I Do Web Marketing

You’ve all heard the statement, “Content is king,” and I do believe it is paramount to the success of any SEO campaign. However, isn’t the goal of great content to generate links? Links that build your authority and drive traffic to your site? Great content that never gets seen won’t do anything for you. So if content is the car you ride in on, then links are the engine that makes it run.

Whether you like it or not, you have a job to do AFTER the content is written. Simply put, you must promote it! Don’t just promote any and every piece of content though. You want to promote your best work. Content that you really feel has an impact within your industry, or something that you feel should be shared. The general rule of thumb is this content will not be self-serving in any way. So exactly what type of content can be created to attract links and traffic from other sources?

Here are a few ideas to help you get started with creating your masterpiece:

1. Industry reports – create a report that is conducted from surveys and interviews. Look at Marketing Sherpa and their industry reports for guidance.
2. Infographics – These are all the rage nowadays. Show your information in a visual format, don’t have readers read a bunch of text.
3. Helpful guides – have something to share that could use it in an easy to digest how-to guide format?

There are other ways to generate links, but they all generally require doing some additional work and creating something unique. The question then becomes, “now how do I promote the content?”

This requires using your social networks, doing social bookmarking, asking people you have relationships with to help spread the word about the content you have developed. Be sure the content itself is shareable. Remind people within the content to tweet it, email it, like it, etc. The actual process of promoting will be something else that I go into more detail with a helpful guide (see #3 above:D), so stay tuned!

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

This is a guest post from Brendan Egan of Simple SEO Group. If you are interested in providing a guest post, please contact me.

Bloggers around the world know the importance of getting their blog and blog posts ranked on search engines.  While some bloggers depend on referral traffic from other websites to deliver their visitors, the vast majority of bloggers receive their traffic from search engines.  In a recent survey, it was estimated that over 65% of blog traffic comes from a search engine.

With these statistics in mind, you might be wondering what you can do to your own blog to make it more search engine friendly.  Here’s 5 great tips to get the most search engine traffic possible on your blog.

1) SEO Plug Ins: One major aspect of SEO is having a good URL, Title, and description for your blog posts.  If you’re using WordPress or really any blogging platform out there, you can search for SEO plug ins that will allow you to control your URL, Title, and other important aspects of your post.  Make sure you optimize these aspects to be reflective of the keywords you want that blog post ranking for.

2) Write Quality Content: This should come without saying but you’d be surprised how many people out there don’t write quality content for their blog.  “Today we are having a sale come in to our store” is not a quality blog post.  While it may be helpful to write a blog post about your sale today, it would be much better to put “Today we are having a sale come in to our store” as your title or headline, and then expand on this by writing a 200-500 word blog post outlining the sale, what you are offering, and providing other details.  Not only will this help with drawing people in but it will also help with SEO.

3) Never Copy/Paste: Duplicate content is like a bullet to the heart these days.  Never go around on the internet and copy/paste content you think is interesting or helpful. If you find something interesting, write a blog post about it on your own and link to it during your blog post so readers can find the original resource if they want.  Providing duplicate content will most definitely hurt your website’s rankings, especially after Google’s most recent updates this year.

4) Tag/Categorize Your Posts: Adding tags and categories to your posts will not only help you with organization, help your readers find what they are looking for, but it will also help with SEO.  Your blog software will insert your tags/categories throughout your post and then will create a page for these tags/categories with other similar blog posts from your blog.  This gives search engines another keyword rich page to rank and will help search engines understand the relationship between multiple blog posts.

5) Find Similar Blogs And Provide Quality Comments: Ok, this has gotten me in trouble before for posting, so let’s be clear: This is NOT comment spamming which is going to a blog and writing “Great post!” then expecting that to get approved with your link.  Go to similar blogs and read their blogs (it might give you ideas for future blogs) and upon reading write a meaningful, relevant comment and enter your URL in the URL field.  As long as you are actually contributing to their blog, they will likely approve your comment which will give you a great new back link.

While following these steps won’t get you to the first page of search results for a competitive keyword like “Stock Market”, it will  get you to the first page for long tail keywords, for example “Learn How To Trade Options In The Stock Market”.  I’ve seen dozens of posts on our blog and our client’s blogs get ranked on the top page of search results just by following these simple tips, and chances are following these suggestions will only take you an extra 10-15 minutes per blog post, but will help drive much more traffic to your blog.

About The Author: Brendan Egan is the owner of Simple SEO Group, a small business online marketing firm specializing in small business SEO. Brendan can be contacted at SimpleSEOGroup.com

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

Today’s guest post was written by Jonathan Bentz, a member of the internet marketing team at ProspectMX, a Pennsylvania-based web marketing company.

If you blog, and no one reads it, does your blog matter? Or are you simply clogging up the internets?

Many bloggers don’t feel the need to worry about marketing themselves. “I’m not blogging to make money – this is just my hobby,” I’ve heard some say.

If that’s the case… then great. But if you’re not blogging to be read, why not just keep a notebook and write notes to yourself?

The point of blogging IS to be read. You believe you have something to say that people want to read. In order to be heard by the right people, bloggers need to get their content in front of their audience.

How can bloggers do that? Through syndication. Really Simple Syndication.

Below is a list of ten websites that syndicate blog content at no charge. Due to the traffic these sites receive, the authority they carry with the search engines, and connections they have with top publishers, all ten sites can provide a major benefit to marketing your blog. In all cases, they also allow you to syndicate the content you produce on your blog for free.

In some cases, these syndicators might even pay you for your hard work! Even if you don’t blog for the money – who doesn’t like being paid?!

Make sure you have your blog syndicated by as many of these websites as possible. Your traffic numbers, better search engine rankings, and potential to earn more revenue from your blog provide all the benefit you need to syndicate.

The Essentials:
1. Technorati – the search engine for blogs. This should be the first place anyone goes to syndicate their blog.
2. Blog Catalog – need to add a small line of code to your site to get syndication with Blog Catalog.
3. BlogBurst – another essential. If accepted, your content can be syndicated on authority sites like Reuters and USA Today.
4. My Blog Log – add a small piece of code or one of their widgets to your site for visitor tracking and visitor ID.
5. Twitter – if you’re a blogger who uses Twitter and aren’t using one of the many WordPress plugins for Twitter syndication or Twitterfeed – I ask, why? What’s the problem – your blog allergic to traffic?
6. Feedburner – setting up your RSS feed through Feedburner is very SEO-friendly. Anytime you can align yourself with something Google-approved, do it.

The Unexpected Surprise:

7. Amazon – I bet most bloggers don’t know that they can syndicate their content to Amazon and get paid for it. At the beginning, Amazon only syndicated the highest profile blogs to its Kindle buyers. In May, however, they opened the doors to all bloggers. There are over 600,000 Kindle users – do you think a few of them might be interested in your content? Amazon controls pricing, but Kindle users pay between $0.99 and $1.99 for access to your content. Amazon pays bloggers a 30% commission.Three Others Syndicators That Can Benefit Your Blogging
8. Blogged – another quality blog search engine.
9. Networked Blogs – Networked Blogs also has a great Facebook app for bloggers and the fans of blogs.
10. Blogoria – SEO-friendly syndication.

As I was brainstorming a topic to discuss, I realized I wasn’t sure where to go with this post. I was actually going through a bit of a writer’s block. Then it dawned on me, write about ways to overcome writer’s block! Just about any writer, author, or blogger has experienced it. So, what is writer’s block and how do you deal with it?

Typically the phenomenon starts with having to write something, and usually on a deadline. Writer’s block is the demon that lies on a blank page. You know the topic, but for whatever reason you just can’t put it into words. Frustration certainly begins to take hold, maybe even panic as your deadline nears. The tighter the deadline, the worse that feeling becomes.

Writer’s block affects all writers. There is no immunity, even for those who are never short of words, they have experienced it at some point. There are a number of factors that are contributing to this blank state of mind:

1. Perfectionism. You demand perfection, and because of this you’ll often times get it. However, it can prohibit you during a state of writer’s block. Writing a Shakespearean masterpiece doesn’t need to happen every time your pen touches your pad, or your fingers touch your keyboard.

2. Editing, not Composing. Sometimes it’s best just to let your creative juices flow. It may not make sense, and may actually come out as gibberish, but at least it’s a start. Run with it, don’t worry about your grammar or punctuation at this stage.

3. Self-consciousness. Falling along the lines of perfectionism, you’re more focused on what people are going to think of you or your writing. When you’re going through writer’s block, you just need to throw caution to the wind and pretend as if no one else is going to see this. It’s like a public speaker that pretends everyone in the audience is naked.

4. Can’t get started. As they say with Football, the first points are the hardest to score. The same can be said about writing, it’s usually the first sentence that’s the hardest to write. By starting off with random thoughts on a particular subject, it will get your creative juices flowing. You can always worry about fixing it up later.

5. Lack of concentration. You have every possible thing going on around you. Maybe your going through personal/family issues and can’t think. Your mind is wandering, and you can’t focus on the task at hand. I always recommend a quiet environment where you can truly focus your attention on the goal. Some people like to listen to music while they write, but I don’t. I find it too distracting and instead of writing I’m sitting there singing along. Believe me, it doesn’t sound pretty.

6. Procrastination. This might just be everyone’s middle name. People are often procrastinators and this isn’t helping your writer’s block syndrome. Set goals and stick to them. If you plan on writing 3 blog posts today, then focus your attention on accomplishing that goal and don’t worry yourself with what you’re going to have for dinner.

Hopefully, realizing  writer’s block and how it’s caused will push you towards conquering the syndrome. Be prepared and stay focused, and soon writer’s block will be in the rear view mirror.

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

Source: www.clickkt.com

If you’re a well-loved blogger, there’s a good chance that your readers would like to show their support. Give them what they want and make money by taking advantage of merchandising opportunities.

1. CafePress.com: This perennial favorite makes it easy for you to put your blog’s logo on shirts, bags, coasters and other items.
2. Self-Published Books: If your readers like your content, they may want to have something they can own offline or even share with friends. Create a book with self-publishing services like Lulu, and you’ll earn profits even without a huge book deal.
3. Printfection.com: Design and sell custom products with Printfection.com.
4. Hard-Copy Content: Create a CD-ROM “book” with cleanly organized content that can be accessed offline. You can take things a step further and sell subscriptions for future updates to the system.
5. GoodStorm: Like CafePress.com and Printfection.com, GoodStorm is a nice way to create and sell your own merchandising products.

Paid Content

Paid content is a good monetization method for bloggers that regularly offer useful information — especially if this information helps others make money. As with all monetization methods, it’s all in the approach. Don’t create misleading previews of content that requires a membership to read in full. Rather, devote special sections of premium content to readers who are willing to pay for the information.

6. E-Books: Whether it’s a compilation of your best tips or a new idea altogether, an e-book is a good, reader-friendly way to package content.
7. White Papers: Like e-books, white papers are a smaller, more technical version of your content.
8. Phone Calls: Sell one-on-one phone calls for advice and other consulting through Ether.
9. Miniguides: If you’ve just run a particularly helpful series, package it up into a miniguide.
10. Tutorials: Gather your knowledge and compile it into a tutorial that relies upon your expert advice.
11. Members-Only Sections: Whether you’re providing access to published items or just ad-free content, make sure you’re delivering a product that your readers are willing to pay for.
12. TextMarks Inc.: Charge readers to get text-message alerts about your content through TextMarks.
13. X-Events: Project physical events online and create revenue by charging admission, attracting sponsors and selling subscriptions to future events.
14. Podcasts: Podcasts may be a novelty to your readers, and many of them are probably willing to pay to be able to hear your entries on the go.
15. Videos: Like podcasts, videos are value-added extras that readers may be willing to pay for.

Begging

It never hurts to be straightforward about earning money from your blog. Ask your readers for donations — in a polite way, of course — and the ones that truly value your work will likely be more than willing to help support your ongoing success.

16. PayPal: PayPal’s system allows you to place a donation button on your blog.
17. Amazon Honor System: Like PayPal, the Amazon Honor System allows you to accept online donations.
18. Mailed Checks: Of course, good old U.S. mail works just as well. Provide readers with a P.O. box that they can mail donations to.
19. Buy me a beer/coffee: Asking for donations in the form of a beer, coffee or other special item allows readers to reward you with something tangible.
20. Amazon Wish List: Although it’s not cash, asking readers to buy you items from your Amazon Wish List will save you from having to buy things yourself. Again, they’ll feel more rewarded knowing they’ve given you something tangible.

Opportunities

Becoming a successful blogger means becoming an expert in your field. You can use this status to earn money through opportunities, while increasing the value you provide to your readers.

21. Writing Gigs: By showcasing your writing talents on your blog, you’ve provided a living resume to any blog network or news site that might be interested in hiring you.
22. Seminars and Workshops: As an expert, you can invite readers to visit with you in person for seminars and workshops.
23. Bloggers for Hire: Get yourself hired to blog for a corporate Web site.
24. Blogger Jobs: Like Bloggers for Hire, Blogger Jobs can connect you with sites in need of a blogger.
25. Go Offline: Take your blogging skills offline as a columnist in a newspaper or magazine.
26. Guest Blogging: Fill in for fellow bloggers as a guest writer for a nominal fee or just future reciprocation.
27. Job Board: If you’re an industry leader, set up a job board that your readers can use to hire or be hired for positions in your field.
28. Create a Radio Station: With a radio station, you can feature podcasts, sell showcase spots to budding artists and even sell audio advertising.
29. Consulting: If you’ve found success as a blogger, you probably have a lot of knowledge to share about mastering both the Internet and your field. Freelance as a consultant and get paid for sharing what you know.
30. Speaking: Your blog can get your noticed by industry leaders and can land you speaking engagements at conferences and meetings.
31. Book: A number of popular bloggers have landed lucrative book deals.
32. Interviews: Share your knowledge on a new medium and go on radio or TV interviews.

Offline

The benefits, monetary and otherwise, of writing a blog extend well beyond the Internet, particularly if you operate an offline business. Take advantage of these benefits using the following methods.

33. Market Your Services: Your blog is a great forum for marketing your business. Post about current promotions, new interests and other business-building information.
34. Create a Voice Behind Your Business: A blog is a great way to grow your business through personal dialogue. By presenting yourself as a friendly authority, your business becomes more approachable.
35. Deepen Customer Relationships: Beyond providing a friendly voice, a blog can help you connect with customers. Link to their blogs, write about their interests and give them special attention in your writing.

Ads

Ads are generally the bread and butter of bloggers. However, they’re also the most likely to irritate readers. To keep a happy balance, focus on relevance and make sure that you’re not overloading your blog with too many ads. It should go without saying that you should absolutely not use every single one of these ad programs, either. Rather, pick a handful and rotate them until you find what that works the best for your blog.

36. Yahoo! Publisher Network: Display contextual ads on your site via the Yahoo! Publisher Network.
37. ValueClick Inc.: You’ll get quality advertisers, support and advanced technology from ValueClick.
38. Tribal Fusion: Tribal Fusion’s impression-based ad service focuses on targeting and optimization.
39. eXelate Targeting eXchange: This program relies on delayed ad cookies.
40. Clicksor Inc.: Clicksor focuses on contextual ads that can be presented in a number of different ways, such as text, graphics and in-line links.
41. Indeed: Post job listings from Indeed and get paid.
42. Chitika eMiniMalls: Promote products through interactive merchandise kiosks and provide both relevant content and comparative shopping to readers. You’ll get paid per click.
43. AdSonar: Attract advertisers and build relationships with them individually through this platform.
44. ExpoActive: Get freedom, from specific ads to style, with ExpoActive.
45. AdVolcano LLC: Using AdVolcano’s platform, you can design your ads, set your own prices and screen your advertisers.
46. eXelate Targeted Links: Pick and choose the advertisers you want on your site with this program.
47. grokAds.com: Set your price and choose which advertisers to accept with grokAds.com.
48. Adify: Get editorial control and high-value advertising on your site with Adify. You can even set your own prices.
49. AdBriteInc.: Using AdBrite, you have the option to approve and reject ads that will appear on your blog, and you can even use it to sell directly to your own users.
50. BidVertiser.com: These ads are highly customizable, and you have the option to block any ad you don’t want displayed on your blog.
51. Blogads: Get invited to this exclusive network of bloggers, and you’ll have high-quality, relevant advertising on your blog.
52. Casale Media Inc.: Get high-quality advertisers and control with Casale Media.
53. DoubleClick Inc.: DoubleClick offers differentiation and lots of solutions for publishers.
54. BlueLithium: Get great ad targeting, selective partnerships and better ad performance with BlueLithium.

RSS Ads

A more specialized advertising method, RSS ads give bloggers a way to monetize feeds. Most readers generally react to RSS ads the same way they do with regular ones, so if you stay relevant and limited, it should work out just fine.

55. Pheedo Inc.: This RSS advertising platform offers interactive triggers and video options.
56. Feedvertising: A part of Text Link Ads, Feedvertising embeds ads in your RSS feed.
57. CrispAds: This blog-focused ad network allows you to place ads directly into entries so they’ll show up both on your site and in feeds.
58. FeedBurner Inc.: FeedBurner’s ads are embedded in RSS feeds,and feature high-quality advertisers like Discover Band, Best Buy and Comcast.
59. FeedM8: FeedM8’s service makes your blog ready for mobile content and embeds mobile-appropriate advertising.

Text Ads

Text ads are one of the the most reader-friendly type of ads you can serve. Their small size and text-based nature makes them less offensive and in-your-face than graphic ads. Try out these services to put this type of subtle ad on your blog.

60. Vibrant Media: Vibrant Media’s ads are in-text and completely user driven.
61. Google AdSense: Ads from Google are the most popular and often the most profitable source of income for many bloggers. They’re relevant to your content, and many blog readers expect it, so you’re not likely to run into lots of negative feedback.
62. LinkAds: These text ads come with lots of control.
63. PaidTextLinks.com: Sell links on your site and retain editorial control over what’s posted with this service.
64. One Monkey Inc.: You can host highly targeted, text-based ads and earn a great percentage of revenue with One Monkey.
65. Kontera ContentLink: ContentLink turns relevant keywords within your content into a hyperlink ad.
66. Text Link Ads: Text Link Ads’ simple, nonintrusive ads are a good choice for many bloggers.
67. TAGword: Select your ads and set your prices with TAGword.
68. LinkAdage Auctions: Sell text links through private online auctions with LinkAdage.
69. LinkWords: LinkWords offers pay-per-click revenue embedded in your content, highlighting keywords that are relevant for advertisers.
70. Textlinkbrokers.com: Get unobtrusive, small link ads, as well as a steady monthly payout that doesn’t depend on traffic from Textlinkbrokers.com.

Sell Your Own Ads

Self-advertising is a method that trumps all others in terms of reader friendliness. By selling your own ads, you’ll get complete control and will be able to determine the method of ad serving that your readers respond to the best.

71. Individual Advertisers: Your advertisers should be ones that your readers will genuinely be interested in. Solicit ads from major, respected players in your industry for the best results.
72. Actively Sell Individual Advertising: To attract advertisers, let it be known that you’re looking for them. Put links on your site, contact potential advertisers directly and post on industry message boards.
73. Create a Media Kit: Make it easy for advertisers to buy from you. Create a kit that includes your rates, ad policies, demographics, traffic, testimonials and contact information.
74. Offer Free Ads: To get things started, seek out competitive companies in your niche and give them free ads for a specific amount of time. This will get other companies interested in advertising with you.

Affiliate Programs

Most bloggers end up dropping product names at one point or another. Whether it’s software, books or trinkets, you’re probably linking to them for free. Affiliate programs offer a way to profit from your name-dropping, often without changing much more than the URLs you point to. Keep affiliate programs reader-friendly by sharing only products that are truly relevant to your discussion and not going overboard with the quantity.

75. Amazon Associates: Amazon Associates earn up to 10 percent in referral fees for revenue made through blog links.
76. Chitika ShopCloud$: With ShopCloud$, you can list popular products in a tag cloud format.
77. WidgetBucks: These shopping widgets offer popular products, lots of relevance and plenty of customization.
78. LinkShare Corp.: LinkShare’s affiliate program will hook you up with programs for companies like Apple Inc., Dell and Disney.
79. zanox: Set up a zanox online shop, choose your products and earn a percentage of every sale.
80. uSuggest LLC: Suggest relevant products to your readers and get paid for doing it.
81. Chitika RPU: If you’ve discussed a product in a post, make money by putting a link to the product at the end of your text.
82. Auction Ads LLC: Place relevant eBay auction ads on your site to earn money.
83. Recommendations: If you’re a fan of a particular product or service, why not ask them directly to pay you for linking to their site?
84. Commission Junction Inc.: You can promote a wide variety of products through Commission Junction, so you’ll be able to find something that’s relevant to your readers.
85. Chitika Linx: Chitika’s Linx identifies keywords in your blog’s content and links them to paid product listings.
86. shareasale.com: Sign up with this network and choose which merchants you’d like to promote.
87. ClickBank: Through ClickBank’s program, you choose the products you want to promote.
88. iTunes Affiliates: Keep your readers up-to-date on new releases and earn a commission on revenue with the iTunes Affilliates program.

Sponsored Posts

Sponsored posts often rub readers the wrong way, usually because they’re blatant cash grabs, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Use these methods and programs that allow you to carefully pick and choose what you’ll write about. That way, you can stick to products and services that are relevant to your readers and that you truly support.

89. ReviewMe: Pick and choose your ReviewMe posts and earn up to $200 for each.
90. PayPerPost Inc.: Use PayPerPost to earn money from writing about the sites, products and services that you support.
91. Payu2blog.com: Sign up with this program, and you’ll get above-average pay, as well as a steady stream of work.
92. Self-Sold Paid Reviews: With paid reviews, the key is to be selective. You shouldn’t accept every offer that comes to you, and if you have nothing nice to say about the product or service, don’t bother. Be sure to offer an opposing view as well so your readers know that you’re not just blindly supporting the highest bidder.
93. SponsoredReviews.com: Review items in your own tone and as critically as you’d like with SponsoredReviews.com.
94. Blogsvertise: When you get an assignment for Blogsvertise, you’ll just put three links in a blog entry. This is a great way to make advertising look natural and unobtrusive.
95. Smorty: Choose your subjects and get paid weekly with Smorty.
96. Solicit Book Reviews: Another way to get something from your blog through reviews is to take on books. You’ll get them for free while providing a valuable service to your readers.

Other

These are just a few more ways you can monetize your blog in a reader-friendly way.

97. Sell Your Blog: If you’ve put a bunch of work into your blog and it has great stats, get a lump-sum payday from a buyer.
98. Shareapic.net: Host your photos with this service, and you’ll get paid for the number of views they get. That means that you can publish them on your blog and get paid every time someone reads a post with one of your Shareapic.net photos on it.
99. Scoopt Words: Sell your content to mainstream media with Scoopt.
100. Use Your Blog to Create a Mailing List: If you sell products, you can use your blog to generate a mailing list of people who are interested in buying from you.
101. Vizu Corp. Answers: Host polls on your site. Visitors will enjoy sharing their opinion, and you’ll earn some extra cash.

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

So you have a blog, have been writing to your blog, yet outside of your immediate family and circle of friends, no one reads your blog. This is a problem for all new bloggers and one problem you will be able to resolve by using the following techniques:

1. Use Your E-mail Signature

On any outgoing emails you are sending, you should always have your blog link attached. Even if it’s to a relative or friend, it can never hurt!

2. Subscriptions

An easy way to get your readers e-mail and repeat visitors is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blog.  Entice your readers to subscribe by giving them exclusive information. You can possibly add a discount to a product, ebook, whitepaper or just offer additional posts to your subscribers that aren’t available publicly. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is to be labeled a spammer. Be sure and ask for them to subscribe as well. You’d be amazed how well this little suggestion helps.

3. Understand Your Readers

Ask them directly, or conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their interests as well as advertising preferences.  Ask people to give you feedback on a post, to understand their opinions.

4. Join a Blog Network

A network of blogs is a collection of blog sites that share the same niche, interest, readership base, etc.  Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to numerous real bloggers about a particular topic.  You will just need to do some research to see which networks would be best suited for you and your blog.

5. Use RSS and “Ping”

RSS is one of the fastest growing technologies on the internet today.  As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base.  Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site. This is second nature for the most part now, but still something you want to make sure you have. Anytime you have created a post for your blog, you should immediately use either Pingoat or pingomatic to alert all sources that you have a new post. Once you check the sources, proceed to the nex

6. Blog Commenting

Comment on other blogs within your niche market/industry. By offering genuine comments, you will find traffic from those blogs that make way to your blog. I have found a great tool to locate “DoFollow” blogs that can searched by niche called Fast Blog Finder. DoFollow blogs count the links back to your site for search engine optimization purposes and are helpful to build your search engine rankings.

7. Rewards

Maybe you don’t have a product you can offer, or an e-book, but there’s a simple way to reward contributors to your blog. That’s by offering a link back to their website. This helps their site by giving them a link for search engine optimization purposes, and also gives them traffic from your blog to theirs.

Although this should probably be an eighth tip, it must be said that it takes great persistence, and regular attention to help grow your blog. One post a month probably won’t be suffice to sustain a regular following. With these tips, you should be well on your way to establishing your blog on your particular subject matter.

Have other ideas? Feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

Blogging is something that really started towards the end of the 1990′s.  It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page.  What started as a simple commentary system has evolved into web pages of personal opinions on just about anything and everything under the sun.  Not only opinions, but there are even businesses who strictly are online with their blogging platform. As blogging continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential.  Here are 5 reasons why you should be blogging:

1. Blogging is simple. The easiest way to get your information or opinion on the net is through blogging.  No skills are required as an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse. If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise!

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age, where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims.  However, in blogs, things tend to have a different feel. Real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising.  Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience.  You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product. It’s said that if a person is unhappy with a product, they will tell 7 people compared to just 1 person they would tell if they purchased a product they liked. Now you can tell the world, either way.

3. Blogging is free. If you have the time available, blogging costs you nothing. Just write something you feel strongly about! If you are knowledgeable in the topic, then all the more power to you. Businesses are utilizing blogs as a means to stay in contact with consumers and to reach out to them on a more personable level. This type of interaction can be priceless. Even the billion dollar Google machine has a blog, why shouldn’t you?

4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on you and your posts for information.  As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs.  If companies don’t come to you at this stage, you can start to look for affiliate to help monetize your blog. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or offer to make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site. On a side note, I can personally tell that I am close to launching my own affiliate program for Novel Concept Studio. I have already asked a couple of top internet marketing sites if they would be interested in becoming an affiliate and have gotten positive responses. So believe me, options are out there!

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a star, or have a fortunte 500 company with hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site, chances are, only your friends and relatives read your posts.  You need not depend on them to increase your readership base.  My next post will discuss some ways in which you can build your reader base.

Have other ideas? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.

The word “blog,” is derived from the term web log. So far in this blog, I have discussed every one of our internet marketing services except the Blog. Well, this will be the topic of discussion today.

Blogs have really taken the internet by storm. Everyone, even some companies, have blogs nowadays. Blogs are great ways to express your viewpoints, and you don’t have to be a professional journalist to publish one.

Blogs are also great marketing tools. The reason is, search engines love the fresh content. This is why you will often find blogs rated atop search engines for some of your searches. From a marketing aspect, it is important that your blog be related to your niche market. If you are trying to sell real estate, than you want all of your blog posts to be related to that of the real estate industry.

It is also important that you have selected keywords that link back to your site. For example, Novel Concept Studio, is the chosen keyword for this example. Clicking on that will take you back to our main page. This is important because search engines not only look to see how many links and what kinds of links you have, but the words used to describe your link. So if your web site is a real estate web site, you may want your keyword to be, “purchasing real estate.” So every time that you use that phrase, you want to link that back to your web site.That tells the search engines what your site is about, and helps to identify the keywords you are trying to use.

It is also important to make regular posts in your blog. You can’t expect to get solid results if you haven’t posted in your blog for 6 months. Content is king, but FRESHLY written and UNIQUE content is even better. I hope this helps to explain how to market your blog a little more effectively. Again, this is something that is a part of our internet marketing service at www.novelconceptstudio.com.

Be sure and subscribe for the latest web marketing strategies and updates!

Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.