Have you every wished there was an easier way to promote your articles, blogs and websites and get lots of traffic? This may not be a technically correct system, but it is one that has worked very well for me. I have seen a 2000% increase in traffic in just one month and it’s still rising and I am not an internet marketing wizard.
There is plenty of information all over the Internet about marketing and optimising websites, blogs and articles so that they have the best chance of getting a decent amount of traffic. Much of this is technical, time consuming and doesn’t hold the attention of writers for very long. This kind of marketing needs specialised knowledge, but don’t despair if you are like me and don’t have that knowledge.
It’s a great idea to study these articles and websites and put into practise what they recommend but it isn’t what writers want to do. We don’t have a choice if we want to be read though. If we don’t market ourselves on the Internet, no one will know, or even care that we are there.
I gathered together lots of notes on Internet marketing and got really bogged down and bored with it all, so I decided to look at what was giving me the best results for the least effort. What I really wanted to do was to pull all my work together so that there is a network of links around it and a little work on promoting one site has a knock on effect on the others.
Those of you who are web savvy will be saying that this is exactly what Internet marketers do. Yes, I agree, but they have the expertise to tweak and adapt their websites, articles and blogs to get ahead of the opposition. These are not something that a compulsive writer can find the time for. (Speaking in a general way, of course, as there exceptions). There are some members on content sites like Triond who are excellent writers and expert Internet marketers and these people are very fortunate.
After struggling for many months I have at last seen a huge increase in the number of hits (readers) that my blog attracts. Words To The Wise was only attracting a handful of readers until last month. So, what did I do to increase the traffic?
First of all I took a critical look at the posts that I had been making and decided that they needed to be longer so that the search engine would have something to get their teeth into. They also had to contain more quality information so that readers would keep coming back. Then I asked myself what I had to offer that might attract loyal readers. The answer here was my own writing style and a rather off beat sense of humour, plus an interest in the odd and quirky. (Everyone has something to offer. What’s yours?)
Then I looked carefully at post titles. These need to get the attention of the reader, just like the title of any article should. I had a look at the keywords tool on Google and came up with a few words that could be incorporated into my articles and their titles without compromising the style. This would make it easier for search engines to catalogue them and they would be more likely to come up as search results.
Don’t forget to add every article and post to the main search engines. This is really fast to do if you use a free submission service. There are lots available if you do a search on Google.
Next I started posting all my new blog entries to my Facebook profile and to Google Bookmarks, plus Delicious and Reddit. I purposely avoid Digg and Stumbleupon most of the time and hope that my readers will do that job for me. Adding your own work to some social networking sites on a regular basis could get you banned and certainly will not give you much benefit. It is better to let others do this for you. There are writers who think they can ‘game’ the system and get huge numbers of reads consistently, but most get caught and banned from the social networks, eventually.
I was then introduced to a system called Entrecard. You simply join up and add a piece of code to your website, or blog. This is relatively simple to do on Blogger, and Today.com. This adds a card to your page. The idea here is that you add your card to the system and the network operates by members reciprocating each others reads, or drops, as they call them when you leave your card on a blog. It looks complicated at first but it is really easy to use once you get started. They even offer a PDF booklet that will tell you how to get the best from the system. It costs nothing to join but you can buy extra advertising credits if you want to. I haven’t bought any.
Then I added Adgitize to my blog. This is a system where you advertise other websites and get paid for doing it. Earnings are slow but you can increase them by viewing advertising on others member sites. I noticed an increase in traffic immediately as other members were finding me on the Adgitize member page. I took out an advert with the system about three days ago. I could have opted for a month’s advertising at just $14 but I decided to tread carefully and take a week at $7 the first time. I am already seeing a huge increase in traffic at Words To The Wise
I also use Blogcatalog and a couple of other Blog directories to promote myself. This cam be time consuming but I try to limit myself to a few hours per week catching up on reciprocal reads, etc.
Adding a live traffic panel from Feedjit.com enables me to see exactly where the traffic is coming from. This is free to use and easy to install.
All this increased traffic has a knock on effect as I add links to other places where my writing can be accessed. My blog is making a little money but it has a way to go yet and I am increasing my reads on Triond, Today and the other places where I write. The traffic on my main website Writer Soup has also increased in the same way.
If you don’t have a blog, go and set one up. It’s simple and free at sites like Blogger.com. Add links to your writing and tell all your friends about it and then set about promoting it using a similar method to the one I used with my main blog. You don’t need technical knowledge and you don’t have to wade through lots of jargon to work out the best way to market your work.
If you do have a blog or you are an expert at marketing, then please share your knowledge as we all need all the help we can get.
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:29 am
I am currently working on starting out a blog, and this info is very nice for me. thank for the imput, I will be bookmarking this for sure
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:35 am
Very help- and useful again! Thanks!
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:46 am
I am waiting for a fix here! The correct url for Words To The Wise is: http://noway2blog.blogspot.com if anyone wants to take a look.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:45 am
Thank you for the information, Louie. You’re full of wisdom!
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 am
Yeah–thanks for the info–it’s helpful
January 3rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
Thanks for sharing all this info. It’s very useful to writers like ourselves. I don’t know if I’ll attempt to do it, because of all the time involved, but I can see that it’s good advice and helpful information.
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Well done. Nice to see another Today blogger here. I agree about being careful not to abuse Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites. Don’t agree about Blog Catalog, though. I’ve had several blogs listed there at various times and barely got any traffic at all from the site. I’ve been using Entrecard for a couple of weeks now, and even though I’m not using it heavily, the traffic is really picking up. My first ad will come out this week, and I’ll be doing other ads as I go along. Thanks for the tip on Adgitize. I’ll keep it bookmarked for the future.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Great job on your article. I’ve heard about Entrecard on Today.com, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Thanks for an interesting and informative read – theadgitize site has interested me – will now go and check it out!
January 4th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Thanks for that.
Inna
January 4th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Wonderful advice and tips! I will have to check it out! Thanks for sharing with us!
January 6th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I really needed this article. I didn’t know about half the stuff on here. Thanks.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Another informative post. I’m going to check out these sites. I’ve been planning to set up a blogspot site but still haven’t found the time to do so.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
This is a great article. I had become discouraged by all the internet marketing tips that I just can’t make work. You’ve really simplified things and made the process easy to understand. Thanks.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Great advice and tips. I will print it and see if I can increase my income a little.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
A very helpful article
January 13th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Very enjoyable to read and thank you!
January 20th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Some interesting and very helpful advise here, thanks Louie!
January 28th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Thanks for the tips.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Thanks for the tips. It is so hard to advertise yourself and write too. I need to increase the traffic to my blog and articles so I will try to take some of your advice.
February 8th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Thanks. Will have a look at some of your methods now.
February 13th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Thanks Louie, I am not a natural internet marketer, I am going to read this again and follow the advice.
February 18th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Great article, as usual. I really need to revamp my blog, but once I do, I’ll definitely be having a go at some of this. Thanks.