Digital Prank

What is the best way to get traffic to a blog or website which promotes a product is the biggest challenge in recent times and one can find people asking this questions in forums, social networking sites, blogging communities etc. Is there any shortcut really exists? Will SEO experts can really render a helping hand? There are lot of materials available in the Internet and every blogger has penned down their principles and opinions but still the techniques and strategies are not working for few why? I am penning down this article to share the knowledge and ideas towards this niche topic.

It has become extremely difficult nowadays for new bloggers to get listed and even a getting a page rank. The main reason is most of professional bloggers around are able to produce more blog posts everyday and Google will give more priority to those blogs with higher page ranks by listing them fast. The assistance a new blogger getting from the experience bloggers around is very less and rare and I can see people quit soon. Most of the strategies I am gonna list down here are nothing but the basics. Lot of bloggers are hesitant to use the slow but powerful basics looking for some fast and effective ways. In the year 2009 will millions of blogs around it has become more essentials to know few things and re-iterate them to become a successful blogger especially for beginners.

Content is King:

This sounds pretty old but it is the Mantra for any successful blog or blogger. Never write contents just to earn money and don’t write posts or articles just for Google. Read the blogging tips for beginners from Problogger. Try to post interesting and informative articles. Try to be controversial when you are writing current affairs and try to be more meaningful when you do that. If you have really good writing skills then you can write about current affairs and hot topics which can bring you really good traffic. Check out Google trends to keep track of the hot topics. Try to write quality content and optimise your post or article for SEO optmisation.

Try to avoid the following mistakes while writing content for your site or blog.

• Do not use stuffed keywords in your post in the name of Search Engine Optimization. Never write articles just for keywords.
• Do not follow black hat SEO techniques like hidden text, link selling, door way pages, tag stuffing etc.
• Avoid writing duplicates or never involved in copying things from other blogs or sites.
• Never buy PLR articles because you will end up with using duplicate contents and Google will penalize you for that.
• Do not stuff your page with lot of ads. It will irritate your readers and you may not get repeated readers or customers.

Guys who write blogs just for earning money will never succeed. Keep that in mind. Keep writing articles and always keep the contents fresh without duplicates to keep hold of your readers or customers. Please see the blogging tips from Problogger.net interviewed from Jeremy from Shoemoney, Steve Pavlina and Andy Wibbels.

See the rest of Problogger videos at Viddler.

Search Engine Optimization:

Organic traffic (Traffic from search engines) is the best way of brining targeted traffic to blogs and sites. Better conversion can be obtained only through organic traffic. It is mandatory these days to learn the basics of HTML and PHP or whatever language the page was developed to take care of SEO to keep one in the race and be competitive. Try to read and learn the SEO guidelines by Google to know more about SEO. If you cannot learn and do the SEO then try to seek the help from a SEO expert.

There are few SEO guidelines and tutorials written by some experts which you can refer them. I will list down few tutorials below which can help you.

• Latest information and tips and tricks from Google Webmaster central.
• Beginners guide to Search Engine Optimization from SEOMoz.
• Beginners checklist for learning SEO.
• SEO Podcasts
• SEO mistakes by beginners.

Also beginners need to ensure that they should not commit any SEO crimes by following blackhat techniques. I will list down some SEO mistakes which can be fatal to any blog or site.

• Never involve in link farming and Link exchange techniques.
• Please don’t buy links and over a period of time the site which sells links will be penalized along with yours. Having affiliation with sites may affect you. It is better to stay away from these techniques.
• Don’t over stuff keywords. As I already said, keywords are so important for your posts and articles including title but still it is considered as a black hat SEO technique.
• Not following Google Webmaster Guidelines and SEO guidelines.
• Bad design of site and navigation can also affect your rankings considerably.
• Never believe in people and waste money who sell products which will help you to make six figure income and build 1000s of backlinks within few minutes.

One should know things cannot be changed overnight and keep working and never hesitate to experiment things.

Good Website Design or Blog Design:

Website design or Blog design with better navigation holds the key for better SEO and good traffic. How ? A good blog with better navigation will attract readers to come back and a better logo for your site will help you to create a brand of yourselves. A good web design with quality content will build trust among your readers. A good blog design will be handful in optimizing your site for ads and a scalable design will be helpful for the growing number of readers and customers. Please do look at some design tips listed below,

• Use catchy logos and captions which will help you to build brands.
• Keep your navigation of your site simple and include a site map for your site.
• Create a design that looks simple and great.
• Do not fill your pages with ads and advertisement.
• Try to avoid the following design mistakes listed by DailyBloggingTips.

Link Building and Social Networking:

A nice blog with nice articles optimized for SEO will not bring in traffic immediately. Spreading the word is so important either by word of mouth or by mailing it to your friends but it is not enough to become a successful blog. One needs to participate in famous social networking sites and niche forums to popularize your blog by driving more traffic and build readership at the same time. There are few social networking and Web 2.0 blogging community sites that a new blogger must participate to driven in more traffic.

There are few social networking sites which are really wonderful and bring in real good traffic if you stay good. See the list of social networking sites by Mashable and the Top 10 social networking sites list which can make wonders. Also participating in blogger networks is so important to get the attention of bloggers who may link to you which may increase your backlinks. Please find the list of Blogging communities and Blogger forums which can generate traffic and will also help you to build network.

Social networking can help you get backlinks, traffic and ofcourse make your blog popular. What else you can do to build some backlinks and make your presence online?

• Submit quality articles to Article directories. Don’t submit your articles to all the article directories. Submit it to the best with higher Pagerank and Alexa rank. Please find the list of article directories.
• Submit your blogs to good and high rank blog directories likes DMOZ, Yahoo directory etc. You will find good result when you submit it to directories with higher page rank.
• When you own a marketing blog or website has got enough quality content you can go for Press Release.
• Be loyal and try to give nice comments on other blogs. Don’t spam them.
• Include signatures in your email and in blogger forums.
• Do guest blogging. Guest blogging is not so easy and you need to prove yourselves by writing high quality articles to get the opportunity.
• Answer people’s queries in Yahoo Answers, Google Answers (retired now and hope to get up soon), and ofcourse in forums like Sitepoint, digitalpoint forums etc where you include your URL as signature.
• If you are good at something, try to create a video tutorial and post it in youtube linking to your site or blog.

Try something different:

Getting loyal readers and making people to come back is not so easy. You need to work hard for that. What you can do to make people come back to your site and read your contents regularly.

• Create RSS feeds and give subscription options by registering yourselves with feedblitz and feedburner.
• If you are a geek, try to create themes, plugins, site templates, small utilities and give your readers for free. Free giveaways will bring handful traffic.
• Don’t go and publicize your blog if you don’t have enough quality contents.
• Try to conduct a poll on latest, hot and controversial topics.
• Keep giving your readers fresh content.

Hope it helps the beginners to become a successful blogger. Keep watching read more articles on SEO, Blogging, Make money online, etc..