Archive for the Category »Increase Traffic «

31
Aug
The Game Of “Either – Or”
Barbara Swafford

In addition to making money, most bloggers want two things.

  1. Traffic

    2. BOXES The Game Of Either Or

  2. Comments

Unfortunately, both depend on the actions of others, and those “others” are often fellow bloggers.

Today’s Lesson

When bloggers make the rounds to other blogs, they’re mentally asking themselves questions and/or making choices. For example,

  1. Do I have time to read this post in its entirety? Or will I skim it?
  2. Does it appear the blog author wants my opinion?
  3. If so, did they ask for it? Or is it implied?
  4. If I leave a comment, will it add value to the post?
  5. Is this post worthy of being promoted on my favorite social media site?

As blog authors, we can help make those decisions easier.

Such as,

  1. Are we asking for comments?

    2. Did we end our post with a question? Or does our post appear so “complete”, it sends a subliminal message comments aren’t welcome?

  2. How easy is it for others to leave a comment?

    3. Does the commenter have to register or jump through hoops to pass the security features of our blog? Or have we made the process of commenting as simple as possible?

  3. How easy have we made it for other bloggers to promote our work?

    4. Are we including buttons which take our visitors directly to Twitter, Facebook or StumbleUpon? Or do we expect them to “figure it out” on their own time?

  4. Is our post worthy of being shared?

    5. Does is hold value others can benefit from? Is it grammatically correct and void of typos? Are the facts correct?

  5. If a reader lands on our home page (www.ourblog.com) do they have to click again to read the full post?

    6. Are we using excerpts and the “continue reading/more” feature? If so, does this feature make it easier for our visitors to read our blog posts?

  6. If we’re showing a post in its entirety on our homepage and the reader does NOT click through to the post, does our homepage show the Retweet button or an application which will make it EASY for someone to share our article?

    7. Or does sharing our post require additional work on our readers part?

  7. Are we asking others to promote our posts on their favorite social media site?

    8. Or are we assuming our visitors are mind readers?

Truth be told, we can’t/shouldn’t expect our visitors to read, comment on, AND promote our blog posts each time we publish something new.

Just like with us, their time is limited.

If we’re lucky, they’ll do one; comment OR promote.

But usually not both.

Today’s Assignment

If you could only pick one, what would it be?

To receive comments?

To have your post promoted on a social media site?

I’d love to hear why you picked what you did.

signature for blog post

P.S. This post was inspired by what social media consultant Vered, shared in her comment on the Call Me A Hypocrite post:

…When time is short, I promote posts that I like on social media…

Thank you Vered.

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Increase Traffic, Plugins and Widgets, Writing Tips  38 Comments
28
Jun
Entice Your Readers To Stay Awhile
Barbara Swafford

I’ve been experimenting with related posts plugins.

The related posts plugin I have been using is “Contextual Related Posts“.

However, having seen the related posts on other blogs which include thumbnails, I decided to experiment with two of those.

Today’s Lesson

The two plugins I’ve been testing automatically add related posts in a horizontal strip at the end of each post.

LinkWithin is the one I have installed on this blog (see bottom of post), as well as on my green blog, “From Waste To Resource”.

LinkWithin did not produce the same results on The Blog Boutique, so on there I installed the Related Posts Thumbnails plugin.
Sample of what related posts with thumbnail looks like
The Contextual Related Posts plugin also offers the thumbnail option, however the posts are listed vertically with the adjustable size thumbnail being to the left of the title.

So, why use one or more of these plugins?

Advantages of using thumbnails with related posts plugins:

  1. Can increase page views by enticing readers to click on additional related and/or relevant posts
  2. More choices give readers the opportunity to choose other articles to comment on
  3. Adds more pizazz to our blogs via the use of a few more photos which break up the verbiage
  4. Might increase subscriptions to our blogs
  5. We can personalize the output, including the number of related posts we want to display.
  6. Easy to install
  7. Could increase advertising revenue if a visitor reads more than one post and is exposed to more of our ads
  8. LinkWithin is also compatible with WordPress (self-hosted), Blogger, Typepad and “Other” (not sure what “other” means)
  9. Support on all of these plugins appears to be strong.

Disadvantages

  1. May decrease the load time of our pages, as do most plugins and/or widgets
  2. Can be difficult to install for those who are not familiar with the process
  3. If no images are found in a blog post, only an empty square will show
  4. One or more of the plugins may not work properly if our theme does not support thumbnails

Interestingly, the posts linked to by Contextual Related Posts plugin are sometimes different than the posts linked to by LinkWithin. Although the posts may be similar, I feel the Contextual Related Posts plugin does a better job of linking to the most relevant related posts, plus it offers the greatest range of options for customization.

For now, I’ll leave both plugins activated on this blog, however, so as not to reduce my page loads times any further, I will not be using the thumbnails for the Contextual Related Posts at this time.

Today’s Assignment

If a blog displays related posts, do you click on the links?

Do you use a related posts plugin? If so, which one?

Care to share?

signature for blog post.

P.S. Although there are other related posts plugins with thumbnails, these are ones which have worked the best for me.

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Increase Traffic, Plugins and Widgets  67 Comments
07
Feb
Don’t Let Your Heart Be Broken
Barbara Swafford

broken heart graphic for ComLuv post Dont Let Your Heart Be BrokenMany of you know CommentLuv is my all time favorite plugin.

With CommentLuv a blogger gets to let those who comment share a link back to their site which often results in more traffic for both bloggers.

It’s a great reward for those who take the time to comment on our blogs; a way to thank others for sharing their thoughts.

CommentLuv definitely spreads the love.

Today’s Lesson

You may have noticed when a blog has CommentLuv enabled, at the end of the link to your blog post is a small red heartCommentluv heart Dont Let Your Heart Be Broken. By hovering over the heart with your cursor, it can tell more about you, your blog, where you visited last as well as more of your posts. It’s also clickable.

While going through the comments on recent posts, I noticed many of you are not using this feature. Instead, if I hover over the heart, I’m either seeing,

not a comluv member Dont Let Your Heart Be Broken

or,

feedburner link instead of comluv Dont Let Your Heart Be Broken

When your CommentLuv link is labeled as a Feedburner link,  Feedburner is getting the link love, instead of you.

In other words, your CommentLuv heart is broken.

When I signed up at ComLuv.com, I wanted to make sure my heart was working. After several tweaks and the Feedburner “fix”, here’s what you will see if you hover over the heart after a link to one of my posts:

Commentluv heart is working Dont Let Your Heart Be Broken

Although some of you may prefer not to have additional information about yourself and where you visit available, for those of you who are trying to get noticed in blogosphere, by using this feature, you’re giving readers a chance to learn more about you as well as what other posts you have on your blog AND they can click directly on them.

The fix for your broken CommentLuv heart is easy.

You MUST register your blog.

1) Go to ComLuv.com

2) If you have the plugin installed and want to register your site(s*), click on the gray “Register Your Sites” bar and follow the instructions. Be careful when entering your feed address. It must be accurate for the CommentLuv links to work.

3) If you do not have the plugin installed, click on the orange “Download the plugin” bar. After activating the plugin, return to ComLuv.com and register your site.

If the CommentLuv links shows your site as a feedburner link, the fix can be found on the ComLuv blog at How To Turn Off Feedburner Redirects

It’s that simple.

What say you?

Today’s Assignment

Are you taking advantage of all the CommentLuv plugin has to offer?

Do you see any disadvantages to using the plugin?

Or, is this just one too many plugins to worry about?

signature for blog post.

P.S. For more information on how CommentLuv was born, you can read my interview with the plugin author, Andy Bailey.

*For a small fee, you can register more than one URL or add static links.

Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Increase Traffic, Plugins and Widgets  92 Comments
27
Jan
Advantages of Guest Posting Outside Your Niche
Barbara Swafford

Good Day, Class,

Although it’s been awhile since we had a substitute teacher (guest writer) here, today that’s changing.

Some of you may have heard of him. Some not.

Please join me in welcoming fellow blogger Bamboo Forest, from the fabulous blog, Pun Intended.

Bamboo has chosen a topic we haven’t discussed before; “guest posting”.

On that note, I’ll grab a seat and join you in listening to this great lesson.

The floor is yours, Bamboo.

Hello Class!

outsider Advantages of Guest Posting Outside Your NicheAs you’re reading this you may recognize that I’m guest posting on a blog about blogging even though my blog is definitely not in this niche; it’s a blog about humor and inspiration.

Is it foolish to guest post on a blog outside of your niche, putting all your energy into drafting a post that will be published on a blog that covers a subject different from your own?

My answer is no and I’d even go a step further: There are definite advantages to guest posting outside of your niche.

For starters, our ideas are finite. Don’t get me wrong, there are some beasts who can churn out good posts like an overly enthusiastic factory worker. That being said, our ideas still reach a finite number. Further, not all our ideas are equal.

Today’s Lesson

Every time we guest post on a blog within our niche we’re giving away some of our finest ideas and some of our best posts. Once this is done, your loyal readers won’t see that material on your blog. So by posting outside of your niche you lose nothing and gain a great deal.

Another strategy to maintain great content for your blog, even while guest posting within your niche is to share material that simply wouldn’t fit well on your blog. In fact, I’ve done this. I’ve written personal development posts that though could pass on my blog, really fit better somewhere else. This is a great way to guest post within your niche while not really losing out for your blog.

The obvious criticism of guest posting outside of your niche is that people who click through to check your blog out are less likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

While I agree this is true to an extent, I don’t believe it’s enough of a factor to render guest posting outside of your niche a waste of time. Far from it.

For example, my blog is about humor and inspiration. Who among us doesn’t like to laugh and be inspired? Many interested in blogs about blogging will, nevertheless, find a blog on humor and inspiration to be a real winner and worthy of subscription–hopefully. Will you please prove my theory correct, you know you wanna. ;-)

Guest posting outside of your niche can create traffic, gain subscribers and raise your profile all while taking nothing away from your own posts on your own blog.

That’s quite the deal, no?

Today’s Assignment

Ever guest posted outside your niche?

What were the pros and cons?

Considering guest posting outside your niche?

Why or why not?

Bamboo Forest writes for Pun Intended, a blog that blends humor with inspiration. To ensure you never miss a good hearty laugh or a good dose of inspiration, subscribe here.

Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Increase Traffic, Posting  61 Comments
30
Sep
SEO and Blogging – Keeping It Simple
Barbara Swafford

blue and white seo sign for search engine optimization post
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a HUGE topic. So large in fact, many blogs are dedicated to just that. Books are written about it, and some businesses are built around it.

In the comments of the  Readers vs Bots, Making Everyone Happy post, Patricia of Patricia’s Wisdom asked if I could write more about SEO. I promised her I would.

A search engine optimization expert, I am not, but I do know if bloggers want to get search engine traffic, some degree of SEO must be used.

Today”s Lesson

In a nutshell, here’s what I feel is true about search engine optimization.

  1. If we are targeting readers who are searching for widgets, then we need to write about widgets.

    If we are trying to get search engine traffic to a article (or a blog) which is about widgets, but we go off track and start writing about shoes (for example), the search engines aren’t going to send us people who are looking for widgets. Our posts need to stay on topic.

  2. We can rank high with one search engine, but not on another.

    Many bloggers concentrate on ranking high with Google, however Yahoo, Bing or another search engine may be a better choice. With Google currently being the biggest search engine, it may be best to concentrate our efforts on getting more traffic from the smaller search engines where there may be less competition.

  3. Search engine optimization can change the way we write.

    If we want search engine traffic, we need to tell the search engines we have a relevant post about a specific topic. This is done by using keywords and/or keyword phrases. Although those posts may need to be worded differently than how we normally write, challenging ourselves to write for the search engines (and our readers, too) may help to gain a larger readership.

  4. Every post does not have to be search engine optimized.

    On this blog, I seldom use SEO. It’s not that I don’t want search engine traffic, but I either forget to include it, I get lazy, or I’m not sure how to optimize a specific topic. Having said that, just having a handful of posts that are optimized can help to keep search engine traffic coming our way.

  5. Catchy titles can attract the wrong audience.

    In a previous lesson we learned how using catchy titles can deceive our readers and the search engines. Although we may get traffic based on the words we used in our title, chances are we are not reaching our target audience.

  6. Even the most carefully optimized post may not get found.

    Because the search engines use parameters other than just optimization of posts, even a perfectly written post may not get highly indexed by the search engines. Search engines consider page rank, inbound links, the credibility of a site (plus other algorithms), therefore, if our post is on a subject in an already saturated market, search engine optimization could all be for naught.

  7. When we pick keywords or keyword phrases, we’re just guessing others will use the same terms

    If we look at our stats and see how others find us, they often use search terms we wouldn’t even think of. Although we can’t possibly know what search strings people will enter, it’s important we consider possibilities other than the obvious.

So there you have it, my seven simple tips on SEO.

Today’s Assignment

Do you use search engine optimization in your posts?

If so, do you have any tips to share with the class?

If not, what about SEO confuses you?

Raise your hand and share your thoughts.

signature for blog post.

And now, seven fabulous resources on search engine optimization:

  1. SEO Tips For WordPress Bloggers (Video) by Matt Cutts (a Google executive) – posted on John Hoff’s blog. I strongly recommend watching this video in it’s entirety.

  2. Google Webmaster Central
  3. Yahoo.com. Log into your account and search “help” for webmaster resources.
  4. Bing.com/webmaster plus their toolbox
  5. Best SEO Practices for Creative Writers – courtesy of Jan Geronimo
  6. SEO and Accessibility by Joe Dolson
  7. 101 Great Blogs You Should Be Subscribing To Starting at number 36, Kevin lists 12 blogs which specialize in SEO
Related Posts with Thumbnails
Category: Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Increase Traffic, Keywords, SEO  73 Comments
« Previous Entries