There are two main ingredients for attracting attention to what you are writing on your home business blog and they are: good content and blog marketing. Focus on them and you will build key foundation elements for blogging success.
Search engines like Google reward sites that publish valuable content on a consistent basis. Blogs, by their nature, do this (assuming motivated bloggers are running them) and so rise high in search engine rankings – Yaro
First thing first: Focus On Your Blog Contents
Write good content
You’ve probably heard this over and over again “Content is King” haven’t you? But what exactly is good content. I like to think that it is when I write a post that leaves my readers satisfied, enjoyed it and were able to enhance their online business opportunities in one way or another.
Write Pillar Posts
I know that the expert bloggers we have come to know like Yaro, Darren Rowse write many such pillar posts and they highly recommend us doing so if we want to emulate their successes. But what makes a pillar post? Essentially it’s a blog post that focuses on specific objectives like getting more backlinks, new readers just to name a few. Well success breeds more success and these bloggers can now tell you they are seeing much more traffic from the search engines due to the massive backlinks generated. For most of us, we may not become the next Yaro and we really don’t know other contributing factors leading to such successes, but I have to agree that writing some pillar posts often is a good thing for your blog. Most “How To” Articles and my 5-part link building strategy blog series are considered pillar posts.
How To Market Your Blog
Now that you have got good contents on your home business blog, it really is useless if no one sees it. You now got to promote it for all to see. The following are some of the tactics that every blogger should use:
- Blog Commenting: Certainly one of the easiest to do. All you have to do is visit all your favorite blogs and leave your quality comments and bam! you’re done. Well not quite I’m afraid. It probably takes a lot more effort and time to get this done if you’re really serious about your objective which is to get you massive quality targeted traffic. The correct approach is to use comments as a communication channel. Here’s when you spend more time on each comment you make and add significant value to the conversation. Another reason why you should be doing this is to build strong relationships with these bloggers, preferably with high profile blogs of similar niche.
- Give A Free Report: This seems to be a much popular tactic among many bloggers I’ve seen. You may not necessarily achieve the desired results, but should you manage to get it right a lot of people may just link to your blog to recommend your report, driving a crazy amount of traffic and new readers. That’s when the acid test comes in to see if your blog is good enough to get repeat visitors or is it going to be ‘Tomorrow Never Comes’. A few bloggers who practice this is Caroline Middlebrook and her Blogger’s Bible and John Cow’s Make Money Blogging just to name a couple.
- Forum Marketing: It’s one of the best methods of driving real targeted traffic to your blog. If you’ve missed the post I wrote on 7 Interesting Facts That You Must Know About Forum Marketing, here it is again.
- Trackback Marketing: Here is one area I’ve tried sometime ago but due to pure laziness have not been consistent at it. Trackbacks are placed at the comment area after each post and it’s a good tactic to search for a popular post and be one of the first to trackback. Here is a post I came across showing the correct way to do trackback.
- Customize your Blog Design: Branding your blog goes a long way to make your blog unique and a big step towards your blog marketing efforts. However cost is a stumbling block and many bloggers including yours truly often settle for second best which is buy a premium blog. I got mine from Woo Themes and it’s money well spent.
- Build your online network: Start building a strong online business network of friends, bloggers, partners throughout the blogosphere. Be a Top Commentator in all of these priority blogs and maintain good communication channels with them, including offline if possible. Join social networking sites like MyBlogLog, Twitter and Facebook and leverage them to promote your blog.
Take Small Steps First
The reality is that it’s going to take you some time before you become the next Darren Rowse or John Chow so you should start to take baby steps first before thinking of making your giant leaps. If you constantly and consistently promote your blog, at some point in time, something big should happen. Perhaps a big site, a popular magazine will link to you or you may be invited to be interviewed by a top journalist. But a point to remember is this: Things don’t always happen on their own, you’ve got to make it happen.
Content + Marketing = Traffic
If you consistently write good content posts on your blog and promote it aggressively with blog marketing to reach out to new readers and subscribers, traffic will come. Don’t lose interest or your passion about your blog and what you believe in. It’s just a matter of time before your blog takes shape, start to make money blogging and your traffic starts to build using these tactics. Yes, even if it’s a stream now it will eventually become a river.
Grab The Bookmarketer For Your Site
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December 25, 2008 at 11:14 am
Great post here and some really good tips. The idea of having good content is the kicker because without good content you really won’t have readers hooked on so yeah. You nailed it right on the head. Good job!
Enkay Blogs last blog post..Still Looking For Tips
December 25, 2008 at 11:44 am
Enkay Blog: Thanks for dropping by. I guess having good content is really the baseline for all blog posts. No shortcut.
-Peter
Work At Home Ideas
December 26, 2008 at 3:16 am
Content is more important than traffic and that should be the key focus for any site owner. Most times good content will create its own natural traffic. Generating traffic without useful content is a waste of time as it will just increase your bounce rate. Ok, I am stating the obvious but it is a problem that many sites don’t take into consideration when they start link/traffic building campaigns.
I found this site by a link or comment that you posted somewhere, visited and found the content useful, then subscribed and have continued to visit! Shoot, I even spent about an hour on the site when I first found it. This post is really right on, as the it applies to myself as a visitor.
I have a question. When your are link/traffic building on blog comments and forums do you try to build links to your site in general or to specific posts? Have you seen more success with either strategy?
December 26, 2008 at 3:50 am
@Netbook Insider Forum: Thanks for dropping in and that’s a great comment from my valued subscriber. When you leave comments on blog, you should link back to both your homepage as well as your inside pages (but more on your homepage). But I always make it a point when I reply comments such as this, to link back to my own site or blog, using my keywords I’m ranking. That’s supposed to be a good linking strategy. For forums, I rely on the forum signature and I’ve got many backlinks from my favorite Warrior Forum as I’ve got 380 posts there.My link building uses other efforts too besides these but I’ve seen my SERP getting better. Both my main KW work at home ideas and work from home ideas are on page 1.
-Peter
Work At Home Ideas
December 26, 2008 at 5:18 am
Great Stuff!Looking forward to a very virtual and automated 2009.
December 26, 2008 at 5:24 am
I liked your newest form of opinion about the Blog Marketing.Thanks.
December 26, 2008 at 7:09 am
I like your theme.
I think the blog commenting is one of the best ideas on here. The only thing is that it does take quite a bit of time to write meaningful comments on many blog. I think it’s time well spent but that’s the key is you have to have the time or make the time to do it.
Gerald Weber SEM Groups last blog post..Gerald Weber Dancing with the Elves
December 26, 2008 at 8:59 am
Gerald Weber SEM Group: I agree with you Gerald blog commenting does take time especially so for us bloggers who leave relevant and meaningful comments. But if you think of how your comment may help someone enhance his business or change his mindset, you may even be happy you did make this extra effort.
-Peter
Work At Home Ideas and Opportunities
December 26, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Content is the key to a successful blog! Even a blog with no traffic will gain traffic from the search engines as the content rises!
Tara @ Affiliate Marketing Prodigys last blog post..3 Bloggers who Inspire Me To Keep Moving
December 27, 2008 at 7:09 am
Peter,
You have given me some great ideas. I am setting some big goals for 2009 and these are great pointers to help to achieve them.
Alan Thomass last blog post..How To Go About Writing Effective Press Releases
December 27, 2008 at 10:23 am
@Tara @ Affiliate Marketing Prodigy: You’re right Tara. somehow the search engines have a way of repaying good content with more traffic it seems. Good to see you here.
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@Alan Thomas: I’m glad I could give you some tips. I remember reading about your goals post on your blog. Thanks for dropping by.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas
December 27, 2008 at 10:30 am
@Jack Lee: )Thanks for dropping by. Tried to visit your blog but
@Andrew Jacob )couldn’t find any. Hope to see you around here again.
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Peter
Work From Home Ideas
December 27, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I agree totally about “baby steps”, and how a site grows slowly and steadily as you consistently promote it. I once read about a (theoretical, I think) ion-drive engine that only outputs a force equal to the weight of a single sheet of paper resting on your hand, but the theory was that because of its efficiency, it would be the ideal engine to power inter-galactic space exploration because over time that small force would eventually propel the vessel to great speeds.
Hopefully it doesn’t take hundreds of years for our blogs to benefit from our promotional activities though!
Rodney@Blogging with WordPresss last blog post..WordPress.com versus WordPress.org
December 27, 2008 at 7:08 pm
The most important thing of all has to be your content because it doesn’t really matter how you drive the traffic to your blog, if your content isn’t what it should be then it has all been a waste of time.
Sires last blog post..Blog No Evil,The Fourth Wise Monkey
December 27, 2008 at 8:28 pm
@Rodney@Blogging with WordPress: Hi Rodney, nice analogy. I guess too many people are unrealistic in seeing results, too fast too soon. Building a business is hard work and takes time.
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@Sire:Yup! everything that comes out right seems to relate to how good your content is. You might as well get that done as your top priority. Good to see you here.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas
January 5, 2009 at 11:33 pm
This is great article.. One of the best way to get higher traffic is the content of blogs.. Thanks for sharing information.
January 6, 2009 at 12:05 am
@ renantech: Thanks for dropping by and I believe I’ve not seen you around here so welcome to this blog and to the community. Glad you like it. Hope to see you here again.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas