Blogging

Full time professional blogger Darren Rowse from Problogger.net has almost 400,000 visitors per day! Hong Kiat from hongkiat.com and John Chow from JohnChow.com has closed to 200,000 unique visitors per day! How do they do it? You will be surprise if I told you how they build their traffic!

The ultimate secret of blog traffic…

Just sit tight and be prepared, what I am going to tell you is huge, if you take this lightly, I guarantee you will fail! Without this step, you are just another blogger, no more no less.

Secret #1 - Participate in bloggers’ community and build relationship with them.
You need a lot of friends to be successful on the blog business, each of them including yourself is the “salesman” for other bloggers! When I tell you those professional bloggers are sharing the **SAME** traffic, don’t be surprise, this is very true. You promote other people’s blog, and they do the same for you.

Secret #2 - You must get the basic traffic - at least 100 visitors per day to start!
Stop thinking that you can have 200,000 visitors in few months, it will take you at least 1 or 2 years to build that kind of traffic, I mean from scratch…You can roll out multiple blogs in the shortest time after your succeeded with your first blog, you have all the resources you needed.

Build up your basic traffic with consistent quality post, the very basic traffic will come from How To Increase Blog Traffic:

1. Forum
2. Articles
3. Blog directories
4. Bookmarking sites
5. And many more…

Secret #3 - Create Good Content.
You need to put your time and effort into creating good content, if you can blog about what you are passionate about, your readers will feel your passion, and they will follow you from day 1! Consistent is the key to increase your blog traffic, remember CONSISTENCY is the king!

Secret #4 - Just Do It Until You see Results!
The result will be slow in the first 2 months, but if you keep doing it, you can expect some great result start from 3rd months! Your blog traffic will jump fast! All you have to do now is build up your traffic momentum, the momentum to make the snow ball roll, don’t gave up easily, work until you see some result and then scale out your result…

Just be patient, you can make money from a blog very soon, just do it and IMPROVE what you are doing from experience, as long as you see a bit of progress, don’t give up… We all be there for you!

Related Reading:

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging

Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income

Every single small business owner is an expert in their field. No matter what product or service  you provide, your customers do business with you because you are the expert in that  arena, and if you are not an expert, then they very quickly realize that and go  somewhere else. People trust experts, and when making a decision about a purchase, they look to  the expert to tell them what they need to know and to give them all of the information they need  to make an informed decision.

For a small business owner who is just getting started, however, it may take some time and effort  to establish yourself as an expert in your field. You may know what you need to know,  you may have the information you need, you may do a superb job at what you do, but if your  potential customers do not know that and cannot see it, then why would they choose to do business  with you? You need to, essentially, place yourself out there in front of them and demonstrate  your expertise. You need to build your reputation as an expert in your specific area, which will  build the trust of your customers and potential customers.

An excellent tool to use when establishing yourself as an expert is blogging. A blog is  essentially an online journal. You write about whatever you want, it’s easy and simple to use,  and easy for people to read. This gives you a medium to communicate your expertise, as you can  blog about what you know about your product or service and provide useful information for your  readers.

For example, if your business is selling salt-water fish and aquariums, then you would want to  set up a blog and write about the care of fish, how to set up an aquarium, what you will need to  get started, what kind of fish are good to start out with, what fish and creatures dwell together  well, and so on. Since your business is marine fish, you obviously know a lot about them and have  a lot of information to share, and you can do this in a fun and interesting way, and in whatever  style is you.

Another example, if your business is a car repair service, then you would want to write about not  just car repair, but car maintenance, how to prevent common neglect and accidents, how to care  for your car after repair, how to choose a good mechanic and what to look for in a repair shop.  And the list can go on.

Setting up a blog is easy and inexpensive. There are numerous websites where you can sign up for  free and create your own blog. They already have the tools that you need integrated into the  website, ready for you to use - you can start blogging almost immediately! You can add photos to  your blogs, you can allow readers to post comments, and most blogs have an option for your  readers to subscribe to receive new blog posts via email or rss feeds. Google has a blog service  that can be found at blogger.com. Another free one is at www.thoughts.com. For other options,  just do a Google search for “free blog” or similar keywords. These sites will give you your own  subdomain, such as yourblog.blogger.com, which links directly to your blog. You can then give  this url out to your friends, customers, and include it in your marketing materials to direct  people to your blog.

If you are not sure what to write about, or are afraid you will run out of topics, try some of  these ideas:

Keep a paper and pen handy with you in your purse, by the phone, on the dash of your car, in your  shirt pocket or wherever is convenient for you. You will find that as you go through a normal day, you may get ideas for blog topics. Write these down as you get them, then when you go to blog, you will  already have a list of great topic ideas!

Ask your readers what they would like to know about. Invite them to email you questions. Some  blog sites may have a tool where you can create a quick poll or a short survey. Use these to get  feedback and to find out what your customers are interested in knowing about your subject.

Browse magazines on your subject. This may spark ideas and you may be able to build off what you  read about.

Borrow from other experts. If you run across another blog, or website, or an article in a  magazine that you really like and would like to feature in your blog, then get permission from  the author and post the article on your blog. Most authors will be more than glad to let you use  their article as long as you provide their information and a link back to them.

Use your own experience. Do you have some entertaining stories from your experience in this  field? Do not be afraid to throw in some fun and humor.

Blogging does not have to be tedious and boring, or take up huge amounts of time. If you are not a  natural writer and feel like it’s too much of a job to sit there and write a long post, then  don’t! Keep it short and simple, or whatever is your style. Remember that it is your blog, so let it reflect your personality.

If you find you simply do not have any time at all to do your blog, then hire someone else to do  it. Perhaps you already have someone working for you who can take it on, or perhaps you know  someone who would be interested. You can give them your topic ideas, or even use a voice recorder  to record the posts for them to type out in the blog. Again, whatever works for you, your style  and your business!

The world of blogging is a wonderful tool to use to keep in touch with your target customers and  to establish trust as an expert. If you take the time to start, you will find it well worth the  while and will learn a lot from it as well! You have information and expertise to share - a blog  is a great medium to use to get it out there!

Related Reading:

The Rough Guide to Blogging 1 (Rough Guide Reference)

Blogging For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers

In the earlier article in this series, I discussed what blog carnivals are and why all new bloggers should be participating in them. In the event that you missed that post, let me recap briefly the benefits to participating in blog carnivals:

• They improve your credibility
• You quickly get profitable, regular subscribers of your partner blogs
• You get a quick boost of traffic to blog entries
• You get a long term improvement in search result rankings

What I’m going to review in this article is how you can get the most benefit out of your carnival efforts. Let’s face it, carnivals take time and effort, so you should get as much benefit and good will from them as you can. Here’s how you can accomplish that:

1) Submit your posts early. There will be a call for entries deadline, but it’s likely that the host already has a good idea on how the post will be structured before the deadline, so you want your post submitted during this early stage.

2) Make the host’s job easy: Learn how to create blog article titles that are compelling, and come up with two or three powerful, compelling headings that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good headlines are difficult to create, so craft them yourself. You’ll save the host the effort and get more visitors from a stronger headline.

3) Follow the submission guidelines.

4) Get organized: Organize the information you enter. Include your name, e-mail address, blog name, article title, article summary, several sample headings, permalink, and trackback URL. Place this information in an e-mail above the full post itself, unless told to do otherwise.

5) Advertise: Once submitted, make sure to advertise the carnival. What goes around comes around, and your collaborative efforts to drive traffic will payoff for all of you in the long run. That’s the concept behind these carnivals: all participants are sharing subscribers, giving each the opportunity to attract the others’ regular readers.

6) Make sure you can handle your traffic: Ready your blog for any traffic surges that might occur, and optimize the page that the carnival readers will be viewing. You’ll want to aim the offers or ads to your audience, provide a very conspicuous subscription link, and follow-up with at least one week’s worth of strong articles to capitalize on any repeat traffic you might have.

Blog carnivals are an excellent way to bring qualified, relevant, profitable, long-term readers. Use them properly and you’ll reap the rewards. But you must be prepared to put your best foot forward. Pick up a good blogs how to if you have any doubts on how you can optimize your blog for this kind of traffic.

Good luck!

Related Reading:

Start Your Own Blogging Business (Startup)

The IT Girl's Guide to Blogging with Moxie

Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging

Let me start by saying I’m a huge believer of blog carnivals. They’re not without their drawbacks, of course, but the advantages completely outweigh the amount of effort and time that you give them.

That’s why it shocks me that blog carnivals aren’t as popular as they should be. Granted, the first several times that you participate in them, it might take you some extra time to learn how things work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be more unreliable than you might like. But get hooked up with a good group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are superb ways to:

• Improve your credibility
• Immediately gain regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
• Get an immediate boost of traffic to blog posts
• Get a longer term gain in search engine rankings

Carnivals: What are They?

A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The posts created (or linked to) during a carnival usually resulting in a magazine-like format. The carnival has a theme, title, editors, writers, and consumers. Most carnivals are held on a regular basis with rotating hosts.

A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, collaborating or deciding on things like rules, frequency, editorial guidelines, how to blog in the carnival, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.

Every carnival has one host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are located. In reply to the submission call, each blogger participating in the carnival sends their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the wild as one large post (link bait) or a series of smaller posts. Obviously, you should know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the greatest benefit.

Carnivals usually draw a lot of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a powerful backlink from the host and the immediate traffic surge associated with the initial readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the participating bloggers who have teamed together to publicize the event, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful the links will be when it comes time for their turn to host.

Now that you know what a carnival is, we’ll discuss how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!

Related Reading:

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging

The Rough Guide to Blogging 1 (Rough Guide Reference)

Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging