When building incoming links to your site, it is important to remember that not all links are created equal. And the Google pagerank of the site linking to you is far from the only factor.
It is a well-known fact, for example, that links coming from blogs are especially helpful in improving your rankings. What most people don’t know is why exactly that is the case.
One must realize that one of the most powerful types of link exchanges known to man is a site-wide sidebar exchange between two blogs, also known as a blogroll exchange. Such an arrangement, in effect, creates the potential for each party to receive hundreds (or even thousands) of relevant backlinks. This is due to the fact that each and every page of Site A links to the homepage of Site B, and vice versa. As you can see, an exchange like this between two very large sites can be of great benefit to both of them.
Another much smaller scale type of blog link is a simple reference from another post. These usually aren’t part of a reciprocal agreement, and might at first glance, appear to be quite minor. In truth, however, these links carry a lot of weight, due to their high level of relevance.
I mean, think about it for a minute. Most bloggers won’t link to another post unless it’s clearly related to what they’re writing about. And links from highly relevant content-based pages are going to be valuable assets, regardless of pagerank, etc.
So, having read my overwhelmingly positive description of blog links, you may be anxious to get out there and acquire a few for a blog of your own. It’s important to realize, however, that in order to receive favorable results, you will need to have a good base of quality unique content.
My advice would be to continually write relevant and useful content, while submitting to RSS directories, etc. If people read your material and find it useful, some of them will likely link to it, and that’s where the fun begins.
As you publish more content and get more links, you will eventually become a trusted source within your industry. At that point, you should start contacting the owners of related sites, and politely asking for blogroll exchanges. As you amass such exchanges, you will notice your search engine ranking (and traffic) slowly but steadily move upwards, to previously unattainable levels.
Just remember the basic theory behind it though. Quality content comes first, then links will begin to form naturally. For those who have knowledge, and are willing to work to articulate it, blogs are perhaps the easiest medium to express ideas, and attain backlinks.
Read: SEO tips for blogs 13 comment
It’s the dream of every blogger to get a lot of traffic, but something first time bloggers often don’t realize is that just publishing a few posts will not get them regular readers. I am no expert in getting traffic, but I have been working on a few things which has increased my traffic a lot.
When I first started this blog I used to get only about 10-20 visitors a day. After the first few months, I started getting traffic from Google and other search engines and my unique visitors increased to about 100 a day. Now for the past few weeks I have been getting about 550 visitors a day.
The sudden increase in traffic I had from about 100-500 visitors was mainly because my recent posts were linked back from many sites. So yes, linking can get you traffic depending on which sites link to you. Links can be thought of as the currency of blogs.
I received a lot of emails (even while writing this) from bloggers asking how they can get more traffic, I hope this helps…
Blog Design
A good design won’t bring you traffic but it will get your visitors to stay longer. No one will stay on your blog too long if the layout or navigation annoys them. So the first thing to do is to select a good theme for your blog and then design your own header. The goal is to have a unique blog that stands out from all other blogs (making your visitors want to come back again and again).
Often bloggers select a theme and forget about the design. The problem here is that your blog will look similar to hundreds of blogs that use the same theme.
Your design should allow your visitors to access the main pages of your blog and to contact you easily. Your blog should have an about page and an author photo. The more a reader knows about you, the more they trust your content. You can find more info on this on my recent post - Common Weblogging Mistakes.
Quality Content
Your blog should have good content inorder to keep your visitors coming back. By good content I mean well written posts that are unique and useful at the same time. Writing original content is definitely the key.
Do not copy-paste contents directly from other blogs to your blog. Re-blogging is a bad thing and will kill your traffic. The solution here is to write that content in your own words adding your own unique ideas to it. And don’t forget to link to the original post.
The more engaged you are with your content, the more interesting it will be.
Get Links
The more links you have the more traffic you get. Like I said before links are the currency of blogs. So how do you go about getting links to your blog?
Well written posts are often linked back by many sites. You are lucky if you get linked by heavily trafficked sites.
Another way is to get links from other bloggers. Link to their blogs and ask them politely to do the same for you. Also visit the ‘links’ section of a blog (if they have one) and check for a link exchange form. If there is, submit your blog after linking to theirs.
You may also take part in other link exchanging programs.
Join Conversations
Most of my first visitors came to my blog because I left a comment on theirs. When you comment on a blog leave your blog address. Often people like to know who is reading their blog and will come visiting you.Readers of that blog will also pay a visit to your blog.But do not comment just for the sake of it. Make genuine comments that relate with the post. In the process you will not only get visitors to your blog but might also make friends.
Take part in Blog Top Sites
Submitting your blog to Blog Top Sites like topblogsites.net, blogtopsites.com and top100bloggers.com is another way to get more traffic. These networks make your blog easier to find and search for as well. After you sign up for an account on their website, you just need to copy a bit of code and paste it somewhere on your blog.
You can also take part in blog traffic exchange communities like BlogExplosion and BlogClicker.
To join these blog traffic exchange communities - visit the site, sign up, confirm your account, add your blog to the member directory and then start visiting other member’s blogs.
Basically, you need to earn ‘credits’ in order to get blog traffic exposure. These credits are often gained by visiting other member’s blogs. When you have enough credits, your blog becomes eligible for promotion. Usually, a link or graphic to your blog will be shown on the main site or in fellow member’s blogs. This is how other people find your blog.
Of course, the more members there are in the community, the more potential visitors. So, if you are part of a blog traffic community, it’s good to promote the communities you belong to as well. Besides, when you promote the community through a referral system, you get more credits too.
Tag Technorati
Technorati is one of the best traffic providers for bloggers. People find your blogs easily when people search by technorati tags. Technorati will rank your blog based on the number of links from other websites.The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things.
If you do not have a Technorati account, signup here. After you have setup the main settings, such as your profile, you need to claim your blog.
Make good use of Technorati tags by tagging every keyword in each of your posts. If you use WordPress, I recommend Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) which makes tagging Technorati a lot easier.
By tagging your post effectively you will get a lot of quality traffic to your blog.
Read: SEO tips for blogs 0 comment
Follow these simple rules for search engine optimization and your blog will rank much higher in Search Engines.
Use your primary keyword in your blog domain
The first thing to do is to ensure that your blogs URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for. Using the targeted keyword in subdomains also helps.
For example, if you want to start a HTML tutorial site then the primary keyword you want your URL to contain is html. So choose a URL like www.htmlhelp.com.
You can also use the keyword in http://webmaster-vn.com
Use your primary keyphrase in the title of your posts
If your primary key phrase is html help make sure that the word html and help appear in your blog headers such as H1 and H2 tags as well as the title of each of your posts.
Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post
If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post. The theory is that the more times a keyword appears within a Webpage, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords.
But do not overdo this by repeating the same keywords over and over again. Google bots can find out if a keyword is too frequent on a page and might just remove your site from their index.
Use your keywords in the anchor text of links
Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages of your blog. Keyword in links have more importance than simple text.
Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily
Make sure your navigation bar is present on all pages of your blog. Your previous posts or atleast the popular ones should be linked to all pages so they get spidered easily.
Get backlinks from other blogs
You need as many links as possible to link back to your posts or blog because it will help you build pagerank and get your blog to rank higher in search engines. The more links you have the higher your blog is ranked in Technorati helping your blog to be found easily.
So how do you get backlinks?
The first thing to do to get high-quality links is to submit your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories.
Start by submitting your blog to all the directories listed on this page:
http://freesitetemplates.info/directories/list-free-directory-update-per-day-submit-here-t146.html
http://mm99.info
Link exchanging with other similarly-themed blogs will help you to form richly interlinked networks or communities.
If you find an interesting article on another blog, link to it generously. The trackback will become a link back to your blog.
Lastly posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs will help you get backlinks. Regularly post legitimate comments in similarly-themed blogs with high traffic to get many backlinks.
Update your blog frequently
Update your blog frequently using all the rules mentioned above and your blog will surely get top rankings in a short time.
Stick with your blog
Once you start posting on your blog, stick with the same domain or you could end up losing a lot of your traffic and regular readers.
Also stick with the topic you selected for your blog. If it’s about pets don’t suddenly switch to another topic such as Gadget’s because you will loose traffic.
Read: SEO tips for blogs 19 comment