Author: Liane Bate
Blogging has probably been the most fun internet marketing activity I've undertaken in my online business. I love to write, and reach out to my website visitors with new information, news, reports, opinions, or articles that I've created that expose a little of my personality and give my readers something they want to hear. Not only is it fun, but it's free, profitable, and generates hoards of traffic to your site, provided that you make quality posts with quality content and know how to market your blog. There are good ways and bad ways to blog, so here are a few essential things to keep in mind when making your blog posts:
First you have to write something that people will be interested in reading, and reading regularly. Posting your articles to your blog is the best way to get quality content on your blog, but it's also good to write about your own personal experiences and opinions. Your articles should be at least 500 words, and your personal comments can be shorter, but still containing quality content. You don't want to post just one fantastic article packed with content, you want to post many, and try to make a blog post every day, every other day, or even weekly so that your readers know that your blog is fresh and updated regularly. The first few months that your blog is launched are critical months when you want to attract a readership and give them enough that they bookmark your site to come back to it frequently. Giving your blog a domain name that's easy for them to remember and represents your content with good keywords is also a good idea.
There's another thing you can do with your original articles to gain exposure to your blog, and that is submitting them to a blog carnival. This means submitting them to a site that features and summarizes maybe 5 quality articles on a specific topic. Other blogs will link back to this carnival host, giving you more quality traffic. Also, when you make a blog post, you can link to other people's blog articles, which leaves an entry on their post to your post. It may attract other bloggers to you, who may in turn link back to your posts. A good article directory to submit your articles to maybe once a week is Ezine Articles.
Once you have a blog, you want to expose it to the right audience. A good way to do this is by making comments on other people's blogs whose content is related to your content. If you randomly post comments all over the place on blogs unrelated to what your site is about, then you won't generate the kind of traffic you want. Stick to your niche, and you will get readers from that niche wanting to click on your blog link at the end of your comments. It's also a good idea to encourage people to make comments on your blog posts, and to reply to these comments to keep a conversation going. The more comments that are left on your blog, the more other people visiting your blog will realize you have something important and valuable to say, and they will want to read it to find out what all the buzz is about.
I have also joined a blog traffic exchange to get traffic to my blog, but you can also submit your blog to different blog directory sites, such as Blog Top Sites. This site allows you to add a small bit of HTML code to your blog so it can be rated in a particular category and will help get you more traffic and better ratings. If you remember to not only create quality content for your blogs, but also market your blog effectively by commenting, linking, and submitting regularly to the right places, you will be on your way to having a popular and well-visited blog!
