Theres really no definite answer to doing this. to be quite honest, Myself and a lot of others "experiment" with many different techniques for optimizing our blogs to appear in searches. Many of the ideas I have covered relate to optimization.
Building in-bound links, the more links in to your site help your page rank(how high in google you are). Thats why exchanging links, and advertising; posting in forums. All great ideas. Also fill your site with keyword rich content. keywords are used in determining which search you show up in.
Keywords is a huge topic in itself. heres a wikipedia page on keywords.
Meta Tags are also useful, though i am unsure of just how important they are any more. use the title,description, and keywords tags in the head of your page (Edit HTML under the layout tab).
Also when you write a post, if you are using blogger, add some good words to the labels box, those are important in influencing the keyword, searches your blog appears in, and also have seemed to have some effect on the advertisements displayed by Adsense on your blog. (At least that is what I have observed on my blog; I cant guarantee It will work that way for all of us.)
Optimize your blog for searches; get out in public.
EXCHANGE LINKS
I want to add to my blogroll. Its on the right hand column of this page.
If you want your blog added(must be appropriate) all you have to do is:
1. add my URL(http://wanttoworkonline.blogspot.com) to your blog
2. Comment a post on my blog, leave your site Title & URL.
3. I will verify that my link is on your site.
4. I will add you to my blogroll.
This is free and benefits all involved. A good chance for you to expand your network and make your blog visible.
Please read through my previous posts and if you have any questions please ask by commenting this post. Also if there is something you would like covered in my next post I will do it, just ask.
Amazon Associates; Affiliate Programs...
Additional income for your site could come from amazon associates or other affiliate programs. These programs allow you to sell goods directly on your site without you actually having a physical inventory. You can sell anything related to your site.
Say you have a site focusing on movie reviews. After each review, you would have a widget from amazon that allows your reader to go there and purchase the movie. You earn commissions on your sales..
That is an example of a widget they allow you to share some favorite products in.
You could also set up an entire store and choose exactly what products you want.
It is a great addition to any website, or could make you significant income standing alone, if you follow the same directions for promoting it.
Writing Articles; another link building strategy.
Some of you may have seen sites like Associated Content and Ezinearticles.
Both sites are open to anyone to write an article and submit it. Of course, it has to be quality writing. This is a good resource for us however for a few reasons.
You can write an article and post it directly into the appropriate category. When someone comes and reads that it is a topic in which they already have interest. Thus, they arent reading your article because it popped up and they were forced to, they have a genuine interest in the topic.
Both sites allow you to link to your website in the articles you write. So when a readers comes across a link relative to the topic they have already chose to read about, why would they not visit your site?
And if they like the article(your writing), why would they not like reading your blog or website(your writing,again)?
****Don't forget to digg(or whichever social bookmarking service you prefer) you article to receive even more visitors. Go ahead and digg this post while you're at it ; ).
Thanks for visiting!
Social Bookmarking; "digg" up traffic easy!
Another way i would like to quickly share with you...
digg.com - one of THE BEST tools for getting your site out to those who may want to read it.
Encourage your visitors to digg your postings. Click the little digg button that you see at the top of this post.
Be sure to digg each blog post you make. Not only does digg get your site out there to those who are looking around digg, but your articles digg page may appear in a higher page on google and other search engines.
There are a number of other social bookmarking sites. I'll do my best to get some of their links up on my page for you to use. This way, you can use each service with your blog and find out which works best for you.
A few techniques for getting blog viewers.
This will cover a few posts, since there is many ways to get people to view your blog...Without spamming.
BTW, even if you do decide to spam your blog URL, its a waste of time because getting people uninterested in your topic to view your site or blog is only going to result in them closing the window.
Anyway, a first way to get people is to join a google group relavent to your blog. [Join this one for blogging to make money ]. It's a good idea because the people there are interested in the topic of your blog, and in most cases, there will be some way to exchange links to eachother's website. Forums and Message boards same idea, join a forum related to your topic of interest, post your link or add it to your signature, and members of the message board(who are probably also interested in that topic) will see the link and at least check it out once, maybe even bookmark it and return!
While your here, add this blog to your book marks, so that you can check back often for the latest bit of information. Regular members make a site seem more alive, if you have a website, adding a forum is a good idea, if visitors see that there are people that regularly view the site, they may decide to join, tell there friends, or post about it on their blog, resulting in visitors coming from many different sources.
Comments please, next post I will talk about social bookmarking, so ADDING THIS PAGE TO YOUR PERSONAL FAVORITES/BOOKMARKS IS A GOOD IDEA!
That way, you wont forget to return and read that post, it may help you out immensely in the long run.
Thanks for reading, and good luck to all of you with your blogging.
How to get traffic; building links.
Aright, we've got down the adsense thing[if you didnt, read my last post.], now how to we get viewers?
Linkbuilding.
This is basically getting your blogs name and URL out there. Anyplace you can get it, dont spam folks, post it. If you post on forums that allow signatures, put it there. If you have a myspace or facebook, add it to your profile. Add it to your eBay auctions. submit it to google and other search engines or directories.
[here is the link to add URL to google]
another tip is , when you comment on someone else's blog, leave your URL in the comment, ask that blogger to add you to their blogroll.
The more you do this, the more exposure your site will get, resulting in more traffic.
TRAFFIC IS IMPORTANT.
...i mean, think about it, if you have a great blog, fancy images, great content, and you even offer free prizes. what good is that if no one can see it?????
Take this blog for example. I don't have very many images at all, but i am trying to get people to subscribe because they may think i have good information.
So, lets see, what Ive told you is...:
Start a blog ->Choose a niche ->Write good articles, content, add things people like->Monetize(with google adsense, we'll learn some other ways later)-> build links.
that about sum's up making money blogging.
If you know a lot about a topic, then you'll have no trouble with the blogging aspect. Its only that no matter how much you know, you still must BUILD Links, get your blogs name out there, be heard of...
til next time folks, good luck!
