollars.
Key to remember here is too many gadgets is too much. Most readers do not like to be bombarded with flashy lights and moving banners and pop-ups. In fact most readers will be turned off by that. Not to mention the fact that every single little piece of code you add to your blog slows down the load time. Which is another big no-no in both your reader’s eyes and the search engines eyes.
Which is why I will not spend much time talking about adding gadgets and widgets to your blog. And which is why I try to keep this blog fairly uncluttered. This is personally the approach I will always take with blogging for beginners and any other blog I will be affiliated with.
So, Lets talk about gadgets and how you should approach them as a beginner.
The gadgets/widgets I would recommend to everyone would be, whether you’re a beginner or a pro:
1.) Labels
2.) Blog Archive
3.) Followers
After that, the possibilities are endless. Things that I find important though are:
1.) RSS Feed
2.) Adsense
3.) Twitter
4.) Links
Now that I have gotten that out of the way, Lets talk about why I think the top three are must haves.
1.) Labels
The labels widget, in many ways are like keywords. They offer links to the articles you believe should be related back to specific keywords. Sometimes the same article can be linked to multiple labels, giving multiple keywords, with anchor text.
Not only is this important from the standpoint of internal blog links, but is also offers you additional space to add keywords you want your blog targeted for. And anytime you have a chance to improve your keyword density; I would consider that very heavily.
2.) Blog Archive
The blog archive widget is strictly for site navigation. As a blog reader myself, it is often one of the first places I look after I have read the article that brought me to a particular blog in the first place. I can drill down and find all the articles with their titles and when they were published, and it gives me the perfect opportunity to pick and choose which articles I want to read. Site navigation is extremely important for your readers, and if there is any chance that they will be coming back, some of that decision is based on whether or not your site is user friendly.
3.) Followers
The followers widget really is the least important of the must have widgets in my mind. All this really does for you is validate you to other readers. If they see that there are actually people following your blog, they may be more apt to buy into what you are saying. This is not a promise of any sort, but, in my mind, it is helpful. And I do believe it is something every beginner blogger should consider as important. We all want validation. And this is one way to receive that.
As far as the additional widgets I talk about. Blogging for beginners is and always will be a monetized blog, and always will be one of the tools in my making money online arsenal. So, with that being said, all these links revolve around that fact.
1.) RSS feed
I find that I get a reasonable amount of my traffic from my RSS feed. It is nothing groundbreaking, but I do believe that your RSS feed is a traffic getting tool. People find them easy to follow, and they are so easy to sign up for, I really cannot find any reason why not to include them on my blogs.
2.) Adsense
Again, this blog is here too not only teaching people, but to generate online income for me. It doesn’t generate a great deal of income for me, but every little bit counts. And Adsense is one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog. And if you use Blogger blogs, it really cannot be any easier. You may notice I do have Amazon on the blog also. Amazon is nice, but relies on commission based sales in order to make any income. I have much less luck with Amazon than I do with Adsense. And for any beginner blogger, I would opt for the Adsense route over commission based sales, at least until you are able to build up a significant amount of traffic.
3.) Twitter
Although Twitter does not directly earn me any money. It is a quick and easy tool to use in order to inform people of anything new that may be happening within my circle. I use one common twitter account for everything. I feel that this gives my readers a chance to look at some of my other projects without having to give my speal all over the Internet for all of my individual projects. It also opens up doors for new audiences. You may follow my twitter from my link on this blog. But say I tweet about an article I wrote about making money online. Suddenly, you may find a whole new world that interests you.
4.) Links
I include links on my blog to help others or help my other blogs get publicity. If I find something that interests me, I may include the links, if I have a blog that I feel may be useful to my readers, I will include a link.
The keys with both Twitter and links is, for me, I am trying to keep readers within my web of products I have on the internet.
So, there you have it, a quick breakdown of some of the widgets and gadgets I find to be important for any beginner blogger. I know I don’t go over too many of them, but that is due to the mindset I have. I really do believe it is important not to get carried away with too much flash on your blog. I can quickly create negative effects. No matter how cool it may all look.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, and please come back soon.
Key to remember here is too many gadgets is too much. Most readers do not like to be bombarded with flashy lights and moving banners and pop-ups. In fact most readers will be turned off by that. Not to mention the fact that every single little piece of code you add to your blog slows down the load time. Which is another big no-no in both your reader’s eyes and the search engines eyes.
Which is why I will not spend much time talking about adding gadgets and widgets to your blog. And which is why I try to keep this blog fairly uncluttered. This is personally the approach I will always take with blogging for beginners and any other blog I will be affiliated with.
So, Lets talk about gadgets and how you should approach them as a beginner.
The gadgets/widgets I would recommend to everyone would be, whether you’re a beginner or a pro:
1.) Labels
2.) Blog Archive
3.) Followers
After that, the possibilities are endless. Things that I find important though are:
1.) RSS Feed
2.) Adsense
3.) Twitter
4.) Links
Now that I have gotten that out of the way, Lets talk about why I think the top three are must haves.
1.) Labels
The labels widget, in many ways are like keywords. They offer links to the articles you believe should be related back to specific keywords. Sometimes the same article can be linked to multiple labels, giving multiple keywords, with anchor text.
Not only is this important from the standpoint of internal blog links, but is also offers you additional space to add keywords you want your blog targeted for. And anytime you have a chance to improve your keyword density; I would consider that very heavily.
2.) Blog Archive
The blog archive widget is strictly for site navigation. As a blog reader myself, it is often one of the first places I look after I have read the article that brought me to a particular blog in the first place. I can drill down and find all the articles with their titles and when they were published, and it gives me the perfect opportunity to pick and choose which articles I want to read. Site navigation is extremely important for your readers, and if there is any chance that they will be coming back, some of that decision is based on whether or not your site is user friendly.
3.) Followers
The followers widget really is the least important of the must have widgets in my mind. All this really does for you is validate you to other readers. If they see that there are actually people following your blog, they may be more apt to buy into what you are saying. This is not a promise of any sort, but, in my mind, it is helpful. And I do believe it is something every beginner blogger should consider as important. We all want validation. And this is one way to receive that.
As far as the additional widgets I talk about. Blogging for beginners is and always will be a monetized blog, and always will be one of the tools in my making money online arsenal. So, with that being said, all these links revolve around that fact.
1.) RSS feed
I find that I get a reasonable amount of my traffic from my RSS feed. It is nothing groundbreaking, but I do believe that your RSS feed is a traffic getting tool. People find them easy to follow, and they are so easy to sign up for, I really cannot find any reason why not to include them on my blogs.
2.) Adsense
Again, this blog is here too not only teaching people, but to generate online income for me. It doesn’t generate a great deal of income for me, but every little bit counts. And Adsense is one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog. And if you use Blogger blogs, it really cannot be any easier. You may notice I do have Amazon on the blog also. Amazon is nice, but relies on commission based sales in order to make any income. I have much less luck with Amazon than I do with Adsense. And for any beginner blogger, I would opt for the Adsense route over commission based sales, at least until you are able to build up a significant amount of traffic.
3.) Twitter
Although Twitter does not directly earn me any money. It is a quick and easy tool to use in order to inform people of anything new that may be happening within my circle. I use one common twitter account for everything. I feel that this gives my readers a chance to look at some of my other projects without having to give my speal all over the Internet for all of my individual projects. It also opens up doors for new audiences. You may follow my twitter from my link on this blog. But say I tweet about an article I wrote about making money online. Suddenly, you may find a whole new world that interests you.
4.) Links
I include links on my blog to help others or help my other blogs get publicity. If I find something that interests me, I may include the links, if I have a blog that I feel may be useful to my readers, I will include a link.
The keys with both Twitter and links is, for me, I am trying to keep readers within my web of products I have on the internet.
So, there you have it, a quick breakdown of some of the widgets and gadgets I find to be important for any beginner blogger. I know I don’t go over too many of them, but that is due to the mindset I have. I really do believe it is important not to get carried away with too much flash on your blog. I can quickly create negative effects. No matter how cool it may all look.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, and please come back soon.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Blogging for beginners: Top 10 Beginner blogging lessons
Today I would like to give you a top 10 list I have been bouncing around for a few days now. I have covered a lot of topics here at blogging for beginners and I feel it is important to recapture major lessons that should always been in the back of any beginner bloggers mind. Being that blogging is so much more than just writing. It is often easy to forget the other aspects involved with building a successful blog.
So, with that being said I have put together my top 10 beginner blogging lessons. These lessons are general, but you can find more detailed information about most of these topics within the blogging for beginner’s blog.
Now with that being said, let’s get on with the top 10 list:
1.) Be yourself
It is often easy to fall into a persona that you feel your readers will want to experience. But it often feels fake and it often leaves your readers feeling that they are not getting the whole story that you are trying to tell. Be yourself, even if it means making a few people mad along the way. Personality is one of a blogs' strongest attributes when it comes to readership. Response is positive, whether it is good response or bad response, it all creates a small amount of buzz.
2.) Blog regularly
This cannot be stressed enough, for both your readers and the overall strength of your blog. The more content you have the better your blog will be represented on the Internet. And the more consistent you can be on posting new material, the more readers are likely to return for what comes next.
3.) Promote your blog
What ever methods you implement in promoting your blog, never back off, promotion is a never ending process, if you want to reach the top and remain on top, you MUST constantly be increasing awareness of your product.
4.) Be active in your blogging community
Read other bloggers, comment on their blogs, find ideas and thoughts from the other blogs within your niche, and learn what readers are interested in by the quantity of comments and the general direction of the comments. This will take you a long way in understanding what type of reader will be reading your blog.
5.) Respond to your commentors
Commentors appreciate your response to them as much as you appreciate the initial comment, and whether positive or negative, try to find the time to respond to the comments left on your blog articles. It will have good results.
6.) Be prepared for positive and negative feedback
And with commenting comes both positive and negative feedback. Be prepared for that, some negative feedback is constructive, some is destructive. There are a lot of differing personalities on the internet, and exposing yourself and allowing people to step into your personal thoughts and ideas will create a response. And sometimes don’t be afraid to allow the negative comments to remain on your blog.
7.) Always be on the look out for new blog topics
In every day life I try to keep a notepad close at hand. I find that the littlest thing can trigger an idea for one of my blogs.
8.) Don’t be afraid to experiment
Something that I have worried about in the past is trying different ways to generate backlinks. Because certain search engines can be really fickle about the way you get backlinks. Sometimes viewing them as spam and too much spam can put your blog into the “Sandbox” or removed from the search engine indexing. This can be very unfortunate, but as long as you are going about your business in a reputable fashion, they should not frown on your methods. And there are so many opportunities out there for finding quality backlinks.
9.) Actively participate in forums about your blog niche
This can help you in a couple ways. One is by answering questions that are connected to your personal blog. You can show the other forum members that you are an expert in your niche, and if you can include your website in your forum signature, you can receive quite a bit of traffic from other forum members. This is good traffic that is focused on the topic of your blog. Another thing this does is creates a lot of backlinks to your blog through your signature. The more posts you participate in, the more backlinks you are generating.
10.) Patience
Patience is a tough one for me. I want results now. But even though the web is an ever moving and evolving animal, it takes time for your blog to be found, and to start generating interest. The amount of time will always very. But it should be expected that you would need six months of work before you should start to see results. It can be deflating at times. But if you stay on it and stay consistent, you should begin to slowly see improvement in traffic.
A lot of these will be nothing new to most of you. Most of you know that in order to be a successful blogger, your best course of action will be, being genuine. And being approachable. But other things are often overlooked, and some of the lessons will take practice to become more natural for you. But in the end, with a lot of hard work and effort, and PATIENCE, you will be rewarded with a blog that has the ability to generate relative popularity within your niche.
Of course there will always be exceptions to the rule. That is where experimentation will come into play. There will always be more than one way to reach your goals.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners
So, with that being said I have put together my top 10 beginner blogging lessons. These lessons are general, but you can find more detailed information about most of these topics within the blogging for beginner’s blog.
Now with that being said, let’s get on with the top 10 list:
1.) Be yourself
It is often easy to fall into a persona that you feel your readers will want to experience. But it often feels fake and it often leaves your readers feeling that they are not getting the whole story that you are trying to tell. Be yourself, even if it means making a few people mad along the way. Personality is one of a blogs' strongest attributes when it comes to readership. Response is positive, whether it is good response or bad response, it all creates a small amount of buzz.
2.) Blog regularly
This cannot be stressed enough, for both your readers and the overall strength of your blog. The more content you have the better your blog will be represented on the Internet. And the more consistent you can be on posting new material, the more readers are likely to return for what comes next.
3.) Promote your blog
What ever methods you implement in promoting your blog, never back off, promotion is a never ending process, if you want to reach the top and remain on top, you MUST constantly be increasing awareness of your product.
4.) Be active in your blogging community
Read other bloggers, comment on their blogs, find ideas and thoughts from the other blogs within your niche, and learn what readers are interested in by the quantity of comments and the general direction of the comments. This will take you a long way in understanding what type of reader will be reading your blog.
5.) Respond to your commentors
Commentors appreciate your response to them as much as you appreciate the initial comment, and whether positive or negative, try to find the time to respond to the comments left on your blog articles. It will have good results.
6.) Be prepared for positive and negative feedback
And with commenting comes both positive and negative feedback. Be prepared for that, some negative feedback is constructive, some is destructive. There are a lot of differing personalities on the internet, and exposing yourself and allowing people to step into your personal thoughts and ideas will create a response. And sometimes don’t be afraid to allow the negative comments to remain on your blog.
7.) Always be on the look out for new blog topics
In every day life I try to keep a notepad close at hand. I find that the littlest thing can trigger an idea for one of my blogs.
8.) Don’t be afraid to experiment
Something that I have worried about in the past is trying different ways to generate backlinks. Because certain search engines can be really fickle about the way you get backlinks. Sometimes viewing them as spam and too much spam can put your blog into the “Sandbox” or removed from the search engine indexing. This can be very unfortunate, but as long as you are going about your business in a reputable fashion, they should not frown on your methods. And there are so many opportunities out there for finding quality backlinks.
9.) Actively participate in forums about your blog niche
This can help you in a couple ways. One is by answering questions that are connected to your personal blog. You can show the other forum members that you are an expert in your niche, and if you can include your website in your forum signature, you can receive quite a bit of traffic from other forum members. This is good traffic that is focused on the topic of your blog. Another thing this does is creates a lot of backlinks to your blog through your signature. The more posts you participate in, the more backlinks you are generating.
10.) Patience
Patience is a tough one for me. I want results now. But even though the web is an ever moving and evolving animal, it takes time for your blog to be found, and to start generating interest. The amount of time will always very. But it should be expected that you would need six months of work before you should start to see results. It can be deflating at times. But if you stay on it and stay consistent, you should begin to slowly see improvement in traffic.
Of course there will always be exceptions to the rule. That is where experimentation will come into play. There will always be more than one way to reach your goals.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Factors to Always consider when writing blog posts
A while ago I wrote a post about writing your first blog post. And I am perplexed by the fact that this particular article seems to receive more traffic than any other post I have on this blog.
In that post I covered a lot of the different blogger menus and showed you some of the functions and menus you should alter in order to make your blog more readable and more likely to be found.
What surprises me is, There is really no science when you sit down to write a blog post. Posts are really only limited by your own personal imagination. Some posts will be duds, some will become wildly popular, and until the post is published, you really cannot be 100% of what that particular post is going to do.
So, besides the basics of actually starting a blog post. Today I would like to talk about some other tactics to consider when writing blog posts. Things that we are going to hit on are.
1.)Blog Post Title
2.)Keyword placement
3.)Internal blog links
4.)Pictures
5.)Bold or Italicized text
6.)Style
1.)Blog Post Titles
The first thing you have to consider when writing your blog posts is your blog titles. Your title should be eye catching, fist and foremost. It should entice people to continue and read what you have to say. But on top of that your title should include your primary keywords for the particular post. Also it is better if your keywords appear early in the title. Just to make sure the Engines pick them up.
2.)Keyword Placement
Keyword placement may have little effect on the strength of the post. But in general you will want your keywords to show up within the first couple of lines of text. This ensures that the search engines will spot them early. And search engines will usually use the first couple lines of text in the descriptor in the search results. After that, it is common practice to have about 2%-5% keyword density within the article. After that, I would also recommend that you use your keywords in the last paragraph of your article if possible.
3.)Internal Blog links
Internal blog links are almost as important as external backlinks, internal blog links should be relevant to your current piece and should use the keywords for your previous article as the anchor text for the link. Internal links within your posts are Dofollow and will share the link juice within your own blog. Always remember to add a couple Internal blog links.
4.)Pictures
I cannot stress enough how important photos or some form of visual stimulant is for the casual online reader. A big wall of text can usually turn people off, but the sight of a couple pictures that are related to the topic in one way or another helps keep your readers attention and creates a more relaxed feel. Text walls can be intimidating and many people in todays day and age will view it as too time consuming to read all those words....Trust me, it is true.
5.)Bold and Italicized text
Many may ask what does this have to do with anything. It has a lot to do with writing blog posts. Sometimes you will use keywords for links, but sometimes, just sometimes, adding keywords in bold text or italicized text, or within quotes will stand out a little for both your readers and for the search engines. Now you do not have to apply this to all your keywords, but sprinkling it in there is a helpful thought.
6.)Style
Style really depends on you and the type of blog you are writing, whether your a synic by nature or an optimist, you will want your personality to shine through a bit. This will help readers relate. And it helps to keep your articles from feeling artificially generated. Blogs and bloggers have a chance to be unique solely from the take we may have on certain subjects. This doesnt mean you have to be extreme and outlandish in order for people to find you unique. It does work for some people, but if that is not who you are it will not work for you. But don't be afraid to let your quirks shine through, people will enjoy them. People like imprefection.....See how I misspelled that...Exactly!
So, writing a blog is really nothing so difficult. It is important to be yourself, do not sensor yourself in order to be more 'PC' or to try to be more than you are. Be genuine, and remember some of the tips here, and your blog will have a chance to be successful.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners....Come back soon
In that post I covered a lot of the different blogger menus and showed you some of the functions and menus you should alter in order to make your blog more readable and more likely to be found.
What surprises me is, There is really no science when you sit down to write a blog post. Posts are really only limited by your own personal imagination. Some posts will be duds, some will become wildly popular, and until the post is published, you really cannot be 100% of what that particular post is going to do.
So, besides the basics of actually starting a blog post. Today I would like to talk about some other tactics to consider when writing blog posts. Things that we are going to hit on are.
1.)Blog Post Title
2.)Keyword placement
3.)Internal blog links
4.)Pictures
5.)Bold or Italicized text
6.)Style
1.)Blog Post Titles
The first thing you have to consider when writing your blog posts is your blog titles. Your title should be eye catching, fist and foremost. It should entice people to continue and read what you have to say. But on top of that your title should include your primary keywords for the particular post. Also it is better if your keywords appear early in the title. Just to make sure the Engines pick them up.
2.)Keyword Placement
Keyword placement may have little effect on the strength of the post. But in general you will want your keywords to show up within the first couple of lines of text. This ensures that the search engines will spot them early. And search engines will usually use the first couple lines of text in the descriptor in the search results. After that, it is common practice to have about 2%-5% keyword density within the article. After that, I would also recommend that you use your keywords in the last paragraph of your article if possible.
3.)Internal Blog links
Internal blog links are almost as important as external backlinks, internal blog links should be relevant to your current piece and should use the keywords for your previous article as the anchor text for the link. Internal links within your posts are Dofollow and will share the link juice within your own blog. Always remember to add a couple Internal blog links.
4.)Pictures
I cannot stress enough how important photos or some form of visual stimulant is for the casual online reader. A big wall of text can usually turn people off, but the sight of a couple pictures that are related to the topic in one way or another helps keep your readers attention and creates a more relaxed feel. Text walls can be intimidating and many people in todays day and age will view it as too time consuming to read all those words....Trust me, it is true.
5.)Bold and Italicized text
Many may ask what does this have to do with anything. It has a lot to do with writing blog posts. Sometimes you will use keywords for links, but sometimes, just sometimes, adding keywords in bold text or italicized text, or within quotes will stand out a little for both your readers and for the search engines. Now you do not have to apply this to all your keywords, but sprinkling it in there is a helpful thought.
6.)Style
Style really depends on you and the type of blog you are writing, whether your a synic by nature or an optimist, you will want your personality to shine through a bit. This will help readers relate. And it helps to keep your articles from feeling artificially generated. Blogs and bloggers have a chance to be unique solely from the take we may have on certain subjects. This doesnt mean you have to be extreme and outlandish in order for people to find you unique. It does work for some people, but if that is not who you are it will not work for you. But don't be afraid to let your quirks shine through, people will enjoy them. People like imprefection.....See how I misspelled that...Exactly!
So, writing a blog is really nothing so difficult. It is important to be yourself, do not sensor yourself in order to be more 'PC' or to try to be more than you are. Be genuine, and remember some of the tips here, and your blog will have a chance to be successful.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners....Come back soon
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Blogging for beginners – Improving Your Blogs’ SERP
It has been a while since I posted here at blogging for beginners. I have been spending some time link building and working on improving blogging for beginner’s SERP results. And I have to say that I have made definite improvements. And while I am not where I need to be yet, I have made some good strides.
Today I wanted to talk a little about the process involved in improving your own blogs SERP. SERP stands for search engine results page.
Before I began the process of improving SERP, Blogging for beginners did not rank well. And although I still would not consider my work a success, It is a work in progress.
Some of the steps I have taken to improve my SERP, which has gone from ranking at position 712, for “Blogging for Beginners”, to 169 is listed below. It is important to remember that SEO is a very inexact science, and for me to say I have a solution for you that I could call set in stone would be irresponsible on my part. But what I can do is explain some of the steps involved in building awareness of your own blog.
1.) Blog commenting
Although we have talked repeatedly about blog commenting and about the fact that it does not necessarily improve your page ranking, it can in many ways effect your blog traffic, and it can improve your SERP. I use blog commenting regularly, Daily in fact. I am not a comment spammer though, I will only comment on a couple blogs a day. I will take a list of my keywords and I will use those within a well thought out comment on other individual's blogs. Some of them will be DoFollow and others will just be plain’ol NoFollow blogs. Do not get caught up with the DoFollow comments. While they are nice. You will want a nice balance of both forms of Blog Commenting.
2.) Article Submittion
In my mind article submission is one of the best ways to build awareness. I submit articles to Go articles and Ezine articles primarily, but they are not the only sites I use. They are just some of the stronger, and you receive the best bang for you buck when using these as your article submission sites. I try to add at least one article per week per site. Each article includes at least one backlink and also includes an author resource box with a link. Article submission should be high on your list of things to do when you are trying to improve your blog traffic.
3.) Forums
I participate in one forum right now for Blogging for Beginners. And I will try to participate daily on the forum. And in my Forum signature I include a link back to my blog. So, every time I post a new question, or answer existing questions, I receive another backlink. This is a way to generate a lot of backlinks fairly quickly, along with showing readers that you have knowledge about the topic.
4.) Social Bookmarking
Although I do not go crazy with social bookmarking, I do add some bookmarking. I use a few different social bookmarking services. Delicious, JumpTags, Mixx, and StumbleUpon are some of my favorites. Don’t go crazy with these. People will start to view your bookmarks as spam and the sites can penalize you from this. As far as I can tell, Google does not consider these backlinks as valuable links, but they can generate traffic quickly. I have had a lot of luck with Stumbleupon. But if you are expecting these links to turn into profit, it will not likely happen. I am sure I will talk more in depth later about social bookmarking myths and unreasonable expectations of them.
5.) Hubpages
I love Hubpages. For my bigger posts, I write a corresponding Hubpage. Hubpages rank well and they can generate really good traffic without much effort. And on top of that they have the added bonus of allowing you to add Google adsense and Amazon associate ads to your hubs.
6.) Paid to write content
Paid to write content will generally not allow DoFollow backlinks. But, they do offer the ability to generate income through page views. Along with the fact that they will often rank well and will often generate a lot of traffic. Sites like Bukisa and Helium offer another way to generate passive income along with generating quality and focused traffic to your blog.
7.)Internal Blog links
Internal blogs links are critical. Very similar to Backlinks, these links allow your readers a better way to navigate your blog along with giving search engine spiders a chance to craw pages they may otherwise miss. Using your Keywords for the particular post as your anchor text is a must here, and the link should be relative to the link.
8.)Optimizing Old Posts
Something I try to do regularly is go back through my older posts and optimize keyword density, along with adding new and relative information in order to improve the post. This is an excellent way to create search engine awareness.
9.) Social Networking.
Honestly I have to admit, I do not participate in Social Networking with the accepted giants like Facebook and Myspace. The only social networking sites I am a member of is PeopleString and Linkedn. I am not active with linkedn but I am with peoplestring. And that is mostly because Peoplestring is a social networking site that shares its’ ad revenue with its’ members. As long as you are an active member you can generate a small amount of income monthly. And if you have not noticed. One of my primary reasons for being so involved online is to generate income.
So those are the primary methods I use to improve my blogs SERP. I believe that if you implement these methods you will start to see blog traffic improvements and you will start to feel like what your doing is working. I know quite often, even for me, I feel discouraged by my progress with my blogs.
But through a lot of effort, you can see your blog improve.
Thank you for reading "blogging for beginners", and please come back soon!
Today I wanted to talk a little about the process involved in improving your own blogs SERP. SERP stands for search engine results page.
Before I began the process of improving SERP, Blogging for beginners did not rank well. And although I still would not consider my work a success, It is a work in progress.
Some of the steps I have taken to improve my SERP, which has gone from ranking at position 712, for “Blogging for Beginners”, to 169 is listed below. It is important to remember that SEO is a very inexact science, and for me to say I have a solution for you that I could call set in stone would be irresponsible on my part. But what I can do is explain some of the steps involved in building awareness of your own blog.
Although we have talked repeatedly about blog commenting and about the fact that it does not necessarily improve your page ranking, it can in many ways effect your blog traffic, and it can improve your SERP. I use blog commenting regularly, Daily in fact. I am not a comment spammer though, I will only comment on a couple blogs a day. I will take a list of my keywords and I will use those within a well thought out comment on other individual's blogs. Some of them will be DoFollow and others will just be plain’ol NoFollow blogs. Do not get caught up with the DoFollow comments. While they are nice. You will want a nice balance of both forms of Blog Commenting.
2.) Article Submittion
In my mind article submission is one of the best ways to build awareness. I submit articles to Go articles and Ezine articles primarily, but they are not the only sites I use. They are just some of the stronger, and you receive the best bang for you buck when using these as your article submission sites. I try to add at least one article per week per site. Each article includes at least one backlink and also includes an author resource box with a link. Article submission should be high on your list of things to do when you are trying to improve your blog traffic.
3.) Forums
I participate in one forum right now for Blogging for Beginners. And I will try to participate daily on the forum. And in my Forum signature I include a link back to my blog. So, every time I post a new question, or answer existing questions, I receive another backlink. This is a way to generate a lot of backlinks fairly quickly, along with showing readers that you have knowledge about the topic.
4.) Social Bookmarking
Although I do not go crazy with social bookmarking, I do add some bookmarking. I use a few different social bookmarking services. Delicious, JumpTags, Mixx, and StumbleUpon are some of my favorites. Don’t go crazy with these. People will start to view your bookmarks as spam and the sites can penalize you from this. As far as I can tell, Google does not consider these backlinks as valuable links, but they can generate traffic quickly. I have had a lot of luck with Stumbleupon. But if you are expecting these links to turn into profit, it will not likely happen. I am sure I will talk more in depth later about social bookmarking myths and unreasonable expectations of them.
5.) Hubpages
I love Hubpages. For my bigger posts, I write a corresponding Hubpage. Hubpages rank well and they can generate really good traffic without much effort. And on top of that they have the added bonus of allowing you to add Google adsense and Amazon associate ads to your hubs.
6.) Paid to write content
Paid to write content will generally not allow DoFollow backlinks. But, they do offer the ability to generate income through page views. Along with the fact that they will often rank well and will often generate a lot of traffic. Sites like Bukisa and Helium offer another way to generate passive income along with generating quality and focused traffic to your blog.
7.)Internal Blog links
Internal blogs links are critical. Very similar to Backlinks, these links allow your readers a better way to navigate your blog along with giving search engine spiders a chance to craw pages they may otherwise miss. Using your Keywords for the particular post as your anchor text is a must here, and the link should be relative to the link.
8.)Optimizing Old Posts
Something I try to do regularly is go back through my older posts and optimize keyword density, along with adding new and relative information in order to improve the post. This is an excellent way to create search engine awareness.
9.) Social Networking.
Honestly I have to admit, I do not participate in Social Networking with the accepted giants like Facebook and Myspace. The only social networking sites I am a member of is PeopleString and Linkedn. I am not active with linkedn but I am with peoplestring. And that is mostly because Peoplestring is a social networking site that shares its’ ad revenue with its’ members. As long as you are an active member you can generate a small amount of income monthly. And if you have not noticed. One of my primary reasons for being so involved online is to generate income.
So those are the primary methods I use to improve my blogs SERP. I believe that if you implement these methods you will start to see blog traffic improvements and you will start to feel like what your doing is working. I know quite often, even for me, I feel discouraged by my progress with my blogs.
But through a lot of effort, you can see your blog improve.
Thank you for reading "blogging for beginners", and please come back soon!
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