Make Money Blogging – Part 4

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Blogging has taken the world by storm and is quickly becoming one of the most enjoyable ways to make an income online. Visitors, readers, and overall traffic to your blog is essential if you really hope to profit from your efforts. Attracting new readers and generating traffic is actually jut as important as the content you post.

There are many, many different ways to promote your blog and new opportunities are introduced every day. Some blog promotion tools require little or no effort, while some techniques may be time consuming. The different methods also vary in their effectiveness and may not produce the same results for every blog. Try a combination of these methods to guarantee a significant increase in traffic to your blog.

Make Your Blog Public

The easiest way to drive traffic to your blog is to tell people about it. Make a habit of passing along the URL of your blog to your friends, colleagues, and contacts.

- Include the link on your letterhead and other business documents, including business cards, flyers, and even your sales letters.

- Promote your blog on your primary website, placing a link on each page for maximum exposure.

- Invite your newsletter subscribers to visit your blog by placing a link in each issue.

- You can publicize your blog’s web address by including the link in your custom signatures as well. Signatures can be used in emails
and in the forums or message boards you frequent.

Exposing your url to a variety of people in this way is a simple and effective way of increasing traffic to your blog. As more people see the address, especially as some see it again and again, you will see a steady increase in visitors.

Let the Search Engines Know About Your Blog

Ranking in the leading internet search engines, as well as listings in major blog directories and engines, may be the best way to drive traffic and gain new readers. Most profitable blogs draw at least half of their daily traffic from search engines and directories, resulting in a steady increase in regular viewers.

There are literally thousands of directories and search engines on the internet today. Finding all of them and then taking the time to submit to them all can be a painstaking task and nearly impossible.

Consider these tips:

- You can find directories by performing a search for “blog directories”. There are several comprehensive lists as well.

- Keep track of your site submissions and dedicate a few minutes each day to submitting to new directories and engines.

- Consider outsourcing submissions to a virtual assistant or use the services of a submission firm that will submit to hundreds of search engines for you.

- Some blogging platforms can be set to automatically “ping” the leading directory sites each time your blog is updated. If your blog does not support this option, you can visit http://pingomatic.com and ping your blog manually after updates.

- Remember to submit your blog to all the leading engines, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, as well as the most popular directories, like Technorati, first.

Make Your Blog Personal

One major appeal of the blogosphere is the personal, community feeling associated with blogging. The most successful and most profitable bloggers write for their readers, providing useful, relevant content that is easily accessible. Make use of all the tools available to share your blog with your dedicated readers.

- RSS feeds allow readers to get regular updates whenever you post new material to your blog directly through their personal feed reader. You can find more information on feeds, news aggregators, and RSS here: http://www.rss-specifications.com/

- Allow visitors to easily subscribe to your feeds through their readers, as well as email. Feedburner (http://feedburner.com) is a popular way to offer your feeds.

- Visit other blogs that relate to your niche, make comments, and refer to interesting entries in your own blog using trackback links. Trackbacks leave a brief excerpt of your post in the comments of the post you are linking to, as well a link back to your blog. You can enhance your blog further by creating trackback links to your own posts.

It is possible to make money with your blog. It just takes a little time and effort, as well as dedication and commitment. Blog regularly, at least three times a week, but strive to post on a daily basis. Make a habit of frequenting other blogs and be a useful commenter. Most importantly, spread the word about your blog by giving out your URL and submitting to search engines and directories. Keep track of your traffic and visitor statistics with a program like sitemeter (http://www.sitemeter.com) or statcounter (http://www.stat counter.com).