Interesting And Useful Blog Posts

I must admit that this post is inspired from something I read on Blog About Your Blog. What I'm going to do is list a few recent posts, from other blogs, that I have found interesting. I've kept them about the main themes of this blog i.e. making money, promoting blogs and so on. No more waffle, let's get on with it.

Blog Tutorial 6 of 10: Design and Layout - Google ads? Affiliate Programs? Links to other sites and blogs?
Okay, so that's one heck of a long title but there again this is a long, in depth post that Kat has written, that's her on the right. As you can gather from the title, this latest part of her tutorial (10 parts when complete) covers the design and layout of a blogger blog. A few of the subjects covered include:

Finding Blog Designs and Color Schemes You Like
Changing your Blogger template - colors
Changing your Blogger template - layout
Advertising on your blog
Linking to other blogs

It's an excellent read with lots of useful information.

Money-making review: Agloco, is it a scam?
I do like people who don't follow the herd and think for themselves. I also like a bit of controversy. My Brazilian friend, on the left, therefore fits the bill with his post. Agloco are big news but are they all they seem? As Julio writes: 'So people sign up. And then what? You find out you've been had.'

Wonder if you agree with his opinion?

A few sophisticated directories
I had to pick one from Blog About Your Blog so I chose this one from ed the editor. Like any good title, this one says it all. Here are his suggestions which might be an alternative to using unproductive Blog Directories (see from my Weekly Reports how little, in the way of referrals, I get from directories). I'll leave it to him to tell you his recommendations but, as he says, 'I am not promising the earth, but they may just deliver something more than the normal 1 visitor a month!'

Learn more about your Visitors with Google Analytics
I don't know if you use Google Analytics but, from the other side of the world to me, Rob writes from New Zealand: 'Once you have been tracking your site for a couple of months a range of very useful data is accumulated with all manner of information about your visitors, referrals, search terms etc.' Is the info really useful? Can we get a bit bogged down with statistics and charts? See what you think.

I'll leave it at just the four this time, especially as the first one listed will take you a while to read - don't let that put you off though.

Good luck,
Mike.


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Traffic For Newbies

A post mainly for blogging beginners.

Visitors equal money. Well they do if money making is your objective, but even if it isn't, most new bloggers want the posts they have sweated over to be seen by as many people as possible.

One of the main questions often raised by newbies to the blogosphere is about getting traffic to their blogs.

Now the following isn't going to be another post about How To Get More Traffic, there's lots of this sort of information about. I'll list a few at the end of this post - but, of course, they are often all theory. It's nice sometimes to deal in facts, and this is what I'm going to do now.

Here are seven sources that send me traffic, together with how many they have sent me. As I said: facts not theory. They aren't sophisticated ideas like link baiting, keywords, SEO and the such. These are simple basics that will get new blogs some visitors. As you will see they have worked for me.

Let's start with forums, which is really a social gathering of like minds all putting in their pennyworth. Again their are dozens of forums about but the one that has worked for me is the Blogger Forum. In a short time I have had 263 visitors via their forum. And to me these are 'good' hits because they have followed a link relative to the subject matter of the thread.

Now there is a problem with forums: they are time consuming. This is okay if your main objective is the debate. However, when you want to make money in a limited time frame, you need to find a way to keep any threads you have started towards the top of the page. This way they are more likely to be read and, as it's a numbers game, you are also more likely to get clicks from your link.

One way to do this is to 'bounce' your threads to the top of the list. The top listed threads are normally the newest ones and also ones with the latest comment. Providing someone else has made a comment at some time on your thread, there is no reason as to why you can't reply to this comment yourself - this will then bounce you back up to the top of the list, where it is more likely to get seen.

Purists will no doubt not like this idea - but I reckon most bloggers acknowledge comments on their own blogs, so what's the difference? The thing is timing. If you've only received one comment answer when your thread is disappearing from the front page.

Enough of that. All I intended to say originally was that from Blogger Forum I have had 263 hits!

I'll keep the next one short and simple. From myLot I've had way over 300 referrals. Again time consuming but at least you can earn a few dollars at the same time. Think 'referrals' more than 'money' though See my post myLot Money And Referrals for more info.

Moving on to MyBlogLog, from where I have had 109 referrals. I don't pay this the attention I should, but it's certainly worth joining as a lot of good contacts can be made. See also my post Experiencing MyBlogLog.

Following this there are link advertising programs such as 1000000 Links (105 referrals) and their sister site Mister Linker (36 referrals). Into this category I'd also put Klik Us (65 referrals). With these three they are not time consuming. Once you have their link on your blog, that's it. Some bloggers cringe at these sort of sites but what the heck. If they bring a few more visitors to a newish blog that's what matters.

To get referrals though you need to put their links in prominent positions on your blog. The more clicks they receive, the more likely you are to get referrals. You'll see why this is if you visit their websites. And with Klik.Us it may help if you are an attractive girl! In saying this I have managed to get my mug on the front page. I wouldn't, of course, suggest clicking on your own links - as this would be dishonest.

Okay, that's the seven. Also make sure that your blog is being included within Google Blog Search (132 referrals). If it isn't submit it here.

As I've said already this post is for the newbies. There is much more to getting visitors than this, but you have to start somewhere. There is further information here:

10 Ways To Increase Money Making Traffic
How to Get Free Traffic for Your Web Site
Learn To Do Effective SEO In Less Than 350 Words
How To Get Traffic To Your Blog And Make Money With It
The Quest for the Golden Google PageRank

Also my Money Making Weekly Reports give other traffic stats such as with Blog Directories and from link exchanges.

Good luck,
Mike.


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