You probably have heard and tried all the ways known to every blogger about how to increase blog traffic to your blog or website that you’d think this is just another one to add to your list. Of course not! If it is, I doubt, you’d continue reading it anyway. Time is too short for all the things we want accomplished on our blogs. I’m just introducing a very simple technique I learned that can get more traffic to your blog.
Featured Posts on your Blog
If you are familiar with my blog, you probably would have seen a ‘Featured Post’ I put up on this blog, something that looks like this:
Essentially what I’m doing is linking my work at home blog homepage with all these blog posts of mine but with a difference. On each of the 6 posts I selected a keyword phrase and all these anchor text links appear on all the 100′s of single posts on this blog. I then offer a short description of each post as the keyword phrase may not tell much. This technique works only on a WordPress Blog. That’s why having a WordPress blog continues to amaze me as I never stop finding new advantages I had not known before. So can you imagine the power this technique yields as your blog grows?
What’s the difference between Featured Posts and Popular Posts
My ‘Featured Posts‘ Section shows a short list of posts with just the keyword phrase and a brief summary. It is advisable to use posts that are different from Popular Posts. By doing so you actually present to your blog visitors more reading options and that helps to improve your page views and ultimately repeat visitors to your blog too.
Your ‘Popular Posts‘ show your entire post title that your blog visitors can go to and click the link to read your post if it interests him. It would be hard to expect someone typing a search term in the Search Engines like ” 200+ Passive Income Resources, Tips & Home Ideas” to land on your post. Well that’s where your ‘Featured Posts’ and how well researched your keyword phrases are that can make this possible. Also the fact that you have 100′s of posts with these keyword phrases definitely help in bringing these search engine hits to your blog.
The Key Benefits of Featured Posts on your Business Blog
- it can be used as part of your existing link building strategy to obtain faster results
- It increases your page views of your blog as it complements your ‘Popular Posts’ and ‘Must Read Posts’
- it helps to increase blog traffic to these specific pages, improved page rank on these pages and hopefully your SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
- Google bots loved it too…take a look at the screenshot below showing that one of my keyword phrases has been indexed.
How Featured Post Technique is helping this blog
Out of 6 featured posts which I’ve selected, 2 posts i.e. 2 keyword phrases I selected for this technique have achieved Google Top 10 (page 1 SERP).
My Final Thoughts
Personally I like this technique to increase blog traffic as it uses the linking and seo power of a WordPress blog which I’ve seen it work on many other experiments that I’ve done e.g. my How Blog Commenting Got Me 1200 Backlinks in 5 Days. A word of caution I can give is that achieving your result is a long term process so don’t expect to see immediate results once you’ve put up your Featured Posts. It’s not to be used to replace your link building strategy but to complement it and should be used concurrently if you wish to achieve your SEO top ranking results.
It also works better when your blog is not a new blog, has plenty of inbound links and you are constantly using deep linking on these featured posts. Here is a post I found titled “Get The Top Spot On Google” showing that this technique has been used by other bloggers to achieve some measure of success. Well get craking and start this easy technique to increase blog traffic.
Did you miss any of these?:
- Watch Me Get To Google Top 10 Ranking
- Blog Traffic- Top Tips To Increase Blog Traffic
- Here’s A Smarter Link Building Strategy To Get Top Search Engine Ranking
- Wanna Know What Google Sees In Your Blog’s Home Page?
- My Strategy To Increase My Google Adsense Revenue
February 6, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Yeah you probably an increase in number of pageviews on those articles. By the way, where do your traffic come from mostly?
Ben
Make Money Onlines last blog post..SEO Spams Warning Signs
February 6, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I like the featured post bit, I’m actually looking for a wordpress design that has the featured post on the template.
Featured posts do help with building links, more views and readership as well.
February 7, 2009 at 9:14 am
You can always add it manually if you really want.. Doesn’t take alot of effort!
February 7, 2009 at 9:39 am
@Pheak Tol: Pheak, Ben is right. You really can’t tell that I manually added it. And I don’t know if there is a WP plugin for this as I’ve not seen.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas
February 7, 2009 at 3:16 pm
=P
i think wordpress has spoiled me, and now i look for plugins haha
February 6, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Amazing tips. I’ve found that the best way to increase traffic to a blog is to do proper keyword research. The search engines will send a lot of traffic your way.
February 7, 2009 at 1:59 am
Hi Peter,
This seems a must try new technique to increse my traffic. I will implement this on my blog.
BTW, Did you know how much time can a link take to show in website-grader or Alexa?
February 7, 2009 at 9:12 am
Website grader update their stats more often than Alexa itself.. I always use that to check my current Alexa ranking!
Ben
February 7, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Hi Ben,
Thanks, in that case my Alexa its better than my Alexa bar it is showing me, Website Grader is telling me I have a Traffic Rank of 151,899 which it is better than 168,504 that Alexa is showing.
February 7, 2009 at 9:11 pm
@Make Money Online: You’re right about that. Alexa widget has been showing me the same stat for a longggggg time.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas
February 7, 2009 at 9:41 am
@Marketing Business Review: Yeah Luis, just give it a try and we can compare our results as we go along. After all, it doesn’t take much space on your blog right? You’re an action taker man.
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Peter
Passive Income Ideas
February 7, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Oh you bet Peter. My Website grade improve it from 77 to 86 in about 2 or 3 days that I started to apply some of the techniques you talked about in your 1200 backlinks post. Thanks, its really awesome.
Luis
February 7, 2009 at 10:05 am
@Marketing Business Review: Luis, At the moment, Website Grader has a problem and not showing the inbound links, which is the most important metric. In fact I just saw the message from this site that says: “We are temporarily not counting inbound links in the score. This is an important metric, and we are working on this issue. ”
I know it’s been a few days as I check everyday.
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Peter
Home Business Blog
February 7, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Yes I see it now Peter Thank you.
I got this message in Website Grader
“We are temporarily not counting inbound links in the score. This is an important metric, and we are working on this issue.”
So maybe in a few hours or days more I´ll be able to see how many inbounds I have for real.
Right now I have about 6 sites where I am in the TC, in most I am the First TC, but now I will look for more sites. I will use the list from Shanker to find more good sites to comment and read. I may end up learning a lot.
February 7, 2009 at 2:31 am
My blog has a built in ‘most popular’ and ‘most comments’ and where possible I also use links from within posts as I think that these links help to keep people on your blog and the longer they do that the more chance there is that they will find things that interest them.
Sires last blog post..Duncan And Norm’s Big Day Out
February 7, 2009 at 9:09 am
Hmm but Sire, have you noticed most comment or maybe most popular may not be the articles that you really want to feature?
Ben
February 7, 2009 at 9:44 am
@Sire: Yeah, unless you have it somewhere but I’ve not seen any part of your blog that showcase some favorite ones besides your most popular and most commented ones.
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Peter
Online Business Ideas
February 7, 2009 at 3:21 pm
@peter, i didnt notice it, you’re just too good!
@ben, i guess im just too spoiled! WordPress has all these plugins so I’m thinking “why not this?” haaha
Pheak Tols last blog post..Convert Keywords Into Money Making Links
February 7, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I usually use one bookmark category on my blogs as featured posts. That way I can just bookmark the post through WordPress and have it show up in my featured posts widget instantly. I also have less featured posts show on each page then I actually have bookmarked and have them show in random order. That way they don’t look like sidewide links which I have heard can diminish the value of each link.
Stephan Millers last blog post..Promoting Affiliate Products with Adwords on a Budget
February 8, 2009 at 12:49 am
I’ve never really thought of highlighting my favorites. After all, what may be my favorite, others may not find as appealing.
Sires last blog post..Duncan And Norm’s Big Day Out
February 8, 2009 at 11:01 am
Thanks Peter, I do a similar trick using keyword tag tracking for my blog. It allows me to link to similar posts that may interest my readers.
February 8, 2009 at 11:11 am
@Christopher Ross: Hi Chris, Thanks for dropping by and sharing your technique. What are some of the key benefits of this technique. Getting more organic traffic too?
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Peter
Work At Home Blog
February 8, 2009 at 11:19 am
Great stuff Peter. I’ve had featured posts planned ever since I started seeing how well popular post work.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Best Blog Review Winners!
February 9, 2009 at 6:36 pm
@Dennis Edell:Glad you like this Dennis. I’ve not seen it in our friends’ blogs though, but I’m sure there will be more soon.
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Peter
Work At Home Blog
February 8, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Hi Peter, that’s a great point. Definitely one of the things that I have to get down to doing soon… Have put in a lot of blood and sweat into a couple of posts and it’d be a waste if my new visitors don’t get to see them! *grin*
Asher Awesomes last blog post..Internet Marketing: Creating A Web Site That People Like
February 9, 2009 at 6:38 pm
@Asher Awesome: Exactly, but you should use the ‘Recommended Posts’ as well.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas and Opportunities
February 9, 2009 at 4:22 am
If you are getting results the technique is obviously working especially if you are getting top ten results. Its a good way of getting readers to visit older pages which are often forgotten about and keeping that part of your site visible. There is a random featured post plugin available wordpress.org/extend/plugins/random-featured-post-plugin/ (supported up to WP 2.5.1 and a featured post plugin impnerd.com/featured-posts not sure what version of WP its supported up to.
February 9, 2009 at 6:43 pm
@Khaled:I’ve not seen such plugin that allows you to select your own keywords. You may be refering to complete post urls which is slightly diferent.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas and Opportunities
February 9, 2009 at 5:13 pm
That is a very smart way of doing it and definitely something I will try to use in the future.
February 9, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@penguinbob seo blogger: Thanks for dropping by and your comment.
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Peter
Work At Home Blog
February 10, 2009 at 10:13 am
Thanks so much for the tips. I haven’t been paying much attention to my blog and don’t even know the difference between featured and popular posts and how it can be useful!
February 10, 2009 at 11:53 am
@Tony: Thanks for dropping by. Well hope you get some ideas from this post.
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Peter
Work At Home Ideas
February 10, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Nice work, Peter. I see that you are linking out everywhere on your blog to the point that you do so on your own comments each time with a different set of keywords.
Yan
Blogging Tipss last blog post..My First Valentine Love Letter
February 10, 2009 at 6:43 pm
@Blogging Tips: Thanks for the visit Yan. Yeah I do link out a lot but I’ve always linked out on my own comments from the beginning. That may be a little excessive huh. I forgot how much more comments I’m getting now.
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Peter
February 10, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Love your blog Peter…I linked to this post on http://www.pipsnews.com in my new post. Keep up the great work Peter and don’t forget me when you reach IM superstar status!
Doug
Doug Gormans last blog post..Home Business Tips, Traffic Strategies, Goodbye 2008, and a Bag of Chips
February 12, 2009 at 6:37 pm
@Doug Gorman: Hi Doug, I almost lost your comment. I found it in my spam folder. Thanks for including my post on you blog. Appreciate that. IM superstar? It’s probably gonna be a long wait. Are you a patient man Doug.
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Peter
February 16, 2009 at 11:33 am
Very nice tips to more traffic!
Shannon Lillys last blog post..Apple iPod Shuffle Contest Almost Over!!!
February 25, 2009 at 1:03 pm
I used something similar but as my blog specializes in webdesign, instead of featured I’am displaying latest works as an articles on the top of page.. But anyway I must agree, this method really works!
kernets last blog post..Quake Live open BETA!
March 1, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Thanks for the reminder. I need to do this. As I read your post I went to my site to see if it was a feature included with WordPress.
I realize now that all I have to do is make a different link category, good tip.
Ned Careys last blog post..Great Marketing With a Sense of Humor!
May 5, 2009 at 10:50 am
Very interesting post , not only it gives you some extra page views but some good google rankings , definitely will try this out
November 23, 2009 at 10:15 am
I'm going to try this out and see what I can come up with, thanks for the great idea.
February 23, 2010 at 2:37 pm
I try this tips and I'd already increase my traffic.
February 24, 2010 at 7:56 am
I think there is a wp plugin for it, just do a bit of search on it.
June 4, 2010 at 8:18 pm
You are right peter.Keeping a featured post widget encourage your blog visitors to spend more time in your blog.So everybody should keep their best posts there.
June 5, 2010 at 4:13 am
@Jonathon Trott: Absolutely Jonathon. Thanks for visiting. Much appreciated.
June 5, 2010 at 9:13 am
@Jonathon Trott: Absolutely Jonathon. Thanks for visiting. Much appreciated.
August 24, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Outstanding information. Gotta read it again and implement. Thanks for linking to other relative posts in the body of your message also. Great resource!
Blessings,
Ron
August 25, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@Teamcurtisfamily: Thanks Ron for the kind words and for your backlink purchase through my link. Appreciated.