Blog To Great

Links Are Great for Traffic, But Avoid These Mistakes

BLOG TIPS- We agree that linking with other bloggers is an effective way to gain blog traffic and readership but gain your links properly.  Read our list of tips below (and comment to add your advice) to avoid link problems-

1. Avoid unnatural links for your blog.  Years ago it was acceptable to link to, get links from any source.  This is now longer the case as Google and others weigh the appropriateness of your blog's links. Nowadays,  bad or inappropriate link can do more harm and in fact, lower your page ranks.  Stick with reliable blogs and sites that are in or related to your blog's niche.

2. Basic reciprocal links aren't effective.  Usually, obvious reciprocal from links.php pages or similar reciprocal scripts don't work, so save your time and efforts and don't try.  You could end up with some link partners, but the ones you'd get you should avoid anyway!

Total SEO Efforts Matter

BLOG TIPS - Too often webmasters and bloggers depend too heavily on their content and neglect the importance of promoting it, believing that "Content is King".  Well, we do believe that, but know that all Kings have workers to help run the kingdom.  By now you likely realize that even with a wonderfully written and regularly updated blog, you won't gather many links to your posts if websurfers don't know your blog exists.  Competition is fierce and good blog content is plentiful.

One of the keys to getting good page ranks on search engine listings is with correct BALANCE. Good blogs need to strike a balance between links and keyword optimization to gain a better likelihood at improving your blog’s search engine rankings. Why?  Well, an appropriate balance is effective as it makes it easier for search engines to track, index and classify your content in search results.

Since you're likely looking for more readers and want your blog at the top of search engine results, it will be worth the effort to follow these tips to build good links more effectively:

TWITTER Tips for Increasing Blog Readership

     Blog Tips -   You're likely (hopefully) on Twitter already. Know that Twitter is many great things, but it doesn't exist to build links and increase your readership ! But by using Twitter wisely and to the fullest, you can gain readers to your blog and build links while gaining Twitter followers.  Readership and links are keys to you and your blog, and you need to increase both to monetize a blog. Promoting your blog thru Twitter is a great way. Here’s some tips to use-

• Build up the Biggest Possible Twitter following. There various online tools available to assist you in finding people with interests like yours and related to your blog's niche.  Pick one, and keep in mind that the more followers you have, the more likely you are to have readers retweeting your blog posts and linking to you from their blogs.
• Create the best content worth linking to. Maybe this is #1, but if you follow all the tips, and still don't attrack followers or readers and never get links, then maybe your content isn't link worthy. The best way is to have fresh, original content that folks are proud to share.
• Tweet your Blog's posts. It's a given, right?  Well, you'd be surprised how many bloggers don't do it.  You have to let everyone know about your blog.  Tweet/Retweet everything.  
• Start/Build relationships with your followers. Tweet their blogs posts and retweet their messages. Most folks will reciprocate.  You should also send @replies and start people communicating. Once they realize you're a real person and you have a unique personality, folks will read your blog posts, tweet them, and link to you from their blogs. Start a dialogue!
• Use Tweetlater to retweet your best blog posts a few weeks later. As the online "buzz" dies down on one of your "hot" posts, feel free to resurrect it with a carefully placed tweet when your followers least expect it (Don't overdo it though)
• Bookmark it. Check out Twitturly, it's a social bookmarking service that automatically sends a tweet when you bookmark a page. Also, whenever someone else votes for your submissions, Twittley will send out a retweet. And since it is a new service, you can virtually get in at the start and build your reputation before the competition does.

Twitter can be a great tool for promoting your brand / blog but it won't do it on it's own!  You still have to do the work required, starting with a great domain name, and a concise blog with solid content.

Btw, Tweet this post, please !!!

Five (5) Link Building Ideas for New Bloggers

     BLOG TIPS- I ike this reminder, just finished reading Dara Larson's post at TopRanklog.  She offers up some great link tips as a reminder, or advice for new bloggers.  Even though search engines are always evolving, and ranking methods "tweaked",  it remains that inbound links have a great on your blog's rankings. As we know the better the link you get, the higher the authority is that the link passes on your blog.  A result is that blogs that have been live and active on the web for many years end up getting quite a large number of the best links  (if the blogs have been well promoted).  Fine, if you're a new bloggers, what chance do you have to get traction for your blog?  Don't give up hope...  Besides being active, and posting good content as often as you can (daily is best) there are other ways to obtain good links for your new blog.  See full post at toprankblog.

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Anchor Text for Internal Link Building a Blog

     Blog Tips - In your SEO drive, anchor text of links between pages of your blog is often overlooked. Our first tip is not to use links with the words “click here" you're completely wasting the opportunity.  This seems obvious, but is often ignored by many bloggers.   Beyond this basic advice, we'll review other ideas on how to improve your existing content quickly and with ease.  You might wonder if internal anchor text actually matter to Google and other search engines?  Yes, they do!  Backlinks (links from other sites) are extremely important to your best case SEO, but, internal links also have an valid role in showing to search engines what is important on your blog and what is related.  Keep this point in mind:

     An excessive numbers of links is not better than the appropriate amount.  You must always keep your posts and entire blog "reader friendly" and easy to read/understand.  Don't stretch the logical read, simply to include better keywords!  You'll lose your readers, and they won't return!

Link With What You Have Already-
Use the content you already have on your blog too. Here's an easy query that will help you to find where on your blog you’ve already used certain keywords:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mydomain.com+”my+keyword+phrase”

So if I were writing about blog tips then I would first do this search :

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:blogtogreat.com+"blog+tips”

to see which page mentiones the phrase “link building”.  I should see many pages that do, but the top result has the keyword in the title tag and in the URL, so that's the page I am targeting for that keyword.

Begin by reviewing your top 20 keywords and see how many more links you can create to them from  the content on your other pages. In-content links have value because they have context (text around them) and are thought to be more “editorial” than site-wide or menu links. (Google is pretty sharp, they can tell which part of your page is the content and which is the menu).

Link While You Write
While writing a blog post, an article, or a new page for your blog, bear in mind your other pages that you've previously written (and you can use the same query above).  If you're writing a new post and you refer to something related to a product, service, article, or blog post, consider using the keywords for that page in the sentence and make it a link.

Let us know if this helps and your link ideas.  Blog to Great !!!

Blog Commenting- A Key to Your Blog's Success

     Blogging Tips - As new blogger, or someone that's setting up a new blog, leaving meaningful comments on other blogs is a established method for gaining new traffic and readers (and hopefully subscribers).  But, besides choosing a few blogs you know of that are the same niche as yours, is there anything else you can do?  Of course there is. One other great blog method is taking time researching for specific posts that are ranked high in Google for your related keywords, and leave comments on those.  Let's say that you write about “marketing skills”, ”PR campaigns” or “dance music cds”.  What you should do is search Google for these terms and review all the blog posts that show up in the first results.  With your list, visit each blog and leave a comment on the topic.  It's always important to add value to the discussion, so show your expertise and link to one of your posts where you covered the issue in depth.  Avoid the "great post, thanks" type comments at ALL costs!   The reason to go thru this exercise is that these highly ranked posts are already getting many visitors from search engines.  These visitors are looking for some specific information, and if they read your comment and find it of value, there's a strong possibility that they will follow the link to your site to learn more about you and your blog.  Your comment becomes your introduction to a whole new audience for your blog, so write engaging comments to attract the reader that has already shown interest in the topic.  Makes sense, right?  Give it a try, and let us all know how it works for you.

Comment well and Blog To Great !!!

Blog Promos and Contests to Increase Blog Traffic

      Here's two more ways to gain additional traffic and links to your blog.  Have your tried blog contests or giveaways? Yes, these do draw a great many “freebie grabbers” who only care about the free stuff, but you can still generate a lot of positive buzz that will get you long-time readers as well if you run the promotion well.  You'll also build links naturally through contests and promos.  By nature, most bloggers like to blog about what others are doing, and if something cool is going on at another blog, it will get their attention and a link, as long as you get the promote your event well.

Make the Best Use of Blog Memes

     Blog Memes, what the heck are they?, you might ask.  Let’s first answer what is a blog meme , ok?  In the world of science, a meme (rhymes with “theme”) is a self-propagating unit of thought that is spread from one host to another.  Scientist Richard Dawkins coined the term as a kind of idea-gene. Like genes, as Memes spread they mutate or die. Only the great est,fittest memes survive in science, same is true for blogger memes on the internet.

For bloggers, memes have become synonymous with internet surveys, quizzes, rumors, urban legends, self promotion and novelty areas that people link to and pass around on their blogs, forums and via email, things like the “which car are you most like”. Remember the great "Chuck Norris facts "craze?, memes were a big part of it's growth.  They can be part of your blog growth plan too.