Work From Home

Archive for the ‘Get Traffic’ Category

I recently came across a new site which I think will prove to be not only a great way to build the readership of your blog(s) but also allows you to explore other blogs in your chosen field(s)

BloggrZ.com is sort of a mix between Stumble upon and Digg etc. By installing a toolbar you can quickly and easily explore blogs based on your preferences as well has having your blog explored. You can submit blogs which will in turn show up in both the toolbar and on the main page where they can be voted on.

Taken from the Bloggrz.com about page:

BloggrZ.com allows you to submit blogs that will be reviewed by all through BloggrZ Toolbar and BloggrZ.com website and will be promoted, based on popularity, to the main page of BloggrZ.com. Anyone can submit a blog. The blog will then be shown through toolbar and will also be available on BloggrZ.com website for votes and comments. When a user submits a blog it will be placed in the “Recently Submitted” area until it gains sufficient votes to be promoted to the main page.

Through the use of BloggrZ Toolbar, bloggers get to explore other blogs, get their own blogs explored and increase readership. Blog-explorers, on the other hand, get to view the online world through bloggers’ eyes. The toolbar remembers the preferences set by a user and shows blogs based on those interests. Preferences can be updated any time.

When you love blogs so much, why stumble all over the web? There is a better way to easily discover great blogs and let your blog get discovered. All based on your preferences. Get your BloggrZ Toolbar today! BloggrZ.com always keeps you within the blogosphere.

Take a look today and and get your blog off on the right for in the new year: Bloggrz.com

For previous parts:

Setting Up Your Work From Home Blog - Part 1
Setting Up Your Work From Home Blog - Part 2

Getting Traffic To Your Blog

Now that you’ve set up your blog, got it looking the way you want and added a few posts  comes the most important part - Getting people to come and look at it.

All too often it seems that it’s at this point people give up on setting up their own work from home blogs (or other niche sites/blogs) as they feel they’ve put in all this work and have received no reward for it.

One of the very first and most important things to remember is that it takes time - much like setting up an offline business would, you can’t expect to open the doors one day and earn enough customers to retire the next. Instead you need to take the time to provide people with what they want (good content) get some publicity (inward links) and take the time to show others you’re not a fly by night business - open one day and having a closing down sale the next (age of blog, page rank etc) there are a variety of ways to do this and I have written several articles and posts  on it (some you can find within this blog)

But here’s a few things you can try.

Write and submit articles to as many of the free article directories as you can (NZPCS members will have received as part of their free downloads an article submitter and rss announcer program)

Submit your site to the major search engines - and rss directories.

Use social networking - Social Networking and Bookmarking 

Take the time to visit and join related forums (for eg - for mums that work from home join my work from home mums forum and add your link to your signature)

Visit related blogs and if you have relevant information to add take the time to leave a comment.

Update your blog on a regular basis - if people (and search engines) can see you taking the time to update with good keyword related content they will come and keep coming back for more.

Be patient - you may not get traffic overnight but it will happen and what starts as a trickle will eventually build to regular traffic everyday.

Getting involved in either social networking or bookmarking is all the rage at the moment (along with other web 2.0 platforms) and more and more online business owners, affiliate marketers and those just wanting to meet and share with others all over the world are getting involved.

And it seems that not only are more people joining, digging, stumbling etc but with each passing day a new network or bookmarking service pops up online. Some are niche/topic specific while others cater to everyone and every subject. The key at least in my opinion, especially when it comes to the social networking side of things is to not spread yourself too thin -by all means join a few but don’t become a part of so many that you can’t appreciate and get the benefits out of them.

What is Social Networking?

For me, in a nutshell, social networking is where you’re joining sites and communties of like minded people where you can share, discuss, debate etc your field of expertise: whether that’s adding your blog to a community, promoting an affiliate site or just chatting with others to answer questions and offer advice etc. As I mentioned above there’s hundreds of these sites around and while many work along the same guidelines, some offer little differences; be it they offer some sort of monetary reward or different ways to promote your site or blog etc

Some of the top social sites (again in my opinion and I’m sure others will vary) are:

MyBlogLog - there’s a link to this in my sidebar (you can, if you’re interested, join my community from there)

BlogCatalog

Apsense - a business social network

BUMPzee

Facebook

Twitter

Friends Win

MySpace

myLot

I know there’s a whole lot more, but they’re probably some of the more well known ones and are all easy to join and use for those just starting out.

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking in a nutshell is a way for people to share their favourite sites, articles, posts etc with others throughout the online world - whether it’s with friends in their community or through random clicks etc. Again there’s literally thousands of these sites around and while you don’t need to be as involved with these as you do with the social networks they can be a great way to get involved with others.

StumbleUpon - my favourite - I’ve stumbled across some really cool websites just by clicking a button

Digg

Technorati - also a link to this in my sidebar - Technorati is a bit of a mix of things but I highly recommend you sign your blog(s) up there

Bluedot

There are also sites like OnlyWire and Social Poster - where rather than having to submit one article etc to several different bookmarking sites they will do around 20 of the more popular ones for you in one go (can save a lot of time)

Those are just some of the social networking and bookmarking sites available as I said there are hundreds more but it’s up to each individual to decide what works best for them and how much time and effort they are prepared to put in to maintaining them etc. As with all things, don’t go overboard and spam or do other things that are only going to end up getting you banned or giving you or your site a bad name etc. Just make sure you have some fun - with the networking sites they are a great way to meet and interact with others.

If you’re looking for a free way to get some targeted traffic to your blog then you might want to try Blog Rush.

John Reese has released a new widget for your blog that could send your traffic through the roof.

Simply put by signing up for free you’re given a piece of code to place in your blog, this widget shows links to five other category related blogs, everytime the widget shows up on a page in your blog - your blog link will show up in someone elses.
There’s a good video that shows you how it works along with how it works which you can see here, along with videos that show you how to set it up on a variety of blog platforms should you need them.

It’s well worth taking a look and watching the video to see how it could help you build your traffic.

Blogrush

When it comes to creating niche sites or blogs or marketing in general no doubt you’ve heard all there is to hear about keyword optimisation - with often contradictory opinions. While most keyword techniques are pretty standard each individual will often have their own personal preference on what tool they use and how they narrow their key phrases down to fit their chosen market etc.

For some they like to keep track of who is visiting their site and what keyword or phrases brought them there (a majority of site counters or webhosting admin panels etc will let you know where they came from - search engine etc and what they typed in to find your site) others prefer to pick a phrase and then find out how many are searching for that particular phrase via a tracking tool of some form or another.

A couple of good keyword research tools that you may find hand are the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion and here’s a great in-depth video guide on how to use it SEO Book Keyword Research Tutorial

Others might use the free keyword suggestion tool from wordtracker

Here’s a basic video guide to using wordtracker

For many people getting there first blog up and running is a great experience - that can quickly turn sour if you don’t have anyone visiting it. While there are many things you can do when it comes to optimising your blog for the search engines that’s only a fairly small part when it comes to getting the initial visitors and search engine spiders to your blog in the first place.

I’ve created a page on getting your first blog noticed and while it mentions many of the free tools provided to members of the NZPCS program it also covers some other tips you may find useful. Read more here