dandelionblog.com

I’ve had my blog for several years.  The first couple of years, my traffic was relatively stable, with sporadic growth spurts and declines.  Overall, it didn’t go anywhere.  In the past six months, my traffic has grown by thirty percent every month.  What’s the difference?  Here are the 10 Keys to Growing Traffic I employed:

1.  Blog every day.  Seriously.  This is the simplest, yet most difficult, step for many bloggers, but it’s critical.  In order the grow traffic and page views, your blog needs to become a habit for your visitors.  Be there every day.

2.  Serve your visitors.  This is absolutely as critical as blogging every day.  Who does your blog serve?  Yourself, or your visitors?  Think about it.  Why should people bother to come to your blog?  Are you promoting yourself, your business/products, whining, venting, writing about personal things only your friends or family would be interested in?  Blogging is a form of writing, and if you want to build traffic, you have to write to entertain, to inform, to serve.  Serve your visitors first.  The traffic (which then serves you) will follow.

3.  Advertise.  Don’t be afraid to spend money to make money.  Blogads, as one example, is a great way to advertise your blog on other like blogs that can help speed the process of building traffic.

4.  Join Facebook.  Network with friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friends to spread the word about your blog.

5.  Use photographs.  Educate yourself, at least minimally, about photography.  Use crisp, clear, interesting pictures and keep the kilobyte (download size) small to ease user time.  Blog visitors love photographs.

6.  Design to please.  Use reader-friendly design, color, font size, etc, on your blog.  Don’t turn new visitors away with a cluttered, heavy, dark design.  Welcome them in with clear and functional navigation and a warm, friendly environment.

7.  Participate.  Talk back to your commenters.  Encourage the sense of community on your blog.  Don’t just post and disappear.  Blog readers love having their questions answered.  Answers emails, too!  Care about your readers, and they’ll care about you.

8.  Encourage page views during each visit.  Link inside your post to back posts, and make it easy for new visitors to find posts that explain who you are and what this blog is about.  I use a “Featured Posts” list in my sidebar.  I also have an “About Me” page that provides background for new readers.  I also use a Related Posts plugin at the bottom of posts to draw visitors to read further.  Give first-time visitors have a way to catch up and feel part of the story on your blog.

9.  Approach the media.  Write a press release for your blog and develop media contacts.  The best advertisement is free advertisement!

10.  Love what you’re blogging about.  If you have a passion for your blog topics, readers will see it and be drawn to it.  If you don’t care about what you’re blogging about, they’ll see that, too.  Love what you do!

Let me know what you think!  Do you have any great ideas for building traffic?  Feel free to share them in the comments here.  I want to know!

Tags: How to Blog, Marketing by Suzanne McMinn
4 Comments »

Before you upgrade you should also backup your Wordpress files. I’ll explain how to do that using Filezilla. Filezilla is a free FTP program. I explained how to download and install it in this post- Filezilla-A free FTP program.

Open Filezilla and log in using the FTP user name and password your host provider gave you when you signed up for hosting.

In the top left pane, navigate to the folder on your computer where you want to back up your files. If you need to, right click, select make directory, and add a new folder.

In the right bottom pane, double click on the www. [Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog, Wordpress by Kacey
1 Comment »

Before I move on to upgrading your Wordpress Blog, let’s talk about backing up the blog. Before you upgrade to a new release of Wordpress, it’s a good idea…or I’ll put this more strongly…you SHOULD back up your Wordpress Database and files.

This post will show you how to back up your Wordpress database using utilities in your CPanel. One of the many reasons I suggest getting a hosting provider that has Cpanel.

Log into your CPanel with the user name/password you received from your hosting provider when you set up your website. On CPanel, look for the PHPMyadmin icon.

Click on the phpMYadmin icon.
[Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog, Wordpress by Kacey
1 Comment »

The internet is the great equalizer–and women are taking advantage of its power like never before, attracting huge audiences and influencing opinions. And often, they’re doing it right from home, speaking out on issues that matter to women and making their voices heard. Big or small, as bloggers we all have the same shot at that platform, but there are a few core elements you’ll find across the board on blogs like Dooce, Pioneer Woman, CuteOverload, and Amalah, among others. Want to make your blog one of those great women’s blogs? Here’s how:

Regularity. Not every big blogger posts daily, but most of them do, and if they don’t post daily, they at least post regularly, five out of seven days a week. Be there–or lose your audience. People generally read blogs as part of their routine. Fit into their routine without fail and watch your traffic grow.

Dependability. Readers know what they’re going to get when they click on one of their favorite big women’s blogs. Dooce is going to be telling brutally frank stories about her life, her daughter, her experiences with depression. Pioneer Woman is probably going to give you a shot of a cowboy’s backside. At CuteOverload, whatever it is, it’s bound to be cute, and Amalah is going to give you honest and touching stories about her struggles with pregnancy and her young son. When you visit a great women’s blog, you don’t reach into a bag of Doritos and find an Oreo. You get what you came for, and when your traffic knows they can trust you that way, they’ll be back.

Voice. The tone of the blog, found in the blogger’s voice, is dependability on another level. We know Dooce will be sarcastic. We know Pioneer Woman will be silly. We know CuteOverload is going to be, well, cute, and that Amalah is going to be bittersweet. Great women bloggers speak from the heart, and that’s the only way you can reach an audience. Be real.

Humor. The big blogs are funny, whether it’s dry like Dooce. sassy like Pioneer Woman, adorable like CuteOverload, or wrenching like Amalah, these bloggers make us laugh in the midst of their struggles with ordinary life. And who can’t go back after that?

Commitment. Great women bloggers like Dooce, Pioneer Woman, CuteOverload, and Amalah are in it for the long haul, and their audience knows it. Remember that TV show you loved that got the cut at the end of the first season? Viewers hate that, and so do blog readers. Make a commitment to your readers, and your readers will make a commitment to you.

Along with regularity, dependability, voice, humor, and commitment, another hallmark of the big women’s blogs is often stunning photography, so don’t forget the pictures. Put it all together and you’ve got a package that blog readers are hungry to discover. Make your blog the next great women’s blog! I dare you!

Let me know what you think, and tell me who some of your favorite women bloggers are–and why.

Tags: How to Blog by Suzanne McMinn
4 Comments »

Okay, I’m sure you’re all aware that Suzanne and I suggest using a self hosted Wordpress for your blog.

But what if you just can’t make yourself do that?

Blogger is a popular option. If you do go that route, lets talk about things you can do to make your Blogger blog more user friendly.

First off, do you really need the 10 digits of word verification before someone posts? We have to enter that EVERY TIME WE COMMENT on your blog. It makes it easy for the reader to just think, nah, I’m not going to bother to comment. Turn off the word verification option.

Let anonymous commenters leave a comment. Turn on the option for allowing anonymous comments for your blog. Not everyone has a Blogger account, nor do they want one. The reader wants to leave a comment on your blog and link back to their own website. It’s annoying enough that Blogger makes the reader enter their information, over and over, every time they want to leave a comment. (Blogger, if you’re reading this, get a clue. Wordpress, Typepad, and other blogging platforms save our information so we only enter it the first time we comment on a blog.)

Font size: I’ve seen a lot of Blogger blogs with small type size. Give your readers a break. That’s really hard to read, especially on laptop screens. Up your font size a few sizes. We’ll thank you.

That’s it. My quick suggestions for making your Blogger blog more reader friendly.

Tags: How to Blog, Website Tips by Kacey
3 Comments »