Utilize LinkWithin for More Free Traffic

Looking for more free traffic ideas?

Last week I blogged about how to Keep Your Blog Posts Archives Alive with the help of LinkWithin you can do just that.  LinkWithin is a free service that will go at the bottom of every post and show other blog post teasers from previous articles.  By showing related articles at the bottom of your posts your readers will continue reading more of your posts on topics that they are interested.

When your readers notice the other related articles that you have written they will tend to stay on your blog longer and your bounce rate will go down.  So by having this option down there at the bottom of your posts you are doing yourself and your visitors a favor.

Once LinkWithin crawls your blog they will start showing the articles related to each post.  You will see the words - "You might also like:" near the bottom.  The blog posts that appear are chosen by the title, tags, and content that is included in them. 

If you are looking for a free way to improve traffic on your blog and keep your readers engaged you might consider trying the free LinkWithin.  You can learn more at Linkwithin.com.

Is Your Blog in the Right Niche?

Are you blogging about the right niche for you?

Many people jump into blogging and make the mistake of not picking a niche.  What is a niche anyway?  A niche is a narrow part of something bigger.  For example you like to garden, a gardening niche would be green house gardening or flower pot gardening.  If your blog is too general you will likely not meet your blog visitors needs and they will find what they are looking for elsewhere.

There are many niches that you can write a blog about but some of them are not right for everyone.  Think about your hobbies and what you like to do or talk about and work from there.  If you would like some niche suggestions here is a blog post I wrote last month: 101 Niches to Blog About

Many other bloggers suggest that the make money niche in blogging is not the right niche for everyone.  For one, there are blogs telling you how to make money everywhere you look.  Make money blogs are probably 10 to 1 verses other blog niches.  So competition in this category is fierce and raging.

You also don't want to pick a blog niche that is too narrow.  If you wanted to blog about the missing socks from the dryer you might not be able to make much money from this because there are not enough searches going on about this topic.  So you don't want to narrow down a general niche topic too far so that no one even cares.

Why you need to pick the right niche ~ Niche Writing Will:

•   Show your expertise in your Niche area.

•   Drive targeted traffic to your Niche Blog or Niche Articles.

•   Bring Specialized clients to you.

•   Enable you to sell more products related to your niche.

•   Make you more money.

If you still don't know what the right niche is for you and you want some help to become a Niche Blogging Authority then you might like to read Niche Blogging Profits by Codrut Turcanu.

Want Lots of Free Blog Traffic? Use Entrecard

Free Blog Traffic with Entrecard

You may notice the little widget in my sidebar that has a little bar that says Get One or Drop.  Well this is one way you can get a bunch of free blog traffic.  I just signed up with them yesterday as part of my 31 Day's of Free Blog Traffic Challenge.  

 

This is my Entrecard "card" one that I will use to advertise on other sites.  I know it needs some work but I thought it wasn't too awful for just throwing something up there.  I made a new advert card - the one on the right.  I think it is better in some ways and also harder to read?  It will have to do for now.

So I "dropped" in on 100 blogs last night and then another 100 blogs today.  I will say that it is very time consuming to do all one-hundred, but I will continue this rate for the full 31 days to see what kind of results I can get.  From these blog views I have gotten 24 visitors that I had also visited, and I expect this to continue to rise every day.  I have also gotten one comment and suggestion.  So far I am impressed and hooked, but we will see how it all turns out.

I was not sure about signing up for this Entrecard at first or not, I thought it might be considered black hat.  It may be somewhere in the gray area, because this is not targeted traffic and ultimately that is what you want coming to your blog.  When you start a new blog as I have you are some what desperate for any blog visitors so you are willing to go out there and try some interesting things. 

I have read a bit about Entrecard on some other blog's and here is what I have learned (not sure if any of it is true or not).  John Chow used to use Entrecard, so if it was good enough for him then it is good enough for me.  Google and the other search engines may lower my page rank because of the high bounce rate or the blog traffic from Entrecard visitors.  Many of the site visitors will just click on the "drop box" then immediately leave.

Well right now I am not concerned about my page rank because I don't even have one yet.  The problem of having some of the free blog traffic just clicking in and then right back out, well maybe a few will leave comments.  I might even get a small percentage of  loyal readers out of  the whole thing.

If your blog needs to get some free traffic you might consider trying out Entrecard.  You may not like the widget that must be displayed but once your blog gets approved I think you can move it down lower on the page, which may help your blog visitors see more of your blog and stick around to read something.

Free Blog Traffic - 31 Day Challenge

My Blogging Fortune is going to go through an intensive 31 Day Course or a Challenge to get more blog traffic.

Take the Free Blog Traffic Challenge with me:

You may have heard about Problogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, well I came up with a similar idea only he beat me to it by a long shot.  They say that  imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  So I hope that Darren Rowse sees this is a huge form of flattery.   Yes, that is an affiliate link and yes, I am trying to suck up to him.  Do you think it's working yet?

I thought if I made a plan for the entire month and really concentrated on doing all of the free blog traffic generation ideas.  I know that my blog traffic could potentially explode.  It may be frustrating and very time consuming but it should be well worth it in the end.

This month just happens to have 31 Days and so do several other months but you can start taking this challenge at any time because it will be laid out so you can do daily tasks.  This Free Blog Traffic Challenge will be tailored to my schedule and therefore be a much lighter load on the weekends when I like to spend time with my family.

Daily Tasks - Complete this list every day for all 31 days:
1. Make a blog post each day.
2. Ping your blog after every blog post each day.
3. Make 100 Entrecard drops.

Free Blog Traffic Challenge - Week 1:
1. Sign up at Entrecard.com
2. Article to GoArticles
3. Squidoo Lens
4. Article to Ezine Articles
5. Blog Carnivals
6. Bookmark on Digg, Delicious, and Onlywire.com
7. Make 20 comments to like blogs

I am only going to list the first week of my Free Blog Traffic Challenge.  I thought about filling in the entire calendar but then I thought that was too overwhelming so I am going to try this as a week by week thing.  I used a free calendar from Calendars That Work that downloads into a Word Document that you can edit and add your own daily items.  I am really liking this and think I may continue using the calendar in this way.

I hope to see some really great blog traffic results and I will let you know how it goes.

Day 20 - My Blogging Challenge Update

 Day 20 of my money making blog challenge.

 Here is what I have been up to in the last few days:

Because of my daily double posting I have not been spending enough time getting traffic to my blog.  I have definitely done a few things here and there, but not the big things that I had planned.  So now that I will only be publishing one blog post a day that will free up some time for me to work on getting all that lovely traffic that is needed to make money blogging.

•  I got my first comment, a result of making some blogging friends.
• Finally got my blog approved on Technorati.
• Working on a Blog Traffic Generation Course for myself that others can follow.

Still working towards my eventual six month goal of earning $300.00 a month.  I believe if I work on getting higher rankings and more traffic to my blog it will be a success and a money making blog in that time.

No Traffic - Get Mad About It!

Are you going to sit there and wine about no traffic or will you get mad about it?

Your blog has no traffic (or only a little trickle) what can you do?  Do you get depressed?  Stop blogging?  Move onto another blog niche?

No you get mad about it.  OK, then what?  You go out and take action.  Go get yourself all angered up that no one cares but you will make them care.  You will make them see how valuable your money making blog is and then they will all come to you for answers. 

How to get motivated to go and get your own blog traffic:

• Do something to promote your blog - in-action often leads to more in-action.  Do something to get your engine started and maybe you will get motivated to do so much more.
• Make a blog plan - if you already have one then chuck it in the trash and make a new one that is better.
• Follow your blog plan and reach the goals and then set new ones.
• Make deadlines for your blog plan and work to meet those deadlines.
  

Here is a little motivating quote to get your butt in gear and go out and get that blog traffic, "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have." Thomas Jefferson

Remember that even the biggest pro-bloggers did not have overnight success.  Everyone claims that they are making money, but some of that is deception.  Proof of income can be faked with paint shop or photoshop programs.  If you are reading a popular blog chances are if you were to look into their archives (if you can find them) they have been blogging on the same site for around two years and have hundreds of blog posts or more.

Well, why are you still here reading my blog?  Don't you have some work to do?  Go now and get busy!

Your Favorite Free Traffic Links - Poll

Favorite Free Traffic Links

Please Take a few seconds to take the Poll.


Just a little curious to see what type of free traffic methods others are using to get visitors to their blogs. Thanks for voting!

Using Twitter to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Twitter for More Blog Traffic 

If you have not signed up for Twitter and you have a blog you are missing out on potential traffic and new blog readers.  Twitter can be a powerful blogging tool for blog traffic.

To get more followers on Twitter you can do a search on your blog's keywords, mine are make money online and make money blogging so I search for those.  Then you can see who else is tweeting your key words, they may be your competition.  Here is what you can do though, see who their followers are and go follow them.  Chances are, they are interested in your key word topic or blogging niche and will follow you back.  By doing this you gain two things, more followers and potential blog readers.

When you make a new blog post you also post a tweet about the blog post with a link.  That way your followers will see your blog post title and they can click through to your blog.  You might just get some loyal blog readers in this manner, and it's easy to do.

If you are not utilizing Twitter for your blog traffic you may want to reconsider and sign up today.  You may have noticed that my blog has a widget to show my most recent tweets on my blog.  I have also used FeedBurner to automatically post my blog title with a link on Twitter.

One last note about Twitter:  Twitter can be a personal thing but if you have a blog that is not about your personal life, then you don't need to post personal stuff.  If you have a money making blog you will not want to post about the weather or what you ate for lunch.  If you have just found a great deal for bloggers you could always tweet about that. 

You can follow me on Twitter here:  BloggingFortune

Good Blogging Habits

Do You Have the Right Blogging Habits?

If you make some daily blogging habits it can help you do have a successful money making blog.  The experts seem to agree that habits are made in about one month. So if you do an activity everyday for one month you can make it into a habit.  Likewise, if you want to break a bad habit you will need to stop doing it for one month's time.

Good Blogging Habits:

1. Blog Post Daily - If you get into the good habit of posting on your blog everyday it will become a habit and you may even begin to look forward to it.  If you happen to stop posting for a day because of illness, etc. you may have guilt because you have let yourself down or your readers down.  Take the challenge - Post everyday for one month.
2. Attract Traffic to Your Blog - This is an essential step that most people stop after only a few tries.  If you go around the Internet and daily try to get traffic to your site, you will be a step ahead of the competition.  Read:  5 Ways to Get Traffic to your Blog for ideas.
3. Build Blogging Connections - Leave comments on other bloggers blog posts and they might just return the favor.  If you make blogging connections with bloggers in the same niche in the future there may be an opportunity for a joint venture.

If you continue to make these three steps into daily habits no matter what you will succeed.  That means if you don't get any comments or make any sales and have no visitors then you still complete these good daily blogging habits.

To take a quote from the movie Field of Dreams, "If you build it, t(he)y will come."  If you post regularly and go out and actively try to get traffic and make blogging connections eventually they will come to your blog.

So make some new habits and commit to doing these three things each day for one month.  Then you will be set and soon will have even more traffic than before.

How to Make Money With Your Blog

There are only 2 things you need to do to make money blogging.  When you start a new blog those two things need to be done on a daily basis.  New bloggers or struggling bloggers will need to make a commitment to check these two items off each and every day.

OK, do you want to know what the 2 really important things are that bloggers must do?  You may be disappointed to learn that you already know the answer to the blogging keys to success. 

How to Make Money Blogging:

1. Make useful posts that help your readers.
2. Drive traffic to your blog.

Told ya that you already knew them.  These  items need to be part of your daily blogging routine.  Because if you have no helpful content people will leave.  If you don't have traffic they can't find your blog.

It seems so simple and in reality it is, but the traffic is extremely important and can be hard to attain.  That is why you have to work on getting visitors daily at first.  Later when your blog has taken off the traffic will come on its own.  For now though you must do some work.  So click on over to my post  5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog and get busy getting your blog traffic.

Another 5 Ways to Get Free Traffic to Your Blog = 15 Tips

Another 5 Free Blog Traffic Tips

5 Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

5 More Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

And now: Another 5 Free Traffic Tips to drive targeted traffic to your blog to help you make more money from your visitors.   OK the title is a little different but I thought maybe it would get you to click on this blog post about free traffic ideas.  It worked right, you are here reading this.

So if you have already read the other previous 5 Ways and the other 5 More Ways for Free Blog Traffic Generation Ideas then you need more free blog traffic ideas.  Again the key to these ideas is to actually do them and if at all possible do them over and over again.  If you like you can set up a checklist of your traffic steps and do them all daily or weekly.  You will need to continue to get traffic to your site until you are popular enough that the traffic comes on its own.

Another 5 Free Traffic Tips:

1. Offline Promotion - Tell all your friends, email them the blog link, call all of your aunts and uncles and let them know about your blog.  Make up business cards with your blog's URL.

2. Blog Post Frequency - Minimum posting should be 3 times a week, once a day is better.

3. Answer Questions - Post your blog link on answers that you leave on questions sites like Yahoo Answers and Blurtit.  Make sure the questions and answers are related to your blog.

4. Press Release - Write up a press release about your blog and submit it to a distribution service.

5. Trackbacks - If you don't understand this there is a great description here: How Trackback Works.

If you have implemented the 15 ways to get free traffic then you should see some visitors trickling onto your blog.  You need to make sure that you continue to do these free traffic generating ideas to keep getting new blog readers. 

Each time you implement one of the ideas you should see a serge in traffic but then it may dip back down again.  Keep on putting your link out there and eventually you won't have to rely on these methods, but this is where you need to begin. 

Go Get That Traffic!