Archive for February, 2010

How to Get Tons of Traffic to Your Blog in the First Month

February 24th, 2010

Getting a lot of traffic to your blog takes three basic things. First, you have to have something to write about. The “something” you write about needs to be helpful and informative to a group or community of people.

In other words, you need to provide some kind of value to people in order to make it worth their while to come to your blog to read your content and to hopefully come back in the future.

The second thing you need to do is write a lot of content. Write a post every day if you can. If you can’t, write one every other day. The more posts you write, the more chances there will be for people to find your work. Cast a wide net.

The third thing you need is to actively promote your work. Once you are done writing your article, you’re not done. If you want traffic to come to your blog, you need to reach out to others and let them know it’s there. The amazing thing that happens is once you win a few “fans,” it gets easier to get more. Once you start to get links from other bloggers writing about similar topics and a few social media links, you are well on your way.

I read a refreshing and honest article with some real world advice about gaining blog traffic by a blogger named Ryan Schmitz (his blog is Planting Dollars) who pulled in 5,700 hits in his first month of blogging. He writes about the quickest way to build a successful blog.  

He also points out that you shouldn’t smack your visitors across the face with tons of advertisements or really think about making money early on.  That part comes later.

Read 9 Ways to Be a Better Blogger

Marketing your Internet Business with a Cool App

February 13th, 2010

Internet marketers, at least some of the smart ones, have always seemed to be able to come up with clever ways to promote their websites.

One way to promote your service or product is to create an online application or website that does something interesting or provides some value or entertainment for visitors.

Everyone likes a clever commercial.

Well, doing something interesting can be your clever commercial and a good way to establish some goodwill with potential clients.

An example of building an app that does something very simple for people while also getting the word out about a company is DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com.

Every once in a while, you visit a site that won’t load and you try to reload and reload with no success. At downloadforeveryone, you type in the website in question to see if the site is down for everyone or just for you.

Below the search query, there is a link to Site5 Web Hosting, a small company, with a message that reads:

“We Guarantee Our Uptime! Switch to Site5 Web Hosting!”

It’s a very simple thing that can be useful in some instances, and it is a clever and simple thing for a company to do. People using the tool may not necessarily be thinking about hosting a website, but they are interested in checking downtime of sites they’re interested in (ie facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites).

Still, when these same people (who may easily become regular users of the simple tool) decide they want to buy hosting for a website, they may decide to purchase a plan from this company.

This is a good example of a company providing a free tool (content) in order to gain awareness, provide value, and establish goodwill with potential future paying customers.