How to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Monday 15 March 2010 @ 1:43 pm

How to Get Traffic to Your Blog

From Seth Godin. A fairly comprehensive checklist to help maximize traffic to your blog:

Use lists.
Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now.
Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
Break news.
Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
Announce news.
Write short, pithy posts.
Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
Don’t write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
Write long, definitive posts.
Write about your kids.
Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
Coin a term or two.
Answer your email.
Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
Be anonymous.
Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
Post your photos on flickr.
Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers–like gadgets and web 2.0.
Write about Google.
Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
Don’t include comments, people will cross post their responses.
Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
Run no ads.
Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
Write about blogging.
Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don’t bore your readers.
Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
Don’t promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader’s attention.
Be patient.
Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
Write in English.
Better, write in Chinese.
Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
Don’t be boring.
Write stuff that people want to read and share.

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Make money writting about travel

Thursday 4 March 2010 @ 7:30 pm

Make money sharing your travel experience

Have you spent a lot of time traveling and would like to share your experiences with others? Do you feel you have a lot to offer other people wishing to travel but don’t know how to keep them informed? Consider a career as a travel writer! Not only will you be able to share your travel experiences with others buy you can make money while you’re doing it.

There are several ways you can make money as a travel writer. Choose the one (or more than one) that appeals to you the most and get started making money doing something you love.

Posting on other people’s blogs. Blogging is HUGE today and it’s all over the internet. You’d be hard pressed to find a website that doesn’t have a blog site for visitors to leave a post. The neat thing about blogging is that for almost any subject you can think about, there’s going to be several blogging sites. Check out some traveling blog sites and offer them your articles. Although most sites require you to write at least a few hundred words, if you have a lot of travel experience, you’ll have no problem completing the assignment. Set a certain fee for your article and begin making money. Blogs are constantly in need of fresh new content, which you can provide for them.

Start up your own blog post. While you may not get people that come to your blog site to instantly start buying your travel articles, they will come there to read them and will return for more. This makes your site the perfect place to put your ads in hopes of selling them. If you’ve ever thought of becoming an affiliate partner with some business, this is a great opportunity. While your travel articles will generate traffic to your site, the ads will bring in the revenue!

Sell your travel articles to newspapers and travel magazines. You really don’t have to be a professional writer to sell your articles to these places. If you’re a relatively good writer and write content that other travelers like yourself would enjoy, many travel magazines would love to pay you money for your work. Check out the Writers Market at your local library and you’ll get a list of periodicals that will pay good money for your work.

Consider writing your travel articles on project sites. The internet is a place filled with many project sites where people bid and sell their work. Guru, Elance and DoMyStuff are just a few project websites where you’ll find many people interested in buying your work. You can set up an account for free as a provider of written content. Check out advertisements for people looking for writing projects and you may just find someone looking for exactly what you have to offer. You do the writing assignment and you’ll be paid online, where the money will be deposited directly into your account. Check these sties out today. There just may be someone looking for travel information that only you can provide them with!