ZK's Web Marketing Blog » Blog Marketing

7 Reasons To Start A Podcast On Your Blog Or Website

ZK — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:36:23 +0000

If you’re looking to increase traffic to your website or blog and you think you’ve exhausted all possible options, the likelihood is that you’ve only scratched the service.

If you’ve kept a keen eye on your analytics, you’re probably aware of what niches your content appeals to. But have you considered the medium by which your content is being delivered? More specifically, have you considered creating a podcast?

Podcasts are one of the biggest trends on the Internet right now. iTunes alone has 100 million active users, making it a lush garden of subscribers.

Here are seven reasons a podcast is so useful:

It’s an inexpensive way to generate new traffic.
- Podcasting is, for all intents and purposes, free. Free to produce and free to distribute. It’s like having your own radio station, except you’re not beholden to anyone except yourself. The same way some people prefer getting their news from the radio, some people prefer listening to blogs as opposed to reading them.

By having a podcast component to your blog you’re opening yourself up for an entirely new stream of traffic, and without making any kind of investment besides time and effort.

It’s a great way to expand your knowledge base while improving your blog.
- Which sounds more beneficial: doing two to three hours of research in order to write a blog that’s going to add minimal new value to your site, or interviewing a dynamic personage who will educate you and your listeners while creating a new stream of traffic?

That’s right, the second option is the way to go. Don’t forgo written posts, of course. But incorporating podcasts is a smart way to take on new subjects and enhance your content.

It gives your subscribers more options.
- Visitors to your site can turn on one of your podcasts and listen to it while perusing the rest of your content, or doing something else completely.

Maybe someone wants to clean their house while listening to your blog, instead of having to read it: a podcast accomplishes that. And you can still offer a written transcript for SEO purposes.

It adds quantity and variety to your content.
- Every blog has text, video and pictures. So should yours, of course. But every new form of media you can add to your blog enhances it by diversifying the scope and format of communication and increasing your reach. Having an actual human voice featured makes your blog more personal.

A video podcast simulates having your own television show.
- It may look a lot more impressive than your production costs and time would actually suggest, but you’re the only one who knows. A video podcast can give your blog a feel of legitimate authority and help you to build your online brand.

You open up another avenue for monetization.
- Because podcasts are easy to produce and distribute, if you find a market for selling your podcasts to educators, subscribers, or other online buyers, you stand to make a handsome profit for minimal work.

Having a podcast AND blog creates an opportunity for cross-promotion and stronger PR.
- Blogs and podcasts attract different audiences and guest contributors. A guest host on your podcast can add a lot to your blog’s value, as can a guest blogger. The combination of the two creates a constant stream of PR.

The verdict is in. In terms of traffic, SEO, page rank, and quality, podcasts greatly enhance websites and blogs. If you were on the fence before, now is the time to loosen your chops and get your voice out into the blogosphere.

Image Credit:Martin Canchola.

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

7 Reasons To Start A Podcast On Your Blog Or Website

8 Effective Tips to Get More Traffic to your Blog

jasmine — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:41:38 +0000

“If You Build It, They Will Come” is the famous quote from the show Fields of Dreams starring Kevin Costner. But for those of you who, like me, are old enough to recall the movie, the hero had to put in much work and faith before “they” really did come.

Similarly, having developed a blog does not automatically guarantee us any readers, no matter how attractive your blog is or how informative your contents are. You would need to put in lots of time and effort to direct traffic to your blog and I will outline some of these strategies in this blog post.

The good news is that these tips will cost you nothing more than your efforts. After all… you reap what you sow. But before that, let us take a look at some of the internet traffic sources.

The major internet traffic sources include search engines, social media websites and advertisements. But since I plan to discuss on free traffic sources, I will focus on the first two sources.

Tip 1: Quality of Content

First and foremost, you should invest some time in coming up with an interesting topic (in your niche), a valuable content and an attractive title.

Most readers surf the internet looking for information and answers so do some researches and post the findings or share your experiences. Give them what they want to know.

Quality content is crucial in determining traffic to your blog. If a first-time reader finds that he had truly enjoyed your article so much, he would feel compelled to sign up for updates as well as to share your content. And who knows, your article might just go viral.

Tip 2: Frequent Posting

There are two main reasons why you should post frequently. First, your readers expected it and secondly, search engines look for it. It is the simplest way to build readers’loyalty and at the same time, boost your site’s SEO.

Analyze your blog’s traffic and determine which type of posts do your readers enjoy more. Then try to post more on these topics.

Tip 3: Submitting Your Blog To Search Engines

As mentioned in the beginning, search engines is a major source of traffic, thus it does make absolute sense to submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

You see, search engines normally have a link where you can type out your blog’s URL and submit for these search engines to crawl to, in order to include it in their search results.

Do note that this action would put your blog in the search engine’s radar but in order to be placed on the first page of a search result, requires paid advertisement and good solid SEO work. To learn about the latter, take a look at the following tip.

Tip 4: Practice Search Engine Optimization

This is one of the most important actions that helps place your blog higher in the search results pages. There are many ways to describe something but some keywords are more popular and relevant than the others. Adwords Keyword Tool would be able to identify these keywords.

Use these keywords in your posts but don’t drown your posts with them. Use sparingly and your post would eventually be ranked higher.

It requires slightly more work but the end result is worth the effort and it’s sort of like free advertisement.

Tip 5: Visit Blogs and Participate in Forums

Everyone loves a friendly and helpful person. If you specialized expertise e.g medical, IT or web hosting, you may want to consider participating in the numerous forums on the internet. From my experiences, forums are usually frequented by those seeking information.

If you have answers to these questions, do join and participate in forums. Not only would you be assisting someone, you would establish that you have the necessary knowledge and this tends to attract readers to your blog.

In the meantime, you should also reply to all your readers’ comments or questions on your blog. At the same time, you should also visit your friends’ blogs and drop comments, intelligent ones please.

Just remember to include your blog’s URL in the comment so that readers in the other website could click on your URL and come visiting.

Tip 6: Guest Posting

In case you are unable to post as frequently as you wished, you could invite your blogger friends to guest post in your blog. As mentioned in tip 1, you should maintain the quality of your post.

This is really a win-win situation where you get additional posts and your blogger friend gets more exposure! Just make sure that the content is unique and related to your niche.

Oh, it’s good to bear in mind that you should reciprocate the kind gesture and guest post in their sites too.

Tip 7: Run Contests and Giveaways

Everyone loves free stuff. So run some contests and giveaways to increase traffic. These days, most blogs offering contests and giveaways would require participants to promote the blogs in the participants’ social media before being allowed to enter the contest.

As for the prizes, you could negotiate with companies to offer their products in return for something, perhaps a good review of their product on your blog.

Tip 8: Leverage on Social Media Sites

There are two ways you can leverage on the popularity of social media sites. You could try social networking, where you use Facebook and Twitter to make more friends and invite or promote your blog to them.

Then, you can also make use of social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Technorati. These discovery engines is a great way to store and share interesting blogs posts, especially among those with the same interests.

There you go, these are some of the strategies which you can apply to promote your blogs.

Other than the above, you could also try the direct and effective way i.e. to ask for it… politely of course. There is no harm in adding a request at the bottom of your post for your readers to re-tweet your post or share it on Facebook.

And of course you should make it easy for them to share i.e. with the relevant buttons just like those you find on this blog!

If you think this article is useful, please help us share it and come visit my blog too.

Image Credit: Erisac

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

8 Effective Tips to Get More Traffic to your Blog

One Surefire Way To Improve Your Writing

Joe Pawlikowski — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:18:27 +0000

Sometimes the most obvious advice is right in front of us. In fact, people might be screaming it at the tops of their lungs. But for some reason, we are deaf to these pleas. That is, until it’s laid out for us in the clearest, simplest possible terms. For that we’ll turn to Stephen King, a man who might know a thing or two about writing.

“If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.”

That comes from King’s writing memoir, On Writing. Many current writers and bloggers have read this to me, among many others containing writing advice. Eventually, though, writers have to ditch these how-to manuals and start reading with purpose. It’s time to expand your reading.

That’s the one surefire way to improve your writing, no matter the style: by reading wider. It takes a little planning and a ton of motivation, but it pays off in the end. It will imbue you with a sense of style and authority, two qualities necessary for any writer’s success.

Here’s how to start your reading regiment.

Remember King’s words here, too: “If you feel you need permission to do all the reading and writing your little heart desires, however, consider it hereby granted by yours truly.”

Read what you will write

It might seem like obvious advice, but so many people fail to follow it. If you’re not reading material similar to what you’re writing, you’re asking for trouble. Writers need to read for a number of reasons, but chief among them is gaining familiarity with a certain style. Even after writers have absorbed the basics, reading still helps keep us attuned to these stylings.

Yet some bloggers claim, sometimes with an air of smugness, that they don’t read blogs. The joke is on them, of course, because eventually they will grow out of touch with blog readers, since they are not one of them. It’s only a pet theory, since I have no evidence, but I’m willing to bet that the No. 1 reason blogs fail is because their authors do not read enough blogs to keep up.

The principle applies for copywriters as well. If you’re writing marketing copy, it’s essential that you read the work of others. If you create landing pages, make sure to find as many landing pages as possible and read them — multiple times, even. The more familiar we become with the writing that we wish to produce, the better writers we ourselves will become.

Read what you want to write

For some writers, the present is just fine. Perhaps some web copywriters are content with their positions and their salary, and wish to do things with their free time other than write. Perhaps some bloggers enjoy it as a hobby, but do not wish to pursue it further. While that might represent a good number of internet writers, it does not represent all of them. Many of us want more.

This means expanding into other styles. Shaukat Ameen covered one such conversion in a post titled The Reason Why Established Blogger Should Sell Information Products Online. While he covered one aspect, the conversion from blogger to salesperson, I’d like to cover another. Writing for pure blogging and writing copy are two completely different disciplines. Both have different tenets, and so those who write in one style must expand their reading so that they can become familiar with the other.

If you want to write informational ebooks, read more informational ebooks. If you want to write novels, read novels. Again, it seems obvious, but it’s so often overlooked. Reading ingrains us with senses of rhythm, structure, and style. With these three elements combined we can expand our writing to other realms. But without them, we’re stuck in one place.

Read outside your comfort zone

Even those who don’t aspire to write magazine features should still read them. Pure nonfiction writers should read novels. Bloggers should read more than just other blogs. If we merely stick with material in our comfort zones, we will not grow beyond them. It’s not until we expand our reading habits that we will see great improvements in our writing.

Consider the first two aspects of reading wider a primer. Reading what you write and reading what you want to write are two basic bits of advice that are essential to any writer. Without them, success is impossible. While success is possible while staying within a comfort zone, growth is not. An improving writer is a growing writer, and in order to grow and improve we must shatter our current boundaries and move into uncharted territory.

Magazine features teach us longer form structure. Nonfiction books teach us how to bring together many disparate ideas under a single theme. Novels, better than any other medium, teach complex storytelling. Blog posts can teach us how to focus on a single idea and expand on it. That is to say, all different forms of writing contain different educational elements. Any writer will do well to read across many different styles and genres, even if she doesn’t plan to write in them herself. The lessons contained in them can be of use to any writer.

We can also get out of our comfort zone by reading about subjects that don’t necessarily interest us. Business bloggers can learn a lot from philosophy and spirituality bloggers. The ideas that personal development bloggers espouse can be of use to technology bloggers. Copywriters can form connections with all sorts of people by reading blogs and magazines on topics they hadn’t previously considered interesting. All of it will serve to help us grow as writers.

Want the ultimate in getting out of your comfort zone? Find a conference or convention — any conference or convention. It can be one dedicated to writing, but it doesn’t have to be. You can find cheap flights and cheap hotels to help keep costs down, and many conventions allow bloggers free access as media members. Go there and see what the attendees read. Attending a convention has the added bonus of personal connections, but that’s a topic for another post.

Writing success is impossible without a backbone of reading. Reading teaches us about structure, style, and content. Without these three elements, any writer is lost. In order to learn the first, we need to read what we plan to write.

In order to learn the second, we need to read not only what we plan to write, but also what we want to write. In order to expand on the third, we must read across formats and genres. No one should need prodding in this regard; reading is fun, above everything else. That we can learn something while we’re being entertained is merely an added bonus.

Image Credits:Enokson

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

One Surefire Way To Improve Your Writing

5 Essential Upgrades your Blog needs for 2012

LauraMoisei — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:52:02 +0000

Your New Year’s resolution as a blogger surely sounded something like “I’ll take more care of my precious and make it grow like never before”. 2012 is here and it’s time to do some spring cleaning in order to make your blog shine in this fast-paced world of Internet.

Did you know that every day comes with 14 fresh plugins for WordPress? This means 14 out of the box features you’ve never experienced before. Technology is constantly evolving. New trends in graphic design and content writing are round the corner. And the readers can sense if your blog is keeping up to the times or not.

So where to start upgrading? Here are a few tips.

Polish your blog’s design and usability.
- Most bloggers stop thinking about updates once they got past the approximately 154 nights spent on tinkering the layout. But it’s very healthy to take a step back and watch the overall picture. There’s always some work left to do for spicing up your blog’s design and usability.

Install the latest version of your favorite plugins. You don’t need all the bells and whistles, just the essential features: spam filter, comments managing, form building, performance monitor, some social media integrations. With a decent bunch of plugins from trusted publishers, you will enjoy the enhancements without worrying about conflicts and low page loading speeds.

If you are using the Thesis Theme framework, you can customize it like you want. Three main spots you can personalize are the top banner, the sidebar icons and the overall look of typography. If possible, work with a professional graphic designer to make your blog match the exact feel of your ideas.

People should have as less obstacles as possible in leaving comments. CAPTCHA is redundant for this, remove it. For secure authentication you can use Facebook log in.

Boost your lead generation.
Here’s the recipe for success: a real bio of yourself in the About page and a contact form for visitors to drop a few lines of feedback. Make the contact form short and simple, not too focused on “selling” and visually attractive.

A phrase like “Follow me on Twitter” next to your account link will help transform your readers into fans. Also, if you are a freelancer looking for gigs, you should publish your phone number also, even if it seems redundant. This is a more business-like way to introduce yourself to potential clients, who probably won’t search for your details on LinkedIn or other social media.

Content clutter – wipe it out!
Make a commitment to yourself: “I shall stick to the essence and won’t do any more writing on topics that are beside the point of my own blog”. Of course, we don’t advise you to become a niche blogger if you’re a generalist, but try to leave aside all those posts that just blend successful topics others have blogged about in 2010.

What is not enjoyable to write is probably not interesting to read too. Be yourself, speak about your own hot topics, take care of details. And NO for small personal annoyances of everyday life, these are not topics your public will read about anymore. Here’s one for the high-flown language fans: forget it, internet is too fast for anyone to bother deciphering this.

Control your ads display.
- This is a matter of design but also marketing. Avoid having blinking ads all over your blog. As often as you can, take static banners instead of animated ones. For AdSense, the best position would be the sidebar and between blog posts.

Try not to have ads inside posts in one post view – if you can’t remove them, at least place them right below the title, not in the content, or the entire post will have the overall look of an advertorial.

Be social!
It’s always a good idea to place social buttons somewhere visible, for people to share your content easily. Google Plus is on the wave now, so make sure you include a snippet with “Add us to Google+ circles” (of course, this means creating a G+ page for your business first).

Probably the best social media channel for a blogger is Twitter, so join it if you haven’t already and make a habit from tweeting your ideas around. And one more all-times tip: be nice, make friends among other bloggers and create a community where you promote each other. This will ensure a happy blogging for you in 2012 and ever.

Image Credit:Nick Canoy

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

5 Essential Upgrades your Blog needs for 2012

How to Write Web Copy that Sells and Engages Readers

karen — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:38:02 +0000

Many marketers make the same mistake when it comes to the copy on their Websites: They tell the reader all about them, their business, their product or service.

Of course, the reader wants information (that’s why they’re there in the first place), but the question readers really want answered, is what’s in it for me?

Marketers need to see their Website as a series of electronic, long copy ads or electronic brochures. You wouldn’t pay money to produce and run an ad, or print a brochure that didn’t try to convince prospects to buy from you, would you?

Since there’s no law against persuasive copy, why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to not only provide information, but selling propositions as well?

Feel Their Pain.

Creating copy that gets results is first and foremost about getting the target’s attention. You could be advertising the best thing since sliced bread, but if you don’t communicate the benefit quickly or don’t communicate it in a compelling way, no one will ever know about this amazing new product.

Case in point, as a headline, “the best thing since sliced bread” doesn’t tell me what the product is, and it certainly doesn’t tell me what’s in it for me, the end-user.

Yes, it communicates that something is new and depending on how you feel about sliced bread — most of us have no memory of bread before it was available pre-sliced — this is either a meaningful statement or it’s not.

Don’t Talk At Them, Touch Them.

And I don’t care where: In the head, the heart or the gut, but why spend the time and money to put a message out there without using the opportunity to show the end-user you feel their pain, you understand it, and you’re going to take it away?

A great copywriter is able to put themselves in the target’s shoes: Who needs this product? Why? What are they currently doing to fill the hole the lack of this product creates? These questions pertain to every marketing situation on the planet.

From business-to-business marketing (B2B) all the way to consumer advertising. Whether you’re talking to a mom in Walmart or to the corporate buyer for Office Max, they each feel a pain. And your messages to them need to address their individual needs.

Make It Meaningful.

While the copy on your site is, of course, about your company, your credo, your product or service, it needs to be packaged to meet the needs and wants of the reader. For instance, suppose your company has just invented instant oatmeal.

You might be thinking, let’s say, “Announcing Instant Oatmeal!” That should do it, right? Sure, that will do something, but you can do better. Why not make your words and your dollars work harder for you? Why not make the reader feel that you actually understand their plight?

Let’s look at the difference when we take the traditional statements used on Websites and make them actually speak to the end-user like a great print headline would:

“Announcing Instant Oatmeal”
or
“What would you do with 20 extra minutes in your morning?”

Sure, the introduction of instant oatmeal is great, but what does it mean for me, the person in charge of getting the family fed and off to school and work? The second line communicates the benefit of instant oatmeal.

The breakfast cook can now have a peaceful cup of coffee, read the paper, sleep 20 minutes later, or perhaps even sit and enjoy breakfast with their family.

“We Make Quality Products”
or
“We believe there’s more to being a mom than just cooking.”

Even if sub-quality products were your specialty, what marketer would say so? The reader expects to find a list of your products and there’s nothing wrong with delivering that list, but introduce that list with a statement that shows you understand what’s involved in being a parent and that your products address that.

“We’re experts in nutrition.”
or
“It’s good for you, and you, and you.”

The first line talks at the reader, telling them about you, the marketer. The second line talks to the reader and tells them that instant oatmeal has something for everyone. A far more inviting way to say the same thing.

Again, there’s no penalty for trying to sell on the Web, and the difference between a site that informs, and a site that informs and sells, is revenue and loyalty.

Image Credit: Paul Bence

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

How to Write Web Copy that Sells and Engages Readers

5 Tips to Increase Your Blog Readership

jasmine — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:12:51 +0000

Here’s a trivia question. How many blogs are there in the world today? At the time of writing, there are at least 180 million blogs (source: http://www.blogpulse.com/. With the world population reaching almost 7 billion, that’s approximately 1 blog for every 39 people! That’s quite a stiff competition for blog traffic, isn’t it?

But hang on…

I did not take into consideration those blogs that were not tracked by BlogPulse or the number of people who do not speak your language hence not being able to read your blog or even the fact that there are nearly 100,000 new blogs created in a day, according to BlogPulse.

Seems like the competition for readers is getting tougher by the day! Chances are that if you do nothing to market your blog, it will probably not be noticed at all! So what are can you do to grow your blog readership? Well, here are a few tips.

Tip 1: Frequent Updates

This is a no brainer. The more frequent you write, the higher your chances are of being noticed by search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Technorati and etc. The higher you rank in these search engines, the more readers you get.

But do remember, frequent postings do not mean that you should compromise on quality. That would be somewhat of a disaster. Writing insightful and unique topics will help build loyalty among your readers. Give your readers information or tips that they want or need, so they are able to see the value of returning to your blog.

Take this article for example, I tried to provide value so that you will return to this blog again and again.

Tip 2: Build Relationships

People like to be acknowledged and they enjoy visiting blogs that they feel that they are being valued. But since blogs are virtual platforms with less or no face-to-face communications, it is all the more crucial that we should do more in order to connect with our readers.

Some of it includes responding quickly to comments made by readers. Comments are usually a way for readers, especially the new ones, to gauge how popular a blog is. And many a times, the more comments a blog have, the higher the tendency for other silent readers to comment too. It’s a basic need of human to be part of a network and to be seen and heard.

By responding quickly, you are sending a signal to your readers that you take an interest in their thoughts and this will in turn encourage them to leave more comments. Personal emails, though time consuming, are always welcome.

Another thing you could and should do is to visit your readers’ blogs and leave comments on their blogs. Make them feel important and the favor will be reciprocated.

Tip 3: Integrate Social Medias

If you are not one of the 800 million active Facebook members or on twitter, then you do not know what great marketing tools you have missed out. Many popular blogs that I know of, post snippets or a teaser of their latest blog post to arouse the curiosity of their social media’s friends and followers.

Be active on social media sites and ta-da, you will increase your blog readers immediately. Oh, and it’s free too!

Tip 4: Participate in forums or community websites like Squidoo

These are other ways to reach out to your target audiences. You may have great posts and valuable information but in this virtual internet ocean, it is sometimes difficult for your readers to find you.

So how do you make them notice your blog? Well, for a start, participate in forums that are relevant to what you are writing or write for community websites like Squidoo. By giving valuable advices or tips, you are marketing your expertise and also your blog. If the readers like what you write, they will drop by your blog to find out more about you and your writings.

Tip 5: Make Use Of Video Sharing sites

Most people are unaware that video sharing sites like YouTube are a great tool to increase traffic to their blog. Others are afraid to do so thinking that it’s difficult. Well, here’s the deal, you don’t need to produce professional quality videos to grab attention.

You can use your camcorders or some video making software to make a short clip about the topics that you write in your blog, be it about technology, education or cooking, and have them uploaded in YouTube. Remember to provide a link to your blog.

People generally prefer to watch a video to obtain information rather than read lines and lines of text. But if you are able to generate their interest through video, then they will hop over to your blog to read more.

These are just a few simple tips that can help your blog increase its readership. Having said that, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s always easier said than done. There’s lots of hard work involved. But then again, no pain no gain.

Like many things in life, you have to put in the effort in order to enjoy the results. It does not happen overnight so you need to constantly work at it. But let me tell you that these efforts are all worth it when you see your blog readership grow!

Image Credit: Redjar

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

5 Tips to Increase Your Blog Readership

Problogger’s 50% Discount Sale on Top 3 Blogging Books ( Only for the next 3 Days )

ZK — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:08:10 +0000

The holiday season sale is on and it’s the best time for bloggers to grab products at a discounted price. We blogged about the 70 % discount on top plugins. Today Darren Rowse ( a.k.a Problogger ) announced a 50 % discount on three of the top blogging books. Problogger’s books on blogging have been downloaded by more than 19,000 bloggers, its a blueprint for every blogger to build a solid blogging business.

The 50 % discount is available only for the next 3 days, I recommend you make the best of this offer and grab all the 3 at a discounted price.

Three Deals for the Next Three Days at a 50% discount:

Book Deal 1: First Week Of Blogging at ONLY $9.99
- If you’re just getting started with blogging in 2012 or are looking to start your second or third blog this is a good resource that will get you inspired with ideas.

The book will help you build a solid foundation for your blog in the initial days. At a 50% discount it retails for only $9.99 for the next three days.

Pick up your copy at a 50% discount now

Book Deal 2: 31 Days To Build A Better Blog (2012 edition) ONLY $14.99

For bloggers who have been blogging for a while, this is an utimate resource to turn their blogs into a traffic generating power house. This book has been downloaded by more than 19,000 bloggers and online marketers. This is a new and updated version (2012 edition )

Pick up your copy at a 50% discount now

Book Deal 3:The Bloggers Guide To Online Marketing (normally $99) now ONLY $49.99.

- A very useful guide not only for bloggers but also for online marketers. In fact I recommend this to all my clients who are remotely connected in the online space. Even if you run your own Faceboook Fan page or have a Twitter following this book will be very valuable.

It’s loaded with an extensive library of practical templates, printable worksheets, and in-practice example documents, this kit delivers all you need to make your web business turn profitable.

Pick up your copy at a 50% discount now

These 3 deals are good for 3 days only, so make sure you don’t miss your chance to pick up a last minute Christmas bargain. All 3 eBooks are backed by Problogger’s no questions asked 60-day money back guarantee.

Three books for three days at 50% Discount:)

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

Problogger’s 50% Discount Sale on Top 3 Blogging Books ( Only for the next 3 Days )

MaxBlogPress Christmas Deal – 70 % Discount on Plugins Only for the Next 48 Hours

ZK — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:10:22 +0000

MaxBlogPress Christmas Deal – 70 % Discount on all MaxBlogPress products only for the next 56 48 hours

My buddy Pawan ( Aka Max Blogger ) is offering a cool 70 % discount on top wordpress plugins. Bloggers can now save upto $291 (Unlimited License) & $131 (Single License) worth of money with the Christmas Deal Offer. All this only for the next 48 hours.

This is a LIMITED TIME OFFER and will be available only for the next 48 hours.

Pawan is the founder of some of the top wordpress plugins, his plugins and products have been downloaded by more than 10,000 bloggers(including me).

Some of his top plugins include The Ninja Affiliate Plugin, Subscriber Magnet, WordPress Wizard, Max blog strip ad (the one that you see on my blog on the top of the page)and many more.

For the next 48 hours, he is offering 3 of the top plugins at an unbelievable 70% discount.

And the most exciting part – if you had to buy these plugins individually you would shell out a minimum $291(Unlimited License)& $131(Single License)– but in this spirit of holiday season you can grab all 3 products and get instant access for ONLY $88(Unlimited License)& $40(Single License), one-time investment.

MaxBlogPress Christmas Deal – 70 % Discount on all MaxBlogPress products only for the next 56 48 hours

What’s included in the 70% Discount Deal:

1) MaxBlogPress Subscriber Magnet:(Retails for $147 – Unlimited License)
- Neat plugin that help you increase your subscribers base / email base, very easy to use and works wonders on your blog. The plugin will help you increase your email base at least three fold.

2)MaxBlogPress Ninja WordPress Plugin:(Retails for $97 – Unlimited License)
- One of the most downloaded plugins by bloggers and my favorite one. If you are selling any affiliate products on your blog, this plugin will convert keywords in your blog post in to affiliate links.

3) Max Banner Ads Pro: (Retails for $47)
- Easy to use plugin that will help you add rotating banners on your wordpress blog at any place without editing any theme or changing any code.

MaxBlogPress Christmas Deal – 70 % Discount on all MaxBlogPress products only for the next 56 48 hours

All the above three plugins will cost you $291 (Unlimited License) & $131 (Single License) but ONLY for the 48 hours you can get them for $88(Unlimited License)& $40(Single License), one-time investment.

Check out MaxBlogPress Plugin Christmas Deal

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

MaxBlogPress Christmas Deal – 70 % Discount on Plugins Only for the Next 48 Hours

5 Ways to Turbo Charge Your Blog’s Traffic

Tom — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:03:50 +0000

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd and get the traffic that you feel you blog deserves. Whatever niche you are in, there will undoubtedly be hundreds or thousands of blogs competing for your traffic.

Writing fantastic content is no longer good enough to bring traffic through the door, you need to promote that content harder than ever to get traffic through sources like search engines and social media and turn those visitors into returning traffic.

Below are 5 ways to make your traffic surge and help you build your blog’s traffic beyond your mum, brother and great auntie’s cat. These will help grow your traffic from search, social media platforms and other online resources so that your blog becomes one of the authorities in your niche:

Do Keyword Research

In order to maximise your blog’s potential in search engines, you need to do keyword research to establish which phrases bring the best traffic in your niche. This can involve a variety of sources and can be as in depth as you like depending on how good your SEO knowledge is. However, for beginners the simplest approach is to analyse your competitor’s pages and use your own industry knowledge to highlight some key phrases, and then use Google’s Keyword Tool to further narrow the search and identify which phrases bring the most traffic.

Create Landing Pages

Using the keywords discovered in the keyword research process you should create landing pages for each of the key areas or ‘keyword clusters’. For example, if you write a travel blog about America, you can use the homepage to target the most difficult phrases like ‘American Travel Blog’ or ‘Travel in America’ and then create landing pages for each state to target keywords for those areas. It’s very difficult to rank one page for highly differing phrases as the title tag is so important in this process and you only have 66 characters to work with.

With optimised landing pages in place based on good keyword research you will be in a great place to earn more traffic from search engines for both headline and longtail keyphrases.

Write Guest Posts

Guest posts are a great way of gaining exposure for your blog as well as high quality links which will power your results from search. The key is to identify the best blogs in your niche and offer them great content. If you have high quality, useful posts written on well trafficked blogs then you will get a lot of click through to your own blog and people will remember you. It’s crucial that you provide useful content though, as no-one will click the link to your site if what you’ve written is of no help.

Don’t believe me? Hello, this is a guest post….!

Tweet, Like, Stumble

A great way to gain exposure is by building a strong following on social media platforms. Twitter is a fantastic tool for promoting your own material; just make sure you don’t overdo it! 9 tweets about other people to 1 tweet about you is usually a good mix. Use the platforms to interact as well; liking other people’s pages on Facebook, stumbling their content and retweeting them will draw attention to you and your blog and those people will more than likely return the favour when you promote your own content.

Interact and Promote

Commenting on other people’s blogs is another great way of building relationships and growing awareness of your blog. We’re not talking comment spam here, it’s all about constructive comments and interacting with people. Again, if you do this on blogs in your niche with a lot of traffic then you’ll get noticed pretty quickly.

Forums are another fantastic place to promote your content. Find forums specific to your niche and spend some time listening to the conversations taking place first. Then, when you’ve established a presence there start creating material that answers the questions people are asking. As well as getting a lot of clicks through your profile page you’ll establish yourself as an authority in the industry and start to get more people coming directly too.

These are just a few ideas to boost your blog’s traffic which, if all done individually, will certainly help you grow a strong readership. However, if you can push forward on all these fronts then you will find yourself with increasingly successful traffic figures. The key then is converting those readers into subscribers and customers, but that’s another post altogether…

Image Credit: Alan Trotter

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

5 Ways to Turbo Charge Your Blog’s Traffic

5 Best Ways To Increase Blog Speed Without Installing External Plugins And Tools

mikecoder — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:44:24 +0000

How fast is your blog?

Blogging is all about delivering your best information to a potential customer without getting them worked up. Unfortunately, a lot of blogs in the blogosphere are slow and visitors have to wait for the homepage to load properly. Let me remind you that you’re wasting a lot of marketing efforts. As far as I know, getting traffic to a blog is no longer difficult as it used to be. Why?

There are proven systems that can send avalanche of targeted traffic your way. The only litmus test is what happens to these visitors. Were you able to engage them, convert them into subscribers and repeated customers?

All these are prerequisite steps if you want success in your business. Plugins play a vital role in wordpress blogs. Without them, the entire blog would look like a shapeless organism that would soon die. But when you have plenty of plugins on your blog, it’s bound to slow down your load speed. Instead, I want to show you some simple steps to make your blog load faster without any additional tools.

1. Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)

The first step to speed up your blog speed is to work on the cascading style sheet. This is the sheet that controls the layouts, the color and font used on your blog posts. A lot of free wordpress themes come with crappy style sheets.

It’s left for you to look within the lines and remove any tag and attributes that doesn’t have effect on your blog.

Let me also say this, set your background color to white. A colored background has a way of demeaning the quality of blogs and consequently, reduces the speed. If you are not a web designer, then ensure you get your themes from professionals who would help with style sheet tweaking.

2. Avoid Fancy Flash Headers

Why do people visit your blog in the first instance?

They want information on a particular topic. Your role is to deliver this information as quick as possible or you would lose them. A fancy flash header is usually heavy, because it makes use of pictures, timelines and frames to run the flash video.

If your theme comes with a header and you want to change it, ensure you use a simple self-explanatory header. Stick with 2 – 3 colors that correspond with your hypertext links. The chosen colors have to align with your blog’s theme and portray your image in the foreground.

Instead of using adobe or macromedia flash packages, you should use macromedia fireworks to create your animated header. It would load faster, and you can save it using the popular (gif) extension.

3. Remove Unwanted Widgets

There is no rule of thumb to this, but you should use only the right widgets that visitors would love. On your sidebar, you don’t need 10s of widgets to make success. In fact, few are always better. For beginners to blogging, you don’t need the ads widget on your sidebar. This is because no advertiser is going to pay to advertise on your blog yet.

Your traffic is still minimal and readers are still un-engaged. Experts recommend you start with popular posts widgets, recent posts widgets, category widgets, archives and social media widgets.

Any external widgets would contribute to your blog’s rigidity. Therefore, clear off those unwanted sidebar widgets and make it simple. Focus on quality contents and you would grow your blog easily.

4. Reduce Your Images To Fit

Does an image speak a million words?

Yes, clean photos can mean so much to a blog post. But there is an exception to this. When someone is desperate for solutions, even the prettiest of photos will not answer the question. They need step by step tutorial on how to get a particular need met.

If you must use images on your blog posts, ensure they are minimal.

If you’re an affiliate marketer and has plenty of banner ads on your sidebar, you should consider reducing your post images to 300 X 200 or less. Large images on your blog posts could lead to incessant speed drop on your blog.

Once again, it’s your content that has the solution to problems in your niche. Pictures only help to beautify and trigger readership. Reduce your images to fit your content and put it at the top right for easy reading.

5. Remove Unused Plugins

When my coupon blog went live, I was installing every affiliate plugin I could lay my hands on. I thought I would make more sales on my sittercity coupons and 6pm discount deals offers. I didn’t realize the consequence of doing so. Unfortunately, several bloggers are still in this terrible mistake. In order to increase your blog speed, you need to log in to your wordpress admin dashboard and cross-check your applications.

I’m sure you would discover plugins not in use. You should uninstall and delete these applications to free up space on your PC, and bandwidth transfer.

Marketing Takeaway

There you’ve it, the five exceptional ways to boost your blog speed and retain your targeted visitors. None of the strategies above involve installing external applications and tools, rather you are advised to uninstall.

Getting readers engaged in your blog is the first step to converting them to buyers. Until you do this, none of your marketing activities would to bear tangible fruits. Stick with the above systems and be open to new developments. Have a great day!

Image Credit:lokiv7

Post from: WebTrafficROI.com

5 Best Ways To Increase Blog Speed Without Installing External Plugins And Tools