Traffic Generation for Your Blog

I’ve been working on writing about traffic generation this week while writing my new e-course ‘10 Days To Limitless Traffic’ (you can get the e-course by signing up for my mailing list, see the right-hand side bar). Traffic has got to be the most important component of a profitable website or blog and there is so much to cover that a 10 day e-course just isn’t enough.

However, I thought it would be a good idea to add at least one post with a few tips in this Blogging for Money series because it’s that important. Please understand however, this is just skimming the surface of the subject of traffic generation.

There are a few easy ways to drive traffic to your blog. None by themselves will generate huge traffic but lots of little trickles soon lead to an unstoppable flood.

Each of these are easy and most can be done in a few minutes each day. Getting in the habit of doing at least one of these each day will soon create the traffic you need to be profitable.

Here is a quick list of some of the things that will help your blog traffic increase.

1.    Commenting on a related blog with a thoughtful comment and a link back to your blog
2.    Posting a video with your link to YouTube
3.    Bookmarking your content and others’ content at Stumble Upon, Digg, etc.
4.    Commenting on others’ pages at MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, etc.
5.    Posting on Twitter about your latest post
6.    Using Facebook and including your RSS feed on your profile there
7.    Adding your RSS feed to a Squidoo lens, Hub page, Wet Paint, etc.
8.    Writing articles that link back to your blog and submitting them to various article directories

By no means is this everything. For more ideas, subscribe to my mailing list and get my new e-course ’10 Days To Limitless Traffic’.

Commenting on others’ blogs – Commenting on other people’s blogs has two benefits. If the blog is set up with ‘do follow’ (this blog is) you get a back link to your blog. Even if not, you can and will get traffic from people reading the comments if…you actually take part in the conversation and add value to the post. This also builds up your name recognition in whatever niche you are operating in and helps build your credibility. After all, your goal is to be recognized as an expert authority in your niche.

Posting video – Adding a video about your topic to YouTube or any of the many other video sites can also add back links and new visitors. Make sure you start your description with the full url of your blog – http://yourdomain.com

Adding a podcast – Audio is easy to use and you can create an mp3 file with the free tool offered by Audacity from SourceForge ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ). If you hold teleseminars most services record them for you and you can use that in mp3 format as a podcast. Add these to your blog using appropriate plugins (Podpress is a good one) and then submit that feed to all of the various podcast services.

Bookmarking – Using social bookmarking services such as StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. will increase the amount of traffic you receive. Remember though that these are communities and you should not be bookmarking just your own sites but other sites that have value as well. Bookmarking posts that you have commented on is a great way to indirectly bring more traffic to your site and will increase the number of bookmarks of other sites you have on your account.

I have found it best if 20% or less of all your bookmarks are your own. Feel free to bookmark some of my posts ~ .  You’ll find a bookmarking plug-in to help you at the end of every post (it’s a good idea to have a bookmarking plug-in installed on your blog to make it easy for your readers to bookmark your posts).

Blog communities – I use two blog communities Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog. Of the two I find MyBlogLog to be the better choice if you only have time for one. You can join communities there, add in other social sites you are using like Digg, Stumble Upon, Twitter, and Facebook and your updates to any of those will show on your profile. You can install the widget on your site to allow others to see who has been visiting your site. I get a lot of traffic from other blogs I’ve visited because my face shows on the other blogs widget.

Twitter – Twitter is a micro-blogging platform and can really help you get visitors if you are posting regularly, have a decent amount of followers and add a tweet when you add a new post. Like commenting, you must take part in the conversation and add value not just tweet your posts.

Facebook – Another great social site as it is becoming a ‘must participate’ site for businesses.  You need to make sure to add your RSS feed to your profile so your visitors will see your latest blog updates. Recently I also joined another social networking site similar to Facebook called Eons, it’s a social networking site for those who are 50+.

If you join either of these sites, be sure to add me as a friend, my profile can be found under RebaCollins, just do a search. Also, at Eons, I have just taken over the Marketing/Internet Marketing Group, please stop by, join and add to the discussion. Honestly, I really need your help there, the place is like a ghost town, please help me out and join in!

Squidoo, Hub Pages, etc. – Squidoo and Hub Pages along with others are like blogs on steroids. Because there are lots of people constantly adding content to their pages at these sites, the search engines like them and rank them well.

Adding targeted anchor text leading to posts on your blog and having your RSS feed displayed on these sites can be a great traffic generator. I have a lens at Squidoo about blogging and another about setting up a virtual assistant business, both have links to the articles here and generate traffic for me.

Article submission – Writing quality articles and submitting them to the various article directories is another way to generate back links for your blog which in turn helps you to rank higher in the search engines. Ezine and website owners can use your content but have to link back to your site through the resource box and this creates the additional back links and visitors you are seeking.

Like I said earlier, these tips are just the beginning. Traffic generation has so many avenues you can take. Subscribing to my e-course will give you a little more detail, which is great because it’s all about taking baby steps and learning as you go. I suggest playing with some of the techniques in this post, while going through the e-course.

If you feel you want to take it to the next level, check out StomperNet’s new product Formula 5. I haven’t seen the product because it hasn’t launched yet but I have their Stomping the Search Engines 2 program and it was far and wide the best information I’ve EVER seen on search engine optimization and learning how to drive traffic to your site. I’m sure their Formula 5 program is just as good.

My next post will be about advertising your blog. So, until then…

Ciao!

Reba

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Tips on Finding Great Content for Your Blog

Making sure you have a constant flow of traffic to your blog is the only way to be successful at making money with it. And the only way to keep a constant flow of traffic is to provide the best and most interesting content you can for your readers.

It’s not an easy task to keep a constant flow on content going, even the most successful bloggers start to run out of their own original content. Some resort to scraping the bottom of the barrel to find things to discuss, but that will ultimately cause you to lose your readers, which means less money streaming in.

So, where do you find great ideas to post about?  Actually, there are many things to use to get your creative juices flowing. These techniques may seem simple, but they can be effective. Next time you feel like you have writer’s block, try some of these techniques to get unblocked:

Scour news sites – Search the news sites like CNN, MSNBC, and FOXNEWS to see if you can find a top story that you can blog about. Instead of just linking to the story, add your own commentary and opinions.

You can write about your own personal feelings toward the story or ask your readers what their thoughts are and ask them to comment on the post. Just make sure the story somehow relates to your blog’s topic and the niche you’re targeting.

Check other blogger’s sites and see what they’re blogging about – This is not an unethical practice as long as you’re not stealing content. It’s perfectly acceptable to see what your niche or community is talking about.

If you see a post that would be of interest to your readers, write about it adding your own ideas or give it a whole new spin. Other media, like TV news stations, magazines and newspapers always have an eye on the competition – and you should, too!

Internet research – Do a search on the Internet for your blog’s topic to see what information you can come up with. You may be inspired by something or it may make you think of something new to post about.

Google’s experimental search lets you search in different ways, including timeline, information lists, and mapping details.  This can give you more ideas than the traditional search route: http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html.

Check the video sites – YouTube.com has millions of videos that you can add to your blog.  See if you can find one that relates to your blog’s topic. Post the video to your blog and have your readers share their thoughts on it. I did this in my post, Goal Setting – Zig Zigler is a Legend, using one of Zig’s YouTube videos.

Consider doing reviews - Reviews can be a good filler to use while you try to get inspired again. Choose an article, website, a book or whatever you like that’s related to your niche and post a review. Add your affiliate link and make some money from your opinions. You’ll see me do this a lot on this blog for good internet marketing programs that I recommend.

Your daily activities – Think about what happened in your day that you might be able to write about.  If your blog is about flowers and you went for a walk and saw some flowers, use that as the basis for your post. Let your readers know what kinds of flowers are seen in your neighborhood and if possible, take some pictures to add to the post becasue visual stimulation enhances the reader’s experience.

I received an email from Yaro Starak once that talked about WordPress and I made a post out it, Don’t Be A Blogger Victim – Use WordPress. If you use someone else’s words in your post, be sure to link to their site and it’s always a good idea to give credit to your inspiration.

Blog Energizer – For those of you who were smart enough to read all the way to the end, I have a special treat. My friend, Lynn Chandler, has just launched a new website to help bloggers find things to write about. It’s called Blog Energizer. You can consider it your own personal blogging muse. Best of all, it’s free. Just go there and sign-up for access, once inside you’ll find some great stuff:

• Find out who’s looking to promote your blog or product, for free.
• Connect with people who want to blog for you for free.
• Meet bloggers who would love to feature your posts on their blog.
• Find interesting activity ideas you can do on your blog to bring in new readers, and bring back previous readers.
• Free goodies like reports, coupons, and audios that you can freely distribute to your readers at no cost to you.

Blog Energizer is going strong with over 1100 members. I will add, I noticed a lot of the postings requesting guests or offering guest blogging were bloggers from the Work At Home Mom community. Lynette markets to that niche, so of course the first to join her new site will be those followers. But if you’re not part of that community, don’t let that stop you from joining Blog Energizer. There’s a bunch of great info in the downloads Lynn offers and if you join and post a need for a guest blogger, I’m sure you will find some very capable bloggers who can write about just about any subject.  Just join and you’ll see. It’s free, so let this great community help you keep your blog interesting. Here’s the link:

Blog Energizer

These techniques will not only keep you and your readers up-to-date on what’s happening in your niche, but they will help you keep your blog interesting while you get back your inspiration. In fact, these techniques might just be THE way to keep your blog interesting just as long as you’re not regurgitating what other people are talking about but adding your own personal inspiration to the mix as well.

My next post will be about generating traffic for your money-making blog.

Cheers ~

Reba

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Blog Posting Tips For Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It’s been a while since I posted in my series about blogging for money, the holidays kind of got me sidetracked. But I’m back and want to finish up the series, there are just a few more posts after this one.

I have to be honest here, I don’t always follow the tips I’m going to provide in this post. I tend to write for my readers rather than for the search engines. That decision will be yours to make but my take is that if you write for your readers, the search engines will soon find you. That being said, if you want to blog for money, search engine optimization and following these tips will get you indexed and ranked much quicker.

When you researched your niche, if you were following the advice I gave in my post, Finding A Good Niche For Making Money Blogging, you probably did some keyword research. This research will now come into play. You will want to start by posting for your long tail (multiple word) phrases first.

Make each post include a single phrase only and use that keyword in the title of your post.

Example:

Let’s say your keyword is “red silk duvet cover”. In your post use that keyword phase along with “silk duvet cover” and “duvet cover”. This post will be about all three but specifically about the “red silk duvet cover”. Make the title of your post start with your longtail keyword phrase, so in this example, it will start with “red silk duvet cover”.

The next item you’ll need to pay attention to will be the title tag. If you followed my instructions in the Setting Up Your Blog Properly Series, it is set to use the title of the post in both your URL and as the title tag. That is the default when using the All-In-One-SEO plug-in.

The problem is that you have two parties you are trying to satisfy; your reader and the search engines. All-In-One-SEO will allow you to give each what they want.

Now if we go back to our example, let’s say your post title “Red Silk Duvet Cover For A Sensual Bed.” Both the reader and the search engines are satisfied as your keyword is the first thing in your title.

But…

If you had a title of “Five Things You Must Look For In A Red Silk Duvet Cover” you have a problem with the search engines. The keyword you want to rank for starts at word eight of the title and the search engines won’t put much weight on it in that position of the title.

However, if you want to get your post read, you must make it as compelling as possible and “Five Things You Must Look For In A Red Silk Duvet Cover” is as compelling as you can get.

The solution is to use the All in One SEO Pack. After you type your post, scroll down to the All-In-One-SEO on your posting page and add a new title -

Here you can change your title to “Red Silk Duvet Cover – 5 Things You Must Look For”.

Now the search engine has the keyword you want to rank for in the beginning and your reader will still have a compelling title that will lead them to read the article.

In testing on other blogs, I have moved a post from page 3 or 4 of Google to page 1 for a specific keyword just by changing the title tag, so this is an important component for search engine optimization. When blogging for money, traffic is essential and you will get more traffic the higher your post ranks in the search engines.

Finally, the order that you post will definitely make a difference in how fast your blog ranks.  It is much easier to rank for very long-tail keywords phrases such as those with four or more words than those that are only two word phrases.  Once you are ranking for those four words phrases, you will eventually start to rank for the primary keyword phrases that bring in even more traffic.

The next post in the ‘Blogging For Money’ series will be tips for finding and writing great content.

Ciao!

Reba

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Become A Blogger – Price Going Up From $27 to $47 Tomorrow

Okay, just one more post about Become A Blogger. It’s a great program put on by two very experienced internet marketing bloggers, what do you have to lose?

Well, if you wait until after 4 pm EST sharp, Thursday, December 11, you’ll lose $120. Yeah, the monthly price is going up $20 a month from $27 to $47 a month. The program lasts six months, so $20 X 6 months = $120!

Yes, the price is going to almost double. So if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s the time for action. I know you’ve been visiting the site, I can see the number of people who have clicked the link, now click the link and join. If you want to make money blogging, this is the program that will get you started.

Become A Blogger Premium Site

And if you’re still skeptical, you really don’t have anything to worry about. The purchase is made through ClickBank and they have a 100% 60-Day money-back guarantee, you don’t even have to notify Yaro and Gideon, just email ClickBank and they’ll make the refund. So, if you join and you aren’t happy any time in the first 60-days, you can get a full refund. I can tell you with confidence that Clickbank will give you your money back no matter what the website owner wants to do. I know because I’ve gotten refunds from Clickbank in the past.

But you won’t want a refund. Yaro says 600 people have already joined. That’s 600 people on the internet that will be ahead of you when you start your blog if you don’t sign-up. So ~ just do it.

Become A Blogger Premium Site

PS: Oh, and I almost forgot ~ the payments stop after 6 months, and then you will gain LIFETIME access to the members area including ALL future updates? Yeah, it’s a good deal and it’s less than $1 a day.

Become A Blogger Premium Site

ONE MORE UPDATE: I just clicked over to the sign-up page and Gideon was manning a chat window. I asked him about the level of the course, here’s what he said:

Cheers!

Reba

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Don’t Be A Blogger Victim – Use WordPress

A few weeks ago I posted an article in my Blogging For Money series called, A Guide To Choosing A Site For Your Money Making Blog. If you haven’t set up your blog yet, it is definitely worth your time to read that post before you make a decision you could possibly regret down the road.

The reason I’m posting this is because in my efforts to recommend Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s Become A Blogger, I got a lot of email from Yaro and Gideon about the their new product. In this morning’s email there was a story that explains why my advice on choosing a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain is the only way you should consider setting up your blog.

Here’s the story that Yaro Starak told in his email this morning:

Let me tell you a story about Steve. Steve is a niche blogger. He set up lots of little blogs on all kinds of topics (niches) aiming to make a few dollars from each blog by placing Google AdSense advertisements on them. Google pays you when someone clicks on the ads.

After a few months he did really well and built up his income. None of his blogs had a lot of traffic, but they got enough from search engines that each blog earned between $1 and $10 per day.

In total he earned over $2,000 per month from his blogs – not a bad effort.

One day he turned on his computer and all his blogs had gone. Disappeared. Vanished without a trace…

What happened?

He was using one Blogger.com account to manage his blogs and Blogger.com determined that what he was doing was violating their terms of service.

They thought all his blogs were what are called “splogs” or SPAM blogs.

Splogs are blogs set up to get traffic to other sites. They are usually automatically generated and the owners have no intention of producing a useful website – they just want to get traffic. They are the SPAM of the blogging world.

Steve contacted the support staff at Blogger.com to explain that his sites were not SPAM sites but it was difficult to convince them and he never got his blogs reactivated. Overnight he lost his regular $2,000 per month income in one hit.

Please, understand, this story is true. I had a blog on Blogger that was deactivated. It didn’t have any income stream, in fact, I didn’t even miss it when it was gone, however, it happened, Blogger just removed it. And the worst thing is that Steve’s and my blog had perfectly legitimate information but we were at Blogger’s mercy and there’s nothing we could do about it.

It’s an awful feeling of being out of control that I liken to getting laid off from a traditional job. It leaves you in a “fix” and there’s not a lot you can do about it but start over. Please do not put yourself in the that position and take Yaro and my advice, set-up your own domain with WordPress.ORG software.

If you need help setting up your own blog, you can view Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s fabulous video series about how to set-up a WordPress blog on your own domain. Here’s the link:

Become A Blogger

If you’re interested in taking your blogging to the next level, check out Yaro and Gideon’s Become A Blogger Premium Membership. Here’s the link:

Become A Blogger Premium Membership

Ciao!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 3

As stated in Part 1 & 2, after installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are 3 steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 3.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Setting up your theme

There are hundreds if not thousands of free themes and quite a few paid themes that you can use for your blog. The theme will control the look and feel of your blog.

You can find quite a few free themes at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes or just do a quick search on Google for WordPress themes.

To install a theme you first download it from the website where you found or purchased it, unzip it, and then FTP it up to wp-content/themes folder.

After logging-in to your blog click on the Design link. At the point an image of the theme you uploaded will be there for you choose. Just click on the image of the theme you uploaded.

Next you need to set the widgets. Widgets allow you to change your sidebar by clicking the ones you want.

Click the widgets and it will look like this.

This will allow you to activate and arrange your sidebar. This photo may look a bit different from your Widget page because I use the Revolution Theme and it has three sidebars, so I have an option for each sidebar. You will probably just have one.

You can use text widgets to add anything to your sidebar by just adding the code (like you get from MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog or HTML for ads or opt-in boxes). I have added Twitter Badges, links to Technorati, BlogCatalog, FeedShark and a tower of AdSense Ads.

Widgets are quite powerful in making it easy to get your blog to look the way you want without having to do any coding to the theme itself.

My next post in my Blogging For Money series will cover some quick tips for Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO.

Ciao!

Reba

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Become A Blogger Premium Site Is Now Open

Gosh, I feel like all I’ve done is promote products this week. I’m sorry for that but in my day job I’m an accountant and the first ten business days we close the books on the last month’s business. I’ve been so busy at work, I haven’t had time to make good posts, but there were some really good offers made available this week and I wanted to post about them.

So…

I got the notice today that Yaro and Gideon’s Become A Blogger Premium Site is now open for business. I hope I’m not too late in posting but I was at work when it opened.

This is a great new coaching program offered by Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. These two are considered two of the best in the blogging field and make tons of money with their blogs.

You can go to this link to check out the offer:

Become A Blogger Premium Site

If you really want to grow your business or make money blogging and are ready to move to the next level, you really should at least read what they have to offer.

Become A Blogger Premium Site

Yaro and Gideon seem to know the skill of how to simplify things that many consider complicated and they have put together an amazing online video course based on their very popular Become A Blogger video series.

Remember the fabulous free blogging tutorials I told you about the other day – (here’s the link)?

Well…they’ve already had close to 70,000 downloads of those videos helping people get started on the internet all over the world.

They tell me that inside their new program, you’ll discover (their words, not mine):

1. - Clever tricks for getting top search engine results for your blog posts…
2. - Exactly how to get images onto your blog in the right format, size and shape…
3. - Easy-to-follow instructions for getting streaming audio onto your blog…
4. - “Hold-you-by-the-hand” tutorials for producing professional quality videos and getting them onto your blog quick and easy, without any hassle…
5. - Powerful content creation techniques for attracting hordes of daily new traffic to your blog…
6. - Simple methods for driving multiple streams of highly qualified traffic to your blog…
7. - Step-by-step instructions for making a consistent income from your blog using all the latest social media strategies…
8. - And Much MUCH more…

Yaro and Gideon have been blogging for quite some time now, so they know what they’re talking about (and they make a lot of money doing it). Yes, Yaro, the “strategy brain” behind this new program, currently makes a six figure income just from blogging.

They didn’t offer me an inside preview of their new site but based on what I’ve seen him do over the last few years, I’m sure you can learn a few things from him.

As with most new programs when they are first launched, there is a tiny bit of time pressure…

That’s why I hope I got this out early enough. For only the first 24 hours, Yaro and Gideon are giving away two very POWERFUL bonus products.

One cuts your online video learning time in half, and the other could make you heaps of cash by following some simple advice from a prominent sales conversion expert.

You only have 24 hours to be eligible for these two bonus products – they will be available until December 5th at 4:00 p.m. EST. Once the time runs out, they’ll remove the bonuses and then you won’t be able to get them any longer… unless of course you want to pay for them.

However, if you happen to see this post after the bonuses are gone, that doesn’t mean you can’t get in, just follow the link.

Here’s the link again:

Become A Blogger Premium Site

Ciao!

Reba

PS: Don’t forget that you only have until 4pm, December 5 to grab the fast action bonuses. If you order after this time, I’m afraid you’ll miss out on these two powerful products.

PPS: Oh, and I almost forgot to let you know…

After exactly one week, the price of this new program increases dramatically. So if you’re the least bit interested, I suggest you make the most of this opportunity while you still can…

Become A Blogger Premium Site

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The Roadmap To Become A Blogger Review

UPDATE: Report is now live at The Roadmap To Become A Blogger - GO GET IT NOW!

You can tell Yaro and Gideon of Become A Blogger are not from the United States (they’re from Australia) because I got my pre-release copy of their new free report “The Roadmap To Become A Blogger” at 4:30 on Thanksgiving Day. Of course I was enjoying a day with my family while working on getting a Thanksgiving feast ready for the dinner table and didn’t even know I’d received it until I checked my email the next morning. And then, of course, I had to go shopping with my daughters, so it sat unopened in my email inbox until today.

Quite honestly, I really didn’t have much time to truly read it today either but I did take a quick scan of the 60 some-odd page document. And after spending that time I felt it was necessary to post my review.

NOTE: This report is not yet available – it will be made available on Monday, December 1st. I don’t know what time, but it is free and I will post the link on Monday as soon as I receive it.

I have to say, this report is socked full of information. Actually, it’s information that scares me a bit. Acording to Gideon, who I’m thinking is the person who wrote the report, the days of earning money online by using a traditional blog are gone. Yes, according to him, in order for a person to start a blog today and earn a living with a blog in the traditional manner, with text and words, is past.

In comes the new age of blogging that includes video, audio, images, and social media distribution. He talks about how in order to stand out from the ‘two new blogs that are started every three seconds’, you have to do something different. I have to admit, while reading the report I was starting to feel a little behind the times. However, he makes a great point. If ‘two new blogs are started every three seconds’, how are you supposed to get readers and subsequently buyers for the products you promote?

Well, as scary as the report was for me to read, it not only opened my eyes to the fact that I might need to move further into the future, but it also does a fantastic job of outlining how to get started down the road to making money blogging. The report has five milestones that a new blogger must work through before they are able to make money. Each milestone is explained clearly and realistically. Timeframes for accomplishment are discussed as well as what to do when your plan doesn’t work.

The report, in addition to being insightful, is the one report that comes closest to giving you everything you need to know to get started down the road to making money with blogging. Of course, they don’t tell you everything, it’s still a bit theoritical, the nitty gritty details will be saved for the membership site they’re building up to. For a free report, the amount of great information you receive is fantastic and if you’re a person wanting to make money blogging, taking the time to read this report may save you months of trial and error.

I’ll post the link as soon as it’s available or you can go to Become A Blogger and sign up for the early notification list that will give you access before everyone else.

Cheers!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 2

As stated in Part 1, after installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are 3 steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 2.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Changing Permalinks

The default setting in WordPress sets the URL of each blog post as Yourdomain.com/?p=123. If you allow your URLs to look like this, you are missing a chance to add your keywords into the URL. Having your keywords in your URL can help your post get ranked in the search engines much quicker. This can easily be corrected.

After you log-in to your blog, click on Settings – and then Permalinks. You will see the following:

Click Custom Structure and enter /%category%/%postname%

This will make the URLS for your blog posts appear in the following format:

“Yourdomain.com/category(your keyword)/postname

If you’re reading this post from its own page (not the home page or the blog page), you can look at the URL in your browser’s address field and see it’s formatted as described – http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/hot-topics/setting-up-your-blog-properly–part-2/

This is an important step to take in making sure your blog is set-up to be indexed by the search engines and listed with the proper keywords.

My next post will cover finding a quality theme and activating widgets on your blog.

Cheers!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 1

After installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are three steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 1.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Adding the proper plug-ins

The first thing in setting up your blog is to add the proper plug-ins. Plug-ins add to the operation of your blog and some adjust how your blog operates. The proper plug-ins can make a huge difference in how the search engines treat your blog. Other plug-ins make a big difference in how your posts are presented to your visitors.

There are literally thousands of plug-ins with more being added to the selection on a daily basis. You can find a directory of available plug-ins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and this link can also be found on the dashboard of your WordPress blog (the first page when you log-in to your blog).  The list below is what I am using at this time.

• Akismet – Is automatically installed with WordPress; helps prevent comment spam.
• All-In-One SEO Pack – adjusts your blog so it is search engine friendly.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a sitemap for your blog that is compliant with Google and others. Once your sitemap is created, you should submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.
• CommentLuv – Shows a link to the last post from the commenter’s blog in their comment. Helps promote comments.
• Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
• Subscribe To Comments – Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
• WP tags to Technorati – Automatically creates tags to link to Technorati for you
• Ultimate Google Analytics – Enables Google Analytics on your blog. Has an option to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.
• WordPress Duplicate Content Cure – A simple, yet effective SEO plug-in that prevents search engines from indexing WordPress pages that contain duplicate content, like archives and category pages.

Now there are plenty of others but those are the minimum I would recommend to make your blog work better and be more search engine friendly.

To install the plug-ins you will need to FTP them into the wp-content folder within your blog. Once uploaded, log-in to your blog, go to the Plug-In link in the upper right corner, then find the plug-in listed and click on the “Activate” link.

Tomorrow we’ll change the PermaLinks so they are search engine friendly.

Ciao!

Reba

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