10 Blog Traffic Tips from my friend Yaro Starak
In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers.
These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.
It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.Top 10 Tips
10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn”t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.
You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.
8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need an easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you”ve done a good job!).
7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.
Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.
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Technorati
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google and Yahoo. As of June 2008, Technorati indexes 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. The name Technorati is a portmanteau, pointing to the technological version of literati or intellectuals.
Technorati was founded by Dave Sifry and its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, USA. Tantek Çelik was the site’s Chief Technologist.
Technorati uses and contributes to open source software. Technorati has an active software developer community, many of them from open-source culture. Sifry is a major open-source advocate, and was a founder of LinuxCare and later of Wi-Fi access point software developer Sputnik. Technorati includes a public developer’s wiki, where developers and contributors collaborate, as well as various open APIs.
The site won the SXSW 2006 awards for Best Technical Achievement and also Best of Show. It was also nominated for a 2006 Webby award for Best Practices, but lost to Flickr and Google Maps.
Easy installing the Officejet H470b Mobile Printer
Installing the Officejet H470b Mobile Printer from Hewlett-Packard is one fast and easy task.
Freeing the 13.4 x 7.28 x 3.25-inch portable printer from the confines of its packaging, loading the provided software to my home PC, introducing the ink cartridges to the mobile printer, and plugging in the printer to the wall socket and coupling it with the PC took me about 20 minutes.
Installation could have been accomplished much faster, if I were not distracted too much by and busy admiring the H470b’s sleek design and sexy-though-utilitarian overall looks. As things were, I had to stop once and a while and simply gawk at the mobile printer from HP.
The H470b is the mid-range model in the Officejet H470 Mobile Series, which is an update to Hewlett-Packard’s line of portable inkjet printers. It is portable enough to fit into a carry-on bag, or for those who wish to be truly mobile, a backpack.
It comes with all the necessary connectivity ports. It has PictBridge USB, USB 2.0 ports, and an SD/miniSD/MMC slot. On the other hand, consumers who cannot tolerate wires can buy an 802.11 b/g adapter from HP.
The printer is equipped with a network switch located at its back. This feature comes handy for users who constantly move between their residential, work and wireless networks.
Proof of the Pudding
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Hackers to control the internet flow
It could have brought all of the world’s hackers of all stripes to the IT equivalent of the Promised Land, or helped them gain Nirvana at least.
Imagine a flaw lurking deep within the Internet’s very basic infrastructure, which has to do with how computers are directed or forwarded to Web page addresses. Imagine a security anomaly so basic yet so big that it could allow hackers to override the Net’s website address protocols.
Nobody needs imagine anything, because such a flaw exists. In fact, the computer industry’s leading players, according to media reports, are busy trying to come up with an answer to this threat to every Internet user’s way of online life.
The Domain Name System vulnerability, which was accidentally discovered by security consultant Dan Kaminsky, can enable phishers and other attackers to hijack consumers’ computers and re-direct them to anywhere on the Internet no matter what IP addresses would users type into their Web browsers. Can anybody imagine anything better and more appetizing for IT miscreants?
For example, a fundamentalist (of any religious persuasion) would type into his or her Internet Explorer the address of a popular preacher’s Web site. Imagine the consternation and confusion that follow after the pious surfer’s PC is led to a porn site, or an atheist club’s home page.
One good thing that came out of the discovery of this DNS flaw was that government and industry leaders quickly realized the enormity of the threat. Their cooperative response was relatively quick too. Industry leaders including Microsoft and Cisco are presently coordinating their efforts to best address the threat and protect Internet users.
Screen capture utility tool, easy to use
Bug Shooting (http://www.bugshoooting.com) is a screen capture program for Windows that is completely free and offers loads of features that are commonly found in commercial screenshot applications.PayEasy the online payment system
Local online entrepreneurs who are eyeing to sell their products and services to China are in for some good news as PayEasy, the online payment system developed by Mozcom Inc., now accepts China UnionPay (CUP) ATM Debit Cards as a mode of online payment to any PayEasy-affiliated merchant.
CUP is the official and only domestic inter-bank network in the People’s Republic of China. Founded in 2002, it is an association of China’s banking card industry which operates under the approval of the People’s Bank of China. It has more than 200 domestic and overseas members serving China and other parts of Asia, Europe, America, Africa and Oceania. CUP domestic member banks have issued more than 1.5 billion ATM cards in China. On the other hand, CUP users get to enjoy access to more than 740,000 merchants; more than 1 million POS terminals and more than 120,000 ATM’s accepting CUP cards.
In the Philippines, the BancNet ATM network already accepts international withdrawals from their ATM’s using CUP cards. Retailing giant, SM Prime Holdings Inc.’s Department Store, Supermarket, Hypermarket, Super Sale, Watson’s, Sports Central, Appliance and Toy Kingdom also accept UnionPay at the POS level.
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Best Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization, Seomoz
This guide represents the opinions of Rand Fishkin, the author, and of contributors who assisted in its creation. This guide is not representative of the guidelines of any of the search engines mentioned (Yahoo!, MSN, Google or AskJeeves). Complete overview of many of the processes, techniques and strategies used by professional search engine optimization specialists.
Prologue: Who is SEOmoz and Why is this Guide Free?
A: What is SEO?
Why does my company need SEO?
Why do the search engines need SEO?
How much of this article do I need to read?
B: How Search Engines Operate
Speed Bumps and Walls
Measuring Popularity and Relevance
Information Search Engines can Trust
The Anatomy of a HyperLink
Keywords & Queries
Sorting the Wheat from the Chafe
Paid Placement and Secondary Sources in the Results
C: How to Conduct Keyword Research
Wordtracker & Overture
Targeting the Right Terms
The “Long Tail” of Search
Sample Keyword Research Chart
D: Critical Components of Optimizing a Site
Accessibility
URLs, Titles & Meta Data
Search Friendly Text
Information Architecture
Canonical Issues & Duplicate Content
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Do you think you know your SEO inside and out?
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The test would take you 25-35 minutes and see how badass you truly are, then share in your triumph (or tragedy) by slapping your SEOmoz SEO Quiz badge on your site to let the world know how hard you rock the SEO game.
Test your SEO Expert knowledge to earn your knowledge level.
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