The Blogging Fool » Increasing Traffic

List of the Best (and Worst) Blog Directories

admin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:27:49 +0000

For new blogs especially, picking up a few links from blog directories can help get the search engines to notice your site. But knowing which blogs are best to submit to can be tricky. Here’s our favorites:

Best Free Blog Directories

Blogged.com – Nice, easy to use site. Free listings and a decent place to find other bloggers.

Spill Bean – Like this one a lot especially since it took the blod step to not have ‘blog’ in its name. Bravo SpillBean.

Bloggapedia – Not a lot of blogs listed, which could be a good or a bad thing, but its worth a try.

Blog Catalog – Make sure your blog has a bunch of content before you submit, but once it does Blog Catalog is well worth submitting to.

Blogging Fusion – The header reads “Total blogs approved this week: ( 2 )” and its Thursday currently, so although its free I’m not sure many sites get let in.

Best Paid Blog Directories

Best of the Web Blogs – If you pay for any blog directories, this is the one to pay for.

Eaton Web – Probably the next best paid blog directory out there. $34.99 to list but its unfortunately an annual fee.

Bloggeries.com – $39.99 seems a bit steep for a mediocre site, but it is a one time only fee which is nice and would be a nice link to snag.

Worst Blog Directories – Avoid These

BiggerBlogger.com – Total waste of time. You have to register just to find out it costs $1/month to be on the site.

Setting Up SEO Optimized Titles in Wordpress

admin — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:21:30 +0000

Setting up SEO optimized titles in Wordpress can be the difference between a little organic traffic and a lot more organic traffic. To set optimized titles up though you have a few different options:

Use a commonly available Wordpress plugin such as SEO Title Tag or All In One SEO Pack. Both give you full control of your Wordpress titles and allow you to SEO optimize them as you see fit.
A lazy man’s approach is to update your header.php file and replace the with following:
<?php wp_title(””); ?><?php if(wp_title(””, false)) { echo ‘ :: ‘; } ?><?php bloginfo(‘name’); if(is_home()) { echo ‘ :: ‘; bloginfo(‘description’); } ?>

Doing this puts “Blog Name :: Description” on the hompage and “Title :: Blog Name” on all other pages which for me is close enough to perfect and then I don’t need to worry about setting up any plugins and keeping the plugin updated.

Any other tips on SEO optimized titles? Share them below…

Simple Intro to Increasing Traffic to Your Blog

admin — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 16:12:00 +0000

Increasing traffic to your blog is fundamental to your blog’s success on the Internet. As you’ll soon find, it isn’t all that hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does take time.

The first and most important rule for increasing traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post some more. Posting new and unique content on a regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.

Another critical method for getting traffic to your blog in through by establishing links to your site on other people’s webpages. This servers two purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone else’s site can be clicked on thus bringing a visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites pointing to your site factor into the equations that Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in which sites are listed in searches conducted on their site. These types of links are referred to as “inbound” links.

When you try to develop inbound links it is important to make sure that the links are relevant. For example, if your blog is about cars then it doesn’t do a lot of good to have an inbound link from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or, at a minimum, sites that target the same type of people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.

To begin developing inbound links, do a search for other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your blog is about cars then search “cars” in Blogger Search or Technorati (two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse through the results that you get and make a list of those that you think are well designed and interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs you will most likely have to give something in return and usually the easiest thing to give is a link to them. So from that list add a link on your blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then, after doing so, email the owner of each of those site and write something along the lines of:

“Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy Cars, a blog about cars. I’ve recently added a link to your site on my homepage because I feel that my readers are in a very similar demographic to that of your site. If you get a chance check my site out and if you like what you see please link back.

Thank you, John”

Remember that these blog owners don’t owe you anything for you linking to them, but often if you ask nice you’ll get a link back.

Another way to build inbound links to your blog is by submitting your blog to blog and web directories. These directories contain literally thousands of websites and very rarely will someone come to your site by clicking on a link in one of the directories. However, including you blog in these directories can in many case help your ranking in search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don’t spend too much time doing this but if you have a little free time they are worth looking into.

Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent content. The most powerful way to get people to your blog is to write content that your readers want to read. This will not only make people want to come back but it will also make them want to tell others about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to their blog once but getting someone to come back again and again, that is the key to increasing your blog traffic.

So post often, build links so people can find you and then make sure to keep it interesting. They’ll come…for now, work hard and be patient.

“Talk the Talk” – Participating in Discussions to Increase Traffic

admin — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:35:00 +0000

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

admin — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:09:00 +0000

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:

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

admin — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 16:47:00 +0000

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

Building Links to Your Blog Series

admin — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 16:22:00 +0000

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.