"Talk the Talk" - Participating in Discussions to Increase Traffic

Just a quick thought today, and its something I recently posted on 43Things and it has to do with being a part of the conversation that blogs facilitate. I'm calling it "Talk the Talk."

Blogs from the onset, were created as a tool for communication. They allow people (like you and I) to speak their mind and in turn the entire world has access to their thoughts, although for most bloggers very few ever read what they write. But blogs aren't just about one person talking, blogs are more of a discussion as evidenced by the ability to leave comments on your and other people's blogs.

So if you're looking to increase the amount of discussion taking place on your blog (and thus increase traffic to your blog) then first take your thoughts to where the people are. Go find other blogs about similar topics to your own and participate in discussions on those blogs. Don't just go to post a comment and hope someone clicks back to your blog, be genuine, thoughtful and courteous. If you add to the discussion happening on another blog then it is much more likely that someone would clickthrough to come read more about what you have to say.

Running a blog is about having your voice heard, in order to do that, first let your voice be heard where the people already are, if they like what you have to say, then they'll come.

Article Submission - Building Links to Your Blog Series #3

Part three of the Building Links to Your Blog Series is on article submission. As I've discussed previously, one way links to your blog is key to your success as a blogger. Google, Yahoo and other search engines are well away of link exchanges and even triangular link exchanges so they are much less significant than a one-way link is. The problem that you and I face as bloggers is that creating one way links can be a very tedious process. Getting a one-way link to your blog requires that someone else must choose to link to you for some reason or another. Most often that reason is because you (and your blog) is unique or has some sort of useful information on it. The Catch 22 of it is that in order to get other web sites to find your blog you need to increase traffic to your blog, but in order to increase traffic you need to have more people find your blog. So what is a blogger to do?

Write articles.

Articles are an outstanding way to begin the process of building one way links. Here's how they work:

First, you write an article about something. The article should be at least 300 words and should somehow be related to the topic of your blog. So, if you're writing a blog and you focus primarily on new automobiles then you might write an article on features on the latest new hybrid vehicle. Ok simple enough so far...

After you have written the article you are allowed to attach an About the Author section in which you can post a link back to your blog. In the About the Author section write something like, "For more information on hybrid vehicles and other new vehicles visit http://www.MyReallyGreatCarBlog.com."

Then you just submit your article and the About the Author section to a few different article websites (I'll provide a short list below). These articles sites in turn allow other website owners to download your article and post it as content onto their website. The only rule is that anyone that posts your article must include the About the Author section which has your link in it. For every person that posts your article on their site you will be getting a one-way link in return.

Give it a try and post a few articles on some article sites. Let me know how it works and also post a comment if you know of any other good article sites.

Article Sites:

• GoArticles
• Article Pile
• Articles Factory
• Article City

Blog Directory List - Building Links to Your Blog Series #2

As a blogger you have a small advantage over other sites in building links to your blog because not only can you submit your blog to free web directories but you also can submit to blog-specific directories. Below is a list of many of the top blog directories, if you come across any others please post a comment and we'll update the list.

Free Blog Directories

www.technorati.com
www.blogdigger.com
www.weblogalot.com
www.blogshares.com
www.blogrolling.com
www.blogstreet.com
www.blo.gs
www.newhome.weblogs.com
www.bloglines.com
www.blogdex.net
www.bloghub.com
www.blogcatalog.com
www.blogarama.com
dir.blogflux.com
www.blogrankings.com
www.blogexplosion.com
www.synblog.com
www.britblog.com
www.blogdirs.com
www.blogsweet.com
www.findingblog.com
www.blogmad.net
www.bloggernow.com
www.blog-search.com
www.blogwise.com

Submitting to Free Directories - Building Links to Your Blog Series #1

Submitting your blog to free web directories can provide a lot of free one-way links to your blog. Doing so can be a very time consuming process but if you're serious about increasing traffic to your blog then submitting to at least some of the free directories is a must.

Resources for Submitting to Free Directories

• DMOZ (if you submit to just one directory, this is the one)
• Excellent List of Free Directories
• A listing of some niche directories

To make submitting to directories easier check out RoboForm, an automated form filler so that you can enter your blog's info once and have RoboForm fill the same info in for every directory.

Building Links to Your Blog Series

One of the most crucial elements of building traffic to a blog is creating incoming links. Not only do incoming links create traffic when people click on them but they also factor heavily into search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo, etc.) ranking systems for websites.

Over the coming weeks The Blogging Fool will be highlighting various methods for creating links to your blog and also further detail the reasons for doing so.