I made a great blogging discovery by accident.
I’m always trying to figure out how to get more traffic for my blog, Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette. The blog has articles on blogging and writing and plenty of flash fiction. I have links on the blog to sites that specialize in photos of nude or semi-nude female celebrities. I use lots of tags so readers can find my content. I’ve been trying to do everything a blogger can do to make my blog interesting, to make it sticky.
Image via Wikipedia
I know the importance of key words and phrases. But recently I realized I could increase traffic to my blog with hardly any effort at all.
My goal as a professional blogger is to make money online. I know my blog must have interesting content; but I was not using my tags effectively.
The Gazette has 1,000 postings. Looking at my dashboard recently I was dismayed to see that I had less than 3,000 tags for all 1,000 postings. In other words, for over a year now I’ve been using the same basic tags over and over again.
Now of course my blog has a narrow focus. Using the same key words and phrases, the same tags that search engines use to find the content of a blog is understandable but it’s not smart marketing. The solution is easy enough. I do blog about subjects beyond the core subjects of the Gazette.
So, from now on I will consciously use not only the obvious tags of the core material but I’ll also use tags that will broaden the reach of my blog.
I’m learning to be a better blogger in spite of myself.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Great share! Thanks!
November 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Thanks..for sharing your experience
November 5th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
So what you’re saying is; bloggers should be creative with their tags? Long live the thesaurus.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
thanks for your information, helpful to me…
November 5th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Great tips and shows that you are a good thinker.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Very interesting idea, thanks for sharing.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Aaargh, you’ve made me realise that I generally forget to tag at all and that when I do, it’s for my own benefit and not to help potential readers find my blog. I’ll try to put that right from now on.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Great article…Thanks!
November 5th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Great article Guy! Very helpful.I have only just started to use tags myself not realizing it was good for my blog!
November 5th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Thanks for the tips, I agree that tags are very important
November 5th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
alc, the solution is so simple that I feel foolish but we all live and learn.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
cutedrishti8, knowledge is good but there’s nothing like experience.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
agriculi, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Bloggers have to be creative with their tags; just remember the tag words have to be in the content, too.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
svishnugopal, I was using too narrow a range of tags for one year. I’m glad I realized what I was doing.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Sashya, I was doing the wrong thing for one year but now I’m doing the right thing.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
coffeeaddict, I’m just glad that after one year of blogging I realized what I was doing wrong.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Guy, I just went through my blog removing tags because I was told too many tags make the blog look messy. Am I being steered wrong?
November 5th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Patsy, just think that I was tagging for a year and missing out on maybe getting twice as many readers.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Teves, it was a real wake up call for me. Now I’m taking my own medicine.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Mystify, tags are very important; but to do what they can do they must be used in the right way.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Frances, tags are important and the right tags are very important.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Judy, as long as the tags are in the content, and tags are the same as key words, the more the better. I’m assuming the tags are listed after the article. Take a look at my blog to see what I mean.
November 5th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Great Job
November 6th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Good tip
November 6th, 2009 at 4:32 am
I still don’t understand tags and how to get more traffic to my writing. I can get a thousand hits for an article but if you try something similar it get very few hits. I think I will just give up and enjoy writing for writing’s sake. I hope you continue to have increased success.
Christine
November 6th, 2009 at 8:22 am
I do not understand how to use tags. Will be helpful if you write more on this
November 6th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Thanks for sharing this, very helpful and useful!
November 6th, 2009 at 11:40 am
royee, I thought this information might be useful.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Petalm, tags are like pathways to your content.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Christine, I just take the key words in an article and make them the tags.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:56 am
chitragopi, I will write more about tags.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
giftarist, I think there is more that can be written about tags.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I have been doing that too, but it is still a subject that i don’t have a grasp of yet. Guy, I would love to see a series on that from your perspective, as what I read about it just says the same thing and no one seems to be quite to the point. For example this article was great in the sense that it went straight to the point and gave you a way to do it. I hope you write more about this.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Marie, I will be writing more about it.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Thanks Guy, that idea will surely bring more traffic.
November 7th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Ruby, I think so. I’m in the process of using my own advice on my personal blog and on Triond.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
aha… enlighting… thanks
November 13th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Hmm… Tags are always the worst part of writing for me. I have no idea on SEO.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Great article. I have a a couple of websites and blogs, for which when I write the tags (metadata and dscription), I put the tag or phrase into the search engines to see how many sites it would bring up if I clicked on it. Trying to re-phrase or trying the less popular tags and pharses can sometime help your site become number one and or on the first page of search results.
I think it’s better to compete for the less popular than the popular. The less popular will bring in more visitors than the popular because of your site/blog will be displayed in the first few pages. Research showed that most visitors leave or change what they type nto search engines after the 3rd page.
It works for me and I have managed to get listed on the first page and at number one. I have a blog site with Hubpages where you can read more under the name myfacebook.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I was looking for an article to tell me how to make my blog more successful and I reached the perfect place. Thanks for this great article.