Back in January, Aaron wrote about the corrosive effect that Twitter is having on marketing online. Because Twitter links are no-followed (and often TinyURLed), sites like Google never see the links that people tweet. There's also a very temporal nature to Twitter that, as Aaron puts it, makes the content "here today, gone today." Since then, he's even gone so far as to say that he's going to cut back on social networking because of negative effects like ... Keep reading »
When trying to drive traffic to your site, bloggers are your best friends. Not only can they drive some great traffic with just a mention on their site, but when they link to you search engines take notice. Right now, nothing beats a good link from a blog. So how do you get them to mention your site? Get Their Attention If you've got a great site, this might be all you have to ... Keep reading »
We all know that search engines can bring us free traffic, so last week we covered the basics of how to SEO a blog. That's where you should start if you haven't already. The next step, though, is to start ranking well for terms that you already rank for somewhere in the results. Pages in the top 3 results can get ten times as much traffic (or more) than ... Keep reading »
You've probably heard many times about all the free visitors you can get from search engines. Well SEO, or search engine optimization, is the science -- and art -- of getting a site to rank well in order to get as many of those visitors as possible. The great thing for you as a blogger is that you don't have to been an SEO expert to see quite a bit of search engine traffic to your site because most blogs are tailor-made for ranking well in search engines. Just take a look at the top ten search engine ranking factors and notice how many are naturally inherent in blogs. I count seven to nine, depending on how strict you want to be. Since blogs are almost always text-heavy, very community-driven and interlinked heavily, it's hard to find your blog not ranking for lots of things if it becomes popular. However, there are a few easy things that you do need to do to ensure that you're set up for search engine success. The basic principle behind all of them is that SEO, first and foremost, is about so much more than your homepage. Especially with blogs, you'll find that most of your search engine visitors come in on anything but your homepage. So almost all the basic SEO for a blog has to do with your individual pages. Keep reading »
So you've got a great blog with great content -- only no one knows it yet. Not a problem, because getting visitors to great content is one of the easiest things you'll ever do. Here's how to get visitors to your blog. Take Advantage of Your Network If you've been actively getting out and meeting your neighbors, you've built up a pretty good network of blogging and website-owning friends. Drop them an email to let them know about your new ... Keep reading »
Links to other sites and other bloggers are your most powerful asset, so let (link) love rule! Whoa. I thought you were going to tell me how to get more from my blog, not give more. Hey, Mr. Selfish, life's not all about getting. Remember, someone important once noted that, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." With that in mind, and with deepest apologies to Gary Chapman, here are ... The Five Link Love Languages The Blogroll This is ... Keep reading »