You build it but no one comes. You have original material, great content, but still, no one comes. Your blog looks fantastic, the colors are just right but, no one comes.

So where is everyone? Is there NO one looking for your information?

Optimize Your Blog For Traffic

I started a Niche website last winter, almost to date of this post. I wanted it to be as content rich as possible so I used some PLR content I had, at first, then graduated it to original content. The idea was to get it up quickly and get it into the search engines before the local tourist season hit in Cody, Wyoming.

Around May, the blog was slow to attract visitors and traffic at first, which was ok, I was still in the ‘creation’ process. I have and probably always will be a strong supporter of the ’natural search’ process. But this time, when it was time to expose my area niche blog to the world I experimented with different ideas and came up with several things that worked well. 

 The whole month of May 09 I received a whopping 256 visitors TOTAL to my blog. I was still in the design and content stage so that was no big deal. I never expect overnight success when creating a new blog. Towards the end of May (May 30th) I begun to optimize my blog. You can see the results that took place almost immediately.

Here is the shot of the traffic growth my blog experienced once I took action.

What is it about some websites that makes them popular destinations for a huge number of visitors? Why are some blogs checked out by tens of thousands of people every day while others struggle to find a single visitor?

The biggest challenge for blogger’s today is to be able to increase search engine and page ranking of their blogs. If you want to survive in this new blog age, you have to ensure that you come up with content that is of high-quality, one that will capture people and keep them coming back. And with millions of bits of information bombarding the Internet every second, it’s crucial that your blog tops the chart in search engine rankings.

How to Increase Visitors and Improve Search Engine (SE)  Rankings

There are several different ways that you can employ to increase traffic to your blog and to improve your blog’s credibility.  Here I will go over a few, briefly.  This post is basically for you blog owners who have a blog but have no clue how to get traffic to it.

•  First rule of thumb: Relevant Content Creates a Readership. Before you even think of optimizing your blog you need to know that the subject matter of your content will be critical to your blog’s traffic potential.

Visitors will come back to your site if they know you provide relevant top notch information or if the information touches them in some direct way. Blogs that tackle a specific and limited range of topics generally tend to do better then those with a more scattered approach. Blogging within a particular niche is usually the best way to experience success.

Good Content Creates a Readership. You have to regularly post new content, which should be interesting, entertaining, relevant, and informative. Content is the meat and potatoes that your readers come back for. Also, along the lines of content, the quality of your writing, the uniqueness of your perspective, the frequency with which you post new articles to your blog and the way the content is presented will also make a difference. Think of it like this, I have a big dog. My big dog likes to eat. Alot. He shows up where the food is, this is his idea of a good time.  Your readership is very much based on this principle. They want to be where the food is.

• Keywords- Search Engines use keywords. The idea of using keywords is to bring traffic to your blog by way of search engines. Keywords are the words that people  input into a search engine, such a Google, MSN or Yahoo, when searching for specific information.  Using specific keywords relevant to your particular niche in your  post title and scatted throughout your blog posts will help you perform better in search results.

Finding Buyer Keywords | Free Professional Video Home Study Course

Targeting traffic that isn’t really interested in your website almost serves no purpose. The more relevant your content is, the more chances you have of being able to direct a target market to your website. You don’t want to bombard your content with nothing but keywords, or worse yet, unrelated keywords. This will cause you to be penalized and banned by search engines.

• Search Engines – Search Engines are the vehicles that drive traffic and  potential customers to your blog. At least 85% of people looking for goods, information and services on the Internet find websites through Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.  So naturally you want the search engines to know that your blog exists. Direct submission seems like the most obvious solution, but it may take months to get a search engine to crawl your site.

A quicker and more web friendly way of  getting into the search engines is by ‘Link Popularity” All it requires for a search engine to find you is a link to your blog from another site. Eventually, the search engines will spider that link and discover your blog. A link from a frequently indexed site could lead to your blog’s discovery within as little as a day.

There are several different ways to build links back to your site.

• Comments. Find similar blogs, and post a sincere comment with a link back to your site
• Post comments to the blogs of your potential customers.
• Participate in relevant forums. Forums are a great way to communicate with like minded folks. Leave interesting comments to engage readers with a link back to your site.
• Become an active user of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, MySpace or Friendfeed.
• Ask. Write a nice email to the owner of a related blog asking for a link exchange.
• Articles. By writing several relevant articles and posting them to article directories will provide readers another way of finding your blog.

 
• Pinging - Pinging your blog frequently is another good way to get your blog seen. Every time that you update it, ping it. Pinging your blog is nothing more than a quick transmission to the blog directories notifying them that there is new content available. Pinging will improve your visibility and increase your traffic. Pinging also alerts spiders from various search engines to check out your site for updates and indexing.

List of pinging sites and services.

• Plugins- Plugins will also help you create a search engine friendly blog. There are a number of fantastic Wordpress plug-ins out there that can give your blog the extra edge that it needs to be one of the best. 

The best and by far the most popular Word Press plugin is All in One SEO Pack. With this plugin you can optimize your titles, Meta Tag Descriptions, and Keywords for your overall site as well as your individual pages.

Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin will generate a special XML site map which can help you to get indexed by the major search engines  like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.

StatPress  - This plugin gives you up to date reports that help you track your blogs progress.  You are able to see which are the most popular post, pages and categories. Real handy tool to keep up on your readers interests.

There are several more good plugins available that can help your blog reach ultimate heights in the search engines and I will add more over time.

Well, this post ended up a little longer than I estimated. I did forget to mention RSS feeds. I may add a post on those later. One last ‘create blogs that attract visitors” idea… Personalize your blog.  You can post your pictures and write about your field of expertise, which should be related to your products. You can also use your blog as an avenue to educate others in your field of expertise by informing your existing or prospective customers on any new product features or developments in your business—if you open new outlets or if you have new promos, for instance. These continued updates will enhance your reputation as a reliable supplier or a stable business partner.

Peace I’m out. Comments are always welcome and appreciated.

Terri Lynn

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