Search Engines - Get Yourself a Homepage!

Obviously there are loads of Search Engines that you can submit to. But I would like to concentrate on the top 3 that will bring you the majority of your Search Engine traffic:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. MSN

You submit to Search Engines so that they will go and crawl your site with their ‘bots’ and add you to their index. The time it takes them to do this varies, Google takes the longest, with MSN generally the quickest and Yahoo somewhere in between.

So can you speed the process up at all?

Well here is something you could try. Just remember it’s not guaranteed but the Search Engines won’t guarantee you get included even when they find you!

Get yourself a homepage

At Google go to google.com/or .co.uk and sign up for a personalised homepage - there will be a link to ‘get started’ with a personalised homepage. Once set up you will be able to add content to your homepage (your blog) using it’s feed, so every time you update your blog it will be updated on your homepage.

MSN and Yahoo are very similar to set up. You have to create a free email account, and after doing that follow the link to My MSN or My Yahoo and that is your homepage where you can again add content to it using the feed for your blog.

So the Search Engines will hopefully pick you up and index you quicker from seeing this activity.

Another way of doing this with MSN: just type your url into MSN search bar, when it doesn’t come up they will provide a link to ‘send us an address’, click that and submit your feed, easy!

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 3

Have you tried Blog Directories?

They are a great source of free traffic for your blogs, you never know who could be searching for your topic? And there’s loads of them. Some are more popular than others, like Technorati, you can open an account and bookmark your favourite blogs (if you search on Google for a topic you will also notice Technorati is in the top 10 results a lot).

Once submitted to a directory your blog will most likely be reviewed and then entered onto the directory when approved, they email you to let you know if it’s been approved or not. Here’s a list of some of the ones I use (sorry about all the lists):

• www.technorati.com
• www.daypop.com
• www.getblogs.com
• www.globeofblogs.com
• www.blogcatalog.com
• www.blogtoplist.com
• www.blogarama.com
• www.britblog.com (only British blogs)
• www.myblogdirectory.net

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 2

Are Articles the Best way to get Traffic?

Article submission is said to be one of the best ways to create traffic for your blogs, and also backlinks to your site (which helps with rankings). I think it is a really good method to use, although not the quickest. You basically open an account, which are generally free and submit your article for approval, which can take anywhere from a couple of days to a month, to be approved and posted depending on the site. Due to the fact that they are approved by humans!

There is software available to help you submit your articles, it’s not fully automated though, you have to login and pick categories etc. But they generally have lists of over 100 sites and do help speed the process up, it takes a bit of time to start with but it is well worth it. The article sites see automated submissions as spam and will not approve them.

The best part about article submission is that it is long lasting, each article can stay live on a site for up to 6 months (depending) and obviously the more you submit, then the amount of backlinks to your site keeps growing. You place the backlink which is anchor text for your site, in the authors biography box which is posted with the article. If your article is downloaded by ezine providers or other websites looking for content, they have to add your bio box as well. So you can see the potential.

Here’s a list of the more popular sites to get you going:-

• www.articlecity.com
• www.goarticles.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.articlealley.com
• www.searchwarp.com
• www.usfreeads.com
• www.articledashboard.com
• www.a1articles.com
• www.ideadmarketers.com
• www.contentdesk.com
• www.isnare.com
• www.articlehub.com

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 1

Creating Blog Traffic

Do you want to be seen?

So what's the next step? It’s getting seen, now it’s a great experience creating blogs and I love doing it, but it is so much better if you have someone to talk to, you need traffic and hopefully lots of it! Talking to yourself is not always good...

So what is the best ways to get traffic? Well there are 100’s of different things you could do, but here are a few I use:-

• Article Submission
• Blog Directories
• Search Engines
• Forums
• Classified Adverts
• Adwords
• Emails
• Links

Now to do them justice I am going to write about them as a series tackling one at a time, simply because they are that important and if I did them as one post it would be ridiculously long! So more on the subject soon...

Create Blogs

Create Blogs That Last

Don't lose your Blog!

So you've set up your blog after deciding what you are going to blog about and you have started posting and adding different features to your blog, like I have just added email subscription (as mentioned in the last post).

But don't forget to protect your blog and download your template at regular intervals (in Blogger you can do it from edit html) for safe keeping. Now I know that sounds obvious and I am sure that everybody knows that. But I thought it was worth a mention, I downloaded mine the other day before adding the subscription.

As good as the internet and hosting companies are at the moment it's still possible for 'technical difficulties' to happen. Or more likely for some reason they have taken a disliking to your blog and decide to terminate it! That doesn't matter if you have a downloaded copy. Also if I am pasting code into the template, I download it as I still don't trust myself to do it right!

At the end of the day there is a lot of love and hard work gone into creating blogs and the last thing you want to do is lose it all!

Create Blogs

Create Blogs - Feeds

Added Subscription for Feeds

I just thought I would point out that I have added an email subscription form for my feed. Also there are some feed readers on the left for subscription if you prefer them (thought I'd cover all bases). Just in case your not sure what that means, if you would like to subscribe to either of these, you will be updated via email or your feed reader when my blog has been updated.

Handy if you like to follow what I am up to, or just enjoy the blog!!

Create Blogs

Create Blogs

mandy88.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net">

So what do you blog about?

You have decided which host to use to create your blogs, so the next question is ‘what do you blog about?’

It has to be something you are interested in or love to talk about, because you’ll be doing a lot of that. To blog about something that doesn’t grab your attention will mean it becomes tedious and an effort to blog, and that will come across in your writing. In the same way if you really enjoy your chosen topic that will also come across.

But you need to pick a topic that people search for or you won’t have any traffic. Also if you pick a topic with a huge amount of competition then you will find it very hard to break into. Complicated? No, but if you cover all the bases then you will have a firm foundation to your blog, so do the research first.

Of course when you start out it can seem a bit like a needle in a haystack. I know it did to me, so I turned to more experienced bloggers for help. I found a really easy to read ebook called Blogging to the Bank. It explains step by step how to research the keywords for your blog. It also gives you specific guidelines on how to do this, plus lots more information on setting up blogs. I found it an invaluable guide for setting up my blogs.

Create Blogs

Creating blogs

Blog Hosts

There are loads of blog hosts to choose from to create your blogs like Blogger , Wordpress and Typepad to name but a few, and most of them are free.

I have been using Blogger for hosting my blogs. It’s owned by Google, so if you have a Google account already you can use that to access Blogger, it also means if you’re using Adsense or Adwords they can all be accessed with the same account, password and email (handy!).

Blogger is free to host your blog, and since out of beta they have created New Blogger, which uses a drag-and-drop template editing feature which allows you to easily add Adsense, banners, buttons, photo’s etc to your blog and arrange them very easily with no html experience needed. Blogger also has an advanced feature that lets you point the blog to your website, as well as keeping everything together you don’t have to have a blogspot url, you can use the websites url.

I have found Blogger to be very user friendly and easy to create blogs, set up and customise them. They have a very extensive help center including Blogger Status, Blogger Buzz and Blogger Help Groups. So if you need a question answered you’ve got a good chance!

There are a lot of other good blog hosts out there, but this has been my experience of this one. Keep testing - I’m going to...

Create blogs

Creating blogs

First of all you look at the different ways, also known as income streams to make money on the internet e.g. adwords, blogs, adsense, ebay etc and choose one, lets say you choose blogs. You research all the information you can find on creating blogs, and find the best way of running them, you set it all up and sit back to wait for your piece of the ‘internet pie’ that you have been told about.

But you don’t get the results that you had hoped for, what do you do?

Well I don’t think this is unusual. The guru’s tell you, you can automate your system and start earning straight away, with only working a couple of hours per week. Maybe that can happen but in my experience it doesn’t, so don’t worry. I find you have to work hard at it, like any other business and have a strategic plan. Test different ideas for advert placement and templates, when you find one that works test some more. The information out there is vast and changing all the time, try to keep up with it and research your market. The key to creating blogs successfully is the same as any business it takes hard work and good planning.

But the most important thing is to stay positive and believe that it will work, don’t panic, keep testing and stay motivated (which is easier said than done). Some Guru’s do tell you this, but it never sunk in with me until I had figured it out for myself! Please learn from my mistakes, and start your journey creating blogs prepared for this. It will save you a lot of time and turmoil!

Creating blogs