If you have a blog, you want to keep readers coming back. You can attract readers in a variety of ways, but keeping them is a little harder. You may end up high in the search engines for tons of keywords and pull in tons of unique page views. But how do you keep these new blog readers interested enough to come back again?

Many bloggers don’t. They do all the right things to get people there, but fail at engaging people enough that they’ll come back to read some more. What are the tricks, then, to keep readers coming back to your blog?

There are no tricks, which is a good thing. Tricks are hard. The techniques to get people coming back are instead just common sense that many people seem to forget when they’re writing their blogs. The main technique is to actually write something someone wants to read.

Obviously, your blog has to be interesting. If you get tons of unique page views and no comments at all, then the people reading your posts don’t find them interesting enough to comment on, and they’re probably not coming back.

If you’re using SEO in your posts, then you’re blogging correctly for the search engines. But don’t forget to actually make the posts about something, too. A post about shoes that simply goes on to say that you could pick a red shoe, or blue shoes, and there are 800,000 different kinds of shoes without ever offering anything but that kind of fluff won’t get people to come back. If you explain the benefits of choosing the red shoe over the blue one, then you have actual content.

Make sure that your content is actually something people need to know. Really bad SEO writing about those shoes, for example, might manage to get the keywords in a good number of times and still be about more than listing types of shoes. That doesn’t mean it’s good.

A really unimaginative person who doesn’t have anything to say about shoes might write a post about how you could choose red shoes over blue shoes because you like red better. Or that red shoes are different from blue shoes because one is dyed red . . . and the other, blue. This kind of SEO writing is all over the Internet. It might pull in keyword-related traffic, but who will come back for more of that?

To keep readers coming back to your blog you have to engage them somehow. Don’t use a keyword-stuffed post about nothing, making it interesting at the same time-it’s not that hard to do. How-to posts are very popular, as are posts with useful lists like “Top 10 Reasons Red Shoes are Better than Blue.”

Just don’t stop at a catchy title. Actually deliver what you said you would. Give the reader something interesting enough that they’ll want to check back later to see what else you might be writing about in your blog and you’ll keep the reader coming back.

Photo Credits: cleverCl@i®ê

Originally posted 2009-06-01 05:30:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

This is part three in a three part series on the steps to increase your blog traffic. If you are looking for quick and simple ways to increase your blog traffic, or more involved ways with bigger returns, keep reading for some great information.

1 – Avoid jumping on the bandwagon.

Some memes are definitely worth being talked about by everyone online, but most of them simply are not. Just because there is a huge piece of news in your niche, then that does not mean that you personally need to be covering it in order to increase your blog traffic. Many of the best blogs online are already talking about the big names and the big trends but this is because they are already established and popular. If you are just launching a brand new blog, then you need to show people something that is unique rather than just the same old re-hashed stuff that everyone else is already posting.

2 – Link in an intelligent way.

When you are linking out in your blog posts, make sure that you are using convention where it is applicable, and using creativity when it is warranted. But above all else, make sure that you are being aware of how the links you create are a part of the content that you are providing. Not every single issue that you discuss is going to need a link, and there is a very fine line that exists between under linking and over linking that you cannot cross. The best thing to do is to look at it from the standpoint of a reader that is relatively uninformed. If you mentioned Wikipedia, leave the link out. If you mention a more obscure site than that, leave the link in. It sort of goes like that.

3 – Work with guest bloggers.

If you ask a well known personality within your niche to contribute to your blog, then you can grow the value of your blog as well as its reach for a number of reasons. The guest blogger will find your blog, his or her readers will find your blog, and completely new readers will also find your blog. You will flatter the blogger by acknowledging that they have a certain level of celebrity, you will be guaranteeing yourself a new incoming link from a blog in your niche, and you will be welcoming new traffic to your website by adding more authority to what you have to say. This is one of the best things that you can do when you want to increase your blog traffic. The more that you do this with new guest bloggers, the more traffic you will generate as a result, so this is a great way to really get the ball rolling when you want to increase your blog traffic.

Photo Credits: ebrkut

Originally posted 2009-09-28 03:13:43. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

If you want to have a blog or website that’s in newspaper format, WordPress is the ideal medium. There are many other services you could use, but because WordPress is so user friendly it’s easy to set up your blog to look like a newspaper (or a website, or whatever you want).

Why is WordPress so good for setting up a newspaper?

First of all, you can start a WordPress blog for free. You can also pay, of course, but if you’re just experimenting and trying to figure out what you want and how you want to do it, then it doesn’t cost anything. If you choose, later you can have your own domain and a variety of other paid features.

But even if you don’t want those things, you can completely lift your content from WordPress and put it somewhere else. They claim no ownership on anything you’ve published through their service. You really need to read the fine print on many other “free” services and even paid ones. Now and then you’ll find a clause in the fine print that gives them actual ownership of whatever you put up. It’s doubtful they’d try to take to the content from you, but why let them stake a claim on your content, just in case?

WordPress is also perfect for a newspaper because of the tons of free templates that are available. So you sign up for free and you can browse a variety of blog templates until you find the free one you want. They have some designed just for that newspaper look which makes them perfect.

And because WordPress is so popular, if you wanted to purchase a layout or pay to have one designed just the way you wanted, it would be easy to find a developer who could do that for you. Yet, you will most likely be able to get started with a free theme, if that’s what you want. You can even design your own. There are tutorials all over the web about how to design your own WordPress theme, so you have several options.

WordPress is so easy to use that with only the smallest time learning how you can easily update your newspaper blog and fill it with great content. You can add content and preview it, save it as a draft and tinker as much as you want before anyone else sees it, so you have the ability to get it just the way you want before it goes live.

It’s easy to go back and change a post in your WordPress newspaper blog, too. You just edit the post and go in to add or change something with very little hassle. If you know HTML you can enhance your content with it manually, or use their rich text editor which makes it easy to add formatting like different fonts, italics, bold, images and other great additions. All these add up to make WordPress a great place for a newspaper blog.

Photo Credits: Hamed Saber

Originally posted 2009-05-25 05:02:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

This is the final post in discussing the 2 Year Blogging Curse and ways in which to counter the urge to up and quit. We talked about blogging schedules and grabbing specialty plugins, now we’ll focus on four new ideas.

Establish a Feature.

A feature is not a meme. A feature is post that periodically appears on your blog and follows a set format. It could focus on a particular topic or idea or style of blogging. For instance you could do an interview once a week. Make it a feature by focusing on interviewing regular blog commentators or established bloggers in your niche or authors published in your niche. Another example is dedicating once a week to podcasting or making a video blog. These two methods are quick ways to reach readers in a new format with the added benefit of changing it up for you.

Generate Ideas.

Take a day to sit down and jot down everything you could possibly think about to write on. Come up with specific ideas for your features, raid your emails for reader inspired ideas, reexamine old posts for new things to discuss, and more. There’s plenty of ways to get new ideas and plenty of blog posts out there focused entirely on this concept if you run out of things to consider.

Find a Partner.

Keep yourself motivated by finding yourself a partner. How you set up the partnership is up to you. It could be a highly lucrative beginning for your blog and would have the added benefit of getting another person to be equally invested in the success of your blog.

Merge.

You might have noticed that your blog is more of an offshoot to another blog you started. If you’re struggling to keep two afloat it’s time to consider merging them together into one blog. This will make it easier on you and have the added benefit of bringing all your content into one place.

That’s it! I’ve given you ten ideas to give your blog the jumpstart it needs to get past the 2 Year Blogging Curse. Now it’s your turn. Have you ever experienced blogging burnout? What did you do to get over it? Share in the comments below!

Keira hails from Love Romance Passion, a site known for it’s romance novel reviews. She’s a longtime romance reader, a Kindle 2 owner, and a junkie for USA TV shows. She loves marriage of convenience plots and angst ridden breakups that ultimately end up in gooey happily ever afters. You can also find her on Twitter.

Photo Credits: Magda Sobkowiak

Originally posted 2010-09-24 03:33:57. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

There are a myriad of different ways that you can learn how to increase traffic to blog. Some of them are really straight forward and easy to implement, and others will take time and effort on your behalf. By implementing a number of different techniques for attracting traffic to your blog, you can benefit significantly by garnering traffic from different places online. Here are a few must have ways to increase traffic to blog today.

1 – Submit Your Blog and your RSS Feed

If you are publishing a blog, then you should absolutely submit your blog as well as your blog’s RSS feed to relevant directories including for example, Yahoo and Dmoz, though there are a variety of other similar websites as well as you will see below. There are a myriad of different search engines and blog directories on the internet that you should be submitting to for this purpose, as the links below will show you.

Here are two places that you are going to want to check out for finding resources to submit to:

• http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/
• http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

2 – Ping Blog Services

There are a large number of different services out there that are designed for the specific purpose of tracking blogs and connecting blogs to one another. By sending out a small ping to each of the services, you are letting them know that you have created and published an update to your blog, allowing them to come and check it out.

You should book mark the Ping-O-Matic website, which you can find here: http://pingomatic.com/ — This way you can easily visit the website and ping a number of these different services as simply as a single click to let them know that they should come and check out your recently published blog content.

3 – Build One-Way Links to Your Blog

Here are a number of recommended methods that you can get links on the internet that are pointing to your blog. One way links are the best type of link that you can use, as they hold the most clout in the eyes of the search engines.

• Link to the main page of your blog from every single page on your primary website,
• Use trackbacks in your posts pointing to other blogs on the internet,
• Post useful, authoritative and legitimate comments on other blogs all over the internet, provided that the topics are related and the comments leave a reason for visitors to follow them back to your blog,
• Finally, offer to exchange links with blogs and websites that are similarly themed.

These three tips will go a long way when it comes to learning to increase traffic to blog.

Photo Credits: Ben+Sam

Originally posted 2009-09-23 03:06:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Yesterday, I introduced the 2 Year Blogging Curse. Today let’s look at some ways to break what seems to afflict so many new and established bloggers.

Cut Back.

Who says you have to blog every day? If 365 fresh posts sounds scary know that you can make whatever posting schedule you like. Here are some other schedules to consider:

• Blog M-F for a workable 261 posts.
• Blog every other day for a comfortable 182 posts.
• Blog M-W-F for a stress-free 156 posts.
• Blog Tu & Th for an easy 104 posts.
• Blog Weekly for a painless 52 posts.
• Blog Monthly for an effortless 12 posts.

Write Less.

What’s the magical word count to get the mighty Google search engine to notice you? I’ve no idea. I have heard anywhere from 500 words to as little as 250 words. It seems more myth than truth to me.

So if you’re used to writing long in-depth articles why not scale back and pull a Seth Godin? His blog posts are notable for being short, concise, and thought provoking. You can do the same.

365 posts at 500 words a post is 182,500 words in a year, but 365 posts at 80 words a post is a manageable 29,200 words.

Get a New Angle.

If the current way you’re blogging bores you, it probably bores your readers, but quitting isn’t the answer. Just think about it. Quitting an old blog and starting a new, negates all your previous efforts. Who wants to lose 182,500 or more words on a subject? I wouldn’t. That would be so depressing. Instead of chugging away at the same old same old, come at your topic from a different angle.

Tomorrow I’ll go over three more ideas to help you break the 2 Year Blogging Curse.

Keira hails from Love Romance Passion, a site known for it’s romance novel reviews. She’s a longtime romance reader, a Kindle 2 owner, and a junkie for USA TV shows. She loves marriage of convenience plots and angst ridden breakups that ultimately end up in gooey happily ever afters. You can also find her on Twitter.

Photo Credits: Magda Sobkowiak

Originally posted 2010-09-22 03:27:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

We’ve talked about what the 2 Year Blogging Curse is and covered some ways to break it, now we’ll go over some more ways to do just that.

Target a New Audience.

If you started out concentrating on beginners in your niche because you yourself were a beginning but now you’ve moved past that stage, you should be writing about intermediary or advance topics. By challenging yourself to expand or to learn you’ll be creating new content that is much more interesting to you and your long time readers while still attracting those beginning in your niche.

Old Post Promoter.

OPP is a WordPress plugin by BTE.  The concept behind this plugin is to promote old posts back to the front of your blog allowing you to cash in again on work you’ve done already. It’s perfect for going on vacation, to run permanently, or to use while you’re recuperating from being blogged out. Sure, some of your readers may have seen the articles before, but it’ll be fresh in the search engines and to new readers.

Fresh Voices.

There are several ways to get new voices. You could advertise for guest bloggers, befriend and reach out to commentators on your blog behind the scenes, hire a writer, read or watch new programs/blogs for new input, get a friend to share their thoughts, and more.

Check back in tomorrow as I am going to cover four more ideas to help you break the 2 Year Blogging Curse.

Keira hails from Love Romance Passion, a site known for it’s romance novel reviews. She’s a longtime romance reader, a Kindle 2 owner, and a junkie for USA TV shows. She loves marriage of convenience plots and angst ridden breakups that ultimately end up in gooey happily ever afters. You can also find her on Twitter.

Photo Credits: Magda Sobkowiak

Originally posted 2010-09-23 03:29:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Have you ever noticed how many people talk about a blog that they used to write? It seems like I hear about it at least once a week and the story reads basically the same every time I see it:

They were interested in blogging, liked a topic, and went for it only to discover that they hated writing on said topic, couldn’t keep focused, found out it wasn’t as fun as they thought and quit the blog after a year or two of perseverance.

Pretty sad isn’t it? Not every blog can explode and be a star on the map in the first year. Many don’t even make that status in their second year. It’s year three and on that those who acted like the tortoise in this so-called blogging race start to really see results.

When you see who it affected, you know you’re not alone. Even the Darren of Problogger experienced it for different reasons in the past. John Marrow talks about knowing when to shoot your blog, but I want to take the opposite approach and focus on breaking the 2 Year Blogging Curse, not perpetuating it. Tune in tomorrow for the first of a 3 part series on doing just that.

In the meantime, why don’t you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your blog and how you’re feeling about it right now in the comment space below. Are you happy where you are or are you feeling disappointed? If you’re the latter be sure to stick around this week.

Keira hails from Love Romance Passion, a site known for it’s romance novel reviews. She’s a longtime romance reader, a Kindle 2 owner, and a junkie for USA TV shows. She loves marriage of convenience plots and angst ridden breakups that ultimately end up in gooey happily ever afters. You can also find her on Twitter.

Photo Credits: Magda Sobkowiak

Originally posted 2010-09-21 03:03:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

That’s a loaded question and the answer depends entirely on your point of view when it comes to Live Feed and RSS. You can make a case for either side and believe me I have. Here’s what I came up with…

5 Arguments for Live Feed and Twitter:

There are 27.3 million tweets per day on average. That’s a crazy number. With that many people in one place it’s obvious Twitter must be more important than blogging! Right? Let’s see.

1. It’s a promotion machine. Today URLs flow through Twitter. Ideas ship on Twitter.
2. Twitter is like instant messaging or texting to everyone at once, but it’s public which means more eyeballs are reading it. Potentially of course, nothing is a guarantee.
3. It’s easy to use, accessible, and well known. That means you can make connections and network like crazy.
4. You are what you tweet. Learn to streamline ideas with catchy headlines to grab attention and readers.
5. Your tweet and username can get retweeted over and over again, spreading your message and your name through the network. This usually happens on small scale, but some get lucky and get a Twitter explosion.

5 Arguments for RSS and Blogging:

According to Technorati there were 175,000 new blogs per day worldwide in 2006. Since then the numbers have grown exponentially. Clearly 140 characters doesn’t cut it, so blogging must be the name of the game, yes?

1. Remember that old adage; don’t count your chickens before they hatch? You need to generate a URL before you can promote it.
2. A roundup does what you do on Twitter in one posting. All your interesting links and social currency is in one place. Why waste time breaking it up?
3. You can network through blogs. You do it through leaving comments, link swapping, guest blogging, etc.
4. You are what you write and you can use more than 140 characters. Headlines are for Twitter, content is for blogging. So is verbosity.
5. Blogs have archives. What you say is permanent (minus revising and manual deletion). On Twitter things disappear after awhile to float away somewhere lost forever.

Conclusion:

Twitter and blogging are different animals, but their relationship to one another is symbiotic. You have to do both and use them appropriately to see major results.

Your Turn: What say you? Do you think Twitter is more important than blogging or vice versa?

Keira runs a book review blog for readers by readers on romance novels entitled Love Romance Passion. She’s been reading romance since she was in her teens and began blogging about romance so she could share her passion for her favorite genre. She loves reading paranormal, Regency, historical America, and highlander most of all and completely adores blind and wounded heroes.

Photo Credits: Scott McLeod

Originally posted 2010-01-22 18:38:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Joining a blog carnival is capable of allowing you to improve your blog. Have you ever heard of what a blog carnival is all about? Let us go into what it takes for you to join a blog carnival including what the benefits are for participating in a blog carnival.

What is a Blog Carnival? Well, A blog carnival is a collection of articles and blog posts based on a particular subject, but rather being written by a single blogger, they are created by a number of different bloggers and then posted in the same place. The blog carnival involves posting all of the articles and blog posts together on a single blog, which is the host blog. The host blog may be the organizer for the blog carnival or it may be someone completely different. A lot of planning goes into the blog carnival concept in order to make sure that the results are ideal.

The organizer for the blog carnival will generally do the posting of the carnival on a neutral site that is designed to list the existence of blog carnivals such as blogcarnival.com for example. The website is then responsible for listing current, past and upcoming blog carnivals in a format that is easy to use and navigate so that bloggers can find appropriate blog carnivals to suit their needs. The carnivals are typically broke down on these websites into a wide variety of different respective categories and the dates that they will be run on.

So, what benefits are there that you can take out of the blog carnival?

1. You will gain an increase in traffic. This one should be fairly obvious to you. When you are participating in a blog carnival as a blogger, you are going to be making a post that falls into line with the subject of the blog carnival, and then you will send a copy of the post to the organizer of the host, and a link to where you have posted the post. The host will include the link to the post in their blog carnival post. When readers read the blog carnival post, they will click on the link and follow it to your post. Then they will increase your traffic accordingly. You can definitely increase traffic to your blog by participating in a blog carnival, and it only gets ten times better when you host your own blog carnival.

2. You will gain new readers. This one is a little less obvious but still easy. When you increase your traffic, you will be increasing your readership, not only just the number of people that visit. If you are posting informative blogs consistently and your visitors see this, they will find reason to keep reading.

3. You will gain new links back to your blog. These links will increase your ability to get traffic, not only from the blog carnival itself but also from the rest of the internet as well thanks to search engines.

Photo credits: ~jjjohn~

Originally posted 2009-09-18 03:57:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter