It’s very easy to create a blog. The problem is achieving success or having a lot of traffic. Increasing blog traffic is an art that is a little tricky to learn. The best way to learn how to do it correctly is to look at the top bloggers in your particular niche and follow their example. Here are some of the best tips taken from top bloggers.

Create Content that Your Audience Will Likely Share

Always keep in mind that one of the best ways to increase blog traffic is through sharing. Create content that your audience will naturally share with others. This can be done by creating quality content which offers value to other people. This is very similar to word-of-mouth which is one of the most effective tools for marketing.

Participate in Communities Where Your Audience Are

Thorough research will help you determine where your target audience gathers. Obviously, you need to reach out to the right people so that you won’t be wasting your time and money for nothing. Participate in the blogs, websites, forums and social media communities where your target audience are. Bring something to the table and offer valuable input that can show your expertise. Then, you can mention your blog and invite other people to visit.

Optimize Your Blog Content

Search engines are the key to increasing traffic. Achieving high rankings is a guaranteed way for your blog to be found easily which will then considerably increase traffic. Just remember that SEO when done correctly shouldn’t interfere with great content writing. SEO blogging tools are also available to make the task easier for you.

Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog

Over 465 million registered accounts on Twitter, more than 850 million active users on Facebook and nearly 100 million accounts on Google+. These figures should be enough to convince you to take advantage of social media. Again, sharing your content is one of the fastest and most effective ways to increase traffic to your blog. Just remember that you need to have quality content which offers excellent value in order to have a higher chance that other people will share it.

Install Analytics and Pay Close Attention

If you don’t want to pay money for analytics, just install Google Analytics which doesn’t cost anything. This will enable you to learn about your blog’s visitors like where visits originate, which sources increase traffic, which content people link to, etc. This information will help you determine what you should work on in order to attract more visitors.

Okay, sidebars aren’t really the focal point of blogs. However, they still play an important role not just in appearance but also in usability. A well-designed sidebar makes it a lot easier for visitors to find what they are looking for. This will keep them at you site longer which improves your website’s overall effectiveness. On the other hand, an incorrectly designed sidebar can lead to frustrated visitors who will immediately leave the blog.

Basically, the main purpose of a sidebar is to help in navigation or make it easier for visitors to go to different parts of your website. Additionally, an effective sidebar will also give a new visitor an idea of what the blog is about and what kind of content it has. Usually, new visitors that arrive from a search engine’s result page land on one specific post. The sidebar can then give them a summary of the other content you have on the blog. Here are some tips on how to create an effective blog sidebar:

Highlight the Best Content

Most blogs use the sidebar to highlight their best content like most popular pages or posts. The sidebar offers an excellent opportunity to showcase your best content. Think of it like giving the best first impression. Give your new visitor a good impression by letting them read your best content and they will likely remember your website and return in the future.

Include an Overview

As mentioned earlier, the sidebar is one of the best tools for giving new visitors an idea of what the blog is about. The sidebar can be used to give a brief explanation of the blog. Most blog sidebars include a paragraph or two that explains what it is about. Just remember to make it straight to the point and brief.

Use it to Improve Design

Excellently designed sidebars go beyond just improving usability. These can help in making the blog more visually attractive. However, the sidebar should not take too much attention from the blog itself. Images can be used to make the links to the best content more appealing. Using special fonts or colours can also make the sidebar more attractive.

Conclusion

Blog sidebars should never be taken for granted. This is one of the best tools that can help you give that vital first impression to new visitors. It can also help them understand what the blog is all about. Designing a blog sidebar should be done very carefully and details should never be taken for granted.

Whatever the purpose of your blogging whether to make money or simply as a hobby, your goal is to succeed and attract as many regular followers as possible. Success means different things for particular bloggers. For some, it means making money from the blog while for others it means building readership or loyal followers. However, it is certain that bad blogging habits and attitudes can lead to the failure of a blog. Here are the most common habits that can be causing harm to your blogging efforts:

Lack of Creativity

There are literally millions of blogs out there. You need to set yourself apart by having a unique style that is different from other bloggers in your niche. There is a little bit of creativity in everyone. It is just more difficult for other people. Don’t overthink the process and always be on the lookout for inspiration wherever you are. It can hit you anytime as long as you’re open to new ideas. Blogging does not come automatically for most people, it is something that you work on and learn. Avoid distractions that steal your productivity and destroy your creativity. As long as you’re truly committed, you will achieve your desired results.

Having no Plan

You need to have a specific short- and long-term plan. Therefore, you also need short- and long-term goals that you should regularly review. Be specific in your goals like posting every week, guest posting 3 hours a week, posting comments on industry blogs 2 hours daily, etc. Never leave a goal open-ended. Winging it is always a bad idea when it comes to blogging. Create a good and effective plan and commit to it. If it doesn’t work, you need to adjust it accordingly.

Inconsistency

Building your readership is very difficult. However, if you’re consistent, there is a higher chance that you will be able to build your readership faster. It is important to have a good foundation by creating a reputation. Your readers have an expectation that you need to meet. For example, they expect a post once a week. If you don’t meet their expectation, they will either lose interest or totally forget about your blog. Consistency is one of the most important blogging habits.

Targeting Everyone

Most bloggers think that there is a higher chance of success when they target a larger set of audience. This is a big mistake since this will usually result to a diluted message. Since you’re trying to please everyone, you will probably be disregarding the people who can benefit from personalized content. Even before you begin your blog, you should have an accurate idea of your target audience.

There are hundreds or even thousands of blogs popping up from all parts of the world every day. However, only a small percentage of these blogs succeed. The reason for this is because of common errors that most bloggers aren’t aware of. Let’s take a look at some of the most common blogging errors and how to fix them.

Not Integrating your Blog with your Website

The major reason for creating a blog is to attract more prospects or potential customers to a website. Common sense dictates that the blog should be fully integrated to the organization’s website. However, this is often forgotten or ignored by most organizations for whatever reason. This is a big mistake since it is such a significant conversion opportunity. Most website and blogs are hosted on two different networks so they are not naturally integrated with each other.

The Fix: The best solution is to host both the website and the blog in the same network. If possible, host your blog within your website. This will result to more “indexable” content for the website resulting to more traffic.

Not Publishing Consistently

The top or most successful blogs post content on a regular basis. The frequency of posting depends mostly on the particular niche or industry. Just remember that you need to keep your followers interested by posting consistently so they have something to look forward to. Otherwise, they will lose interest or even remove you as one of their bookmarks. The more post you have and the better your consistency in posting, the better your indexing on Google.

The Fix: Create a blogging schedule that you will strictly follow. Generally, 4 posts a month is the care minimum. Also, keep an eye on your competitors and try to do better than them in terms of posting frequency. If content creation is a dilemma, you can turn to freelance writers for help.

Overselling

Obviously, the point of creating a blog is to promote your business. However, one of the most fatal mistakes is to oversell or have too much product-related content. This is a big turnoff for most visitors. Also, this can fail to trigger new keywords and trending topics which will have a negative effect on rankings.

The Fix: Try to look at your blog from your visitor’s point of view. Think about what they would be interested in. Discuss recent events, news and other things that your visitors might want to learn about. Focus on offering fresh quality content that is not directly focused on your product/services but generally related to them.

Optimizing for people is one of the most significant shifts in search marketing in the last few months. Basically, you need to write for people and link for people. Guest blogging has now become a major link building practice that results to free links, exposure and recognition. It is a one of the best SEO tactics for 2012. Just take a look at some of the benefits of guest blogging when done the right way: quality backlinks, free traffic to your website, exposure, increasing authority in your particular niche, building mutually beneficial relationships in your industry and many more. Here are the best tips for guest blogging the right way:

Target the Right Blogs

By the right blogs, this means those that are relevant to yours. These blogs should be relevant to your niche and preferably should have some presence in such niche. Remember that some blogs may be out of your league and some don’t even allow guest posts. The first step is to come up with a shortlist of the top blogs related to your niche then determine which one’s allow guest posts.

Determine the Value of a Blog

If you already have a shortlist of target blogs, determine their value by finding out about the authority of each site. There are many tools available to help you do this like Google Webmaster Tools, Open Site Explorer, etc. As a basic rule, don’t contact blogs that are below PageRank4.

Reach Out to These Sites

Start with a personalized message that offers transparency regarding your intentions. Tell them briefly about you and your work along with your websites in order to give them an idea who they’re dealing with. This will help you with your chances of getting your post accepted. Remember to have a unique value proposition. Think of it like applying for a job. Do your homework on the organization like their products/services and culture. Some flattering might be necessary but also offer some useful suggestions. Basically, tell them what you can put on the table.

Offer Excellent Content and Follow the Requirements

Only offer great content that is actually useful. Content quality is very important in order to keep the relationship with the blogger. Otherwise, they will end the relationship once your content is not good enough for them. Remember to follow carefully the guest post requirements like author bios, pictures, etc.

Get a Contextualized Link and Take Care of the Relationship

Your aim is to have posts on useful locations like your homepage or particular product pages. Links in author bios are okay but links in content are best. People are more likely to click on links within the content than links in bios. Remember that you need to continuously work on your relationship with the blogger. It should be a mutually beneficial relationship with you offering some value. Otherwise, they will likely end the relationship when you don’t have anything more to offer.

So you are consistently updating your blog with fresh content but there seems to be a long delay on promised results? Is keeping a blog for your business just a waste of time and money? Well, obviously you are committing certain mistakes, which is why all the resources you put into your blog aren’t paying off. In fact, you are not alone. We have complied 4 common blog marketing mistakes that majority of businesses with blogs also share the same guilt. What’s even more surprising here is that these common blog mistakes that victimize many businesses are actually easily fixable by merely altering minor details in the content and marketing strategy. Let’s take a look:

1. Not Integrating Your Blog with Your Website – What do you think is the main purpose of your blog? Simple. You blog aims to drive potential customers to your website, hoping to convert “searchers” and “lookers” to paying customers. So if you fail to fully intergrate your blog with your company website then you are missing the point— plus the big and precious conversion opportunity. To resolve this, why not host both your blogs within your website using a related sub-domain or within a folder. For example: www.blog.nameofwebsite.com.

In other words, if your company website is created and hosted on small-business platforms, your blog must also be hosted primarily on the same platform— not on WordPress, Blooger or TypePad. Hosting your website and blogs on separate networks fails to build a natural and meaningful connection.

2. Excessive Product-centered Content – It’s true that promoting your business is one of the major reasons why create a blog. However, writing too much promotional content, sales talks, accolades and selling schemes will chase off users from reading your blog posts. Moreover, this will not generate trending topics and new keywords because even new blog posts only talk about same old topic. Your content must promote your product or service, but at the same time it must also offer fresh, educational and relevant information. Consider whether or not your readers would be interested in your new post.

3. Publishing Content Inconsistently – Post content regularly over an extended period of time. Posting fresh, relevant content frequently and consistently gives you better chances of getting indexed on a higher rank by Google. To do this, strictly follow a blogging schedule. Publish a minimum of 4-5 posts monthly. But if your competitor usually posts 15 new blogs a month, be cutthroat and post 20. If you find this time-consuming, you may hire a freelance blogger to do this for you.

4. Disregard SEO Content – Remember to SEO your content, or else your website and blog will both flunk big time. Optimize your web content and blog content for search. If you have published older posts before reading this article, go back, optimize and refresh the older content. It’s also best to install an SEO plugin for your blog that will strike a chord when you need to put in SEO triggers to new content. Moreover, add multiple, eye-catching Call-to-Action content to aid in lead generation. Put this at the top, bottom or side bar and within the content.

At first, blogging seems to be something that is very easy and almost effortless. However, upon a closer look, you will realize that it is not as easy as it seems. It involves several hours of research a day and more hours to come up with what to write about. It is not just about content creation as blogging involves several other tasks like marketing. This is why it is critical to do everything in an organized manner. There should be a definite schedule that should strictly be followed. Here are blogging habits that each blogger needs to include in his/her routine in order to succeed.

Regular Quality Posting

The frequency of posting depends on the particular blog. Some blogs require daily posting, others require once, twice, thrice a week and so on. However, quality is very important. To attract loyal followers, you need to have quality content. This is content that offers value to your readers. It should also be free or errors both typographical and grammatical. Consistency of posting quality content is the key to a successful blog.

Continuous Backlink Building

Backlinks are one of the best ways to increase rankings, authority and traffic to your blog. However, quality is important when it comes to backlinks. In order to have a considerable effect, the backlinks should come from relevant, authority sites. Also, building quality backlinks is one of the best off-page SEO tactics out there. It is best to have a daily backlink-building schedule embedded in your routine. If you have the budget, you can outsource this task to another person. However, most bloggers operate under a tight budget that doesn’t allow this.

Interaction with Your Readers

This is another critical part of your blogging routine. You need to interact with your readers. You don’t need to reply to each and every comment on your blog but you should reply to as many as you can. Create a schedule for replying to comments and interacting with your readers. Interacting with your readers is the best way to show that you care about what they think. This will help you attract loyal followers to your blog. Interacting with your readers also include replying to emails of your readers. If you’re the type of blogger who never replies to your readers, there is a much higher possibility that you are losing regular readers. On the other hand, interacting with your readers is one of the best ways to keep interest high and ensure that your readers will revisit your blog.

Writing a blog seems pretty easy, especially if you are a skilled and creative writer. However, many bloggers still find it challenging how to craft an awesome headline that can easily create an impression to prospective readers. You know, the blog headline is a vital factor that will get your blog post read, or not.

Here’s a fact for you. Many studies have shown that merely 20% of people who read a blog headline will go on with reading the full blog post. So your goal here is to capture this 20%. How? By learning how to craft an awesome headline, meaning it should be relevant to the reader, informative, clear and of course, attention-grabbing. You will certainly need a formula that works! Read on and follow these 6 simple, breakthrough ways:

Make Your Blog Headline Pop Using Strong Action Words

Strong action words sound interesting and hypnotic, which will help pull the attention of readers. Let’s take for example a blog headline, “Is Eating More to Lose Weight A Myth?” is just fine. But let’s admit the fact that this can still be improved. How about, “Eat More to Lose Weight– 5 Truths Exposed!” or “Eat More to Lose Weight Myth Debunked!”
Try these good line starters for a change:
Unlock….
Discover..
…Revealed
…Explained
Pamper Yourself with…
Get Ready for…

Don’t Forget to Use Keywords

Good keywords make your content searchable. They capture the attention of browsers that see your topic as relevant or through direct search of your keywords. Using more keywords will give you more chances to get noticed. Your blog headline must also contain keywords because search engines likely to pick them when your keyword is found in your post’s URL. Google gives a wonderful tool to help find the most searched keywords or key phrases on any topic. See this link:  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal 

Capitalize Your Blog Headlines Properly and Consistently

A blog intends to share information casually similar to a forum and not really a typical media outlet. You can either capitalize the first word in your headline or each word that comprises it but what matters more is the consistency in your capitalization policy.

Keep It Clear and Concise

A good blog headline should be short and snappy. It must not exceed more than 65 characters or it will appear weak and shoddy. Use a concise description of what your blog post is all about. Your aim is just to catch the reader’s attention and not to summarize your blog. Moreover, avoid playing with words when writing a blog headline as this could confuse the reader. This may annoy the reader if your blog post talked about an entirely different topic.

Always Include a Subheading

A subheading is essential to make your blog posts readable. Adding 20 or more words to further describe your headline will reaffirm your topic and adds an overall impact to your blog post. It helps entice your reader to continue reading the rest of the blog post.