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 »

Error: Site Blocked (Profanity)

Recently, a friend of mine discovered that this was the message appearing to users at one of the largest employers in a state where one of her regular blog readers worked.  The blog reader worked for a state government office, and my friend’s site had been blocked on every computer in the state’s entire employee network.  She writes what some might consider racy romance novels, but it wasn’t her books that got her blocked.

It was the language (including certain four-letter words) she used on her blog.  Her blog being part of her website, this resulted in not only her blog being blocked but her entire website.

Her initial reaction was a defense of her creative expression.  Are employers, whether public as in this situation or private, going to become some sort of unofficial arbiter of our freedoms by the power they wield in controlling large numbers of computers?  And after all, she uses similar language in her books, so it seems fitting and part of her creative style to use the words on her blog, too.  If readers are offended by her blog, then they aren’t going to like her books, either.

But wait a minute.  Every computer in an entire state’s employee network has been blocked from her site.  Not because her site (and in tandem, her books) offended any of these particular users, but because the employer policy for computer usage bans sites that use unacceptable (by their definition) language.  This means plenty of potential blog readers who would enjoy her blog and buy her books can no longer visit her blog or website from work–and many blog readers read blogs at work.

And if her site was blocked at one employer, what are the chances it already has been or will be in the future blocked at others?  The potential loss of traffic and product (book) sales is enormous.

Worried about her website traffic and her book sales, she immediately did a search through her blog archives and deleted all the bad language, resolving to use no more of it in future blog posts.   She doesn’t intend to modify the language with which she writes her books, but with her website as her primary marketing tool for those books, she can’t afford the risk of having her site blocked for using that same language in her blog.

Losing traffic over the language used on her blog–not only losing readers who might actually be offended but even losing readers who are not due to a mass blocking–is something she’d never thought about before.  What about you?  Do you use four-letter words or other commonly considered unacceptable language on your blog?  If you found out your site was being blocked for language, what would you do?

Tags: Marketing by Suzanne McMinn
3 Comments »

In our last article Suzanne explained WHY you should advertise your blog, and some advertising companies you can use to place your ads. They offer the advantage that the advertising companies provide the statistics for how the blog is doing. They list the traffic and pageviews of the blogs.

I’m going to look at another option. Blogs that offer advertising directly through the blogger. No middleman. Which sometimes means you’ll get the same traffic exposure for lower prices. These blogs usually have a link to “advertise here” or “advertising rates” or something similar. Some will have a page and post their rates. Some will list off their statistics such as visitors or pageviews per week. While you can take them at their word, you should do some other research on your own regarding the popularity of their website.

Things to consider:

1) Do they have an active blog? Do they post daily or at least regularly?

2) Do they have a comment section with a lot of activity? How many comments do they get on their posts?
[Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog, Marketing by Kacey
No Comments »

Just the title of this post stuns some of you, right?  Advertise your blog?  Yes, advertise your blog.  Why? 

Advertising your blog brings readers to your website!  Once at your website, readers take their time, poke around, check out your excerpts, get to know your name, and buy your book.  It’s back-door promotion that works–and is less expensive than you think.  Pull new readers in with an active, entertaining daily blog and those readers will stick around long enough to be drawn to your books far more than a straightforward advertisement for the book.

Now you know the why, here’s the where, the when, the what, and the how.

Where:  Choose blogs that attract an audience that is similar to the type of audience that enjoys your books.  In most cases, this will mean a blog that attracts women.  If you write inspirational romances or books with rural settings, you might want to choose blogs with a Christian slant or country living blogs.  If you write comedies, look for humorous blogs.  If you write family-centered stories, advertise on a mommy blog.  If you write suspense and adventure, you might choose a blog with a contemporary edge to the writing.  And so on.  Analyze the writing style on the blog, the audience it attracts, and advertise accordingly.  Look at a blog’s traffic.  The more traffic a blog has, the more response (click-throughs) you’ll get, but the more traffic a blog has also tends to increase the price.  Advertising on a major blog is one way to go for high click-throughs, but another strategy is to put the same money into advertising on multiple smaller blogs for less money per blog.  Either way, you’ll reach a big audience for the same price.

When:  Anytime, but especially around the time of a book’s release.

What:  There are many types of advertising platforms.  Some I’ve used have included Adbrite, Federated Media, and BlogAds.  Visit their sites and use their systems to narrow your blog searches by categories that complement your writing style. 

How:  All of the above-mentioned platforms accept text ads, which are the simplest ads to create.  An example of a text ad I’ve used with great success is: “Visit a writer’s daily farmhouse journal for recipes, crafts, fun and country living.”  Notice I don’t advertise a book!  I’m advertising entertainment–free entertainment–to get them in the door.  BlogAds also offers the option of adding an image, which I find preferable in increasing click-throughs as images attract attention.  I use the image of a barn with chickens, alternating with an image of a funny sheep.  These images are designed to capture interest and reflect my Chickens in the Road country living blog.  (And I write stories in “country” settings, so this also attracts an audience geared toward my books.)

You can see examples of BlogAds on numerous sites including Crazy Aunt Purl and Biblical Womanhood Online.  You can also see BlogAds in action on my own website, Chickens in the Road, where I publish BlogAds as a side income.  See the “Become a Sponsor” links in my sidebar?  I offer three ad positions at varying price points for any budget.  You can find host blogs for BlogAds either through similar links in their sidebars or by visiting the BlogAds website and searching for blogs.

Promoting your blog instead of or in conjunction with your book, and using blogs as an advertising strategy, is the newest, smartest way to fast-track your traffic and your sales outside the box and bring in readers who might never hear about you otherwise.  Have fun–and let me know what you think!

Tags: Marketing by Suzanne McMinn
8 Comments »

Write a press release for your blog!  No, really.  Okay, you’re saying, why?  To increase traffic, of course, and to reach the people who would be interested in your blog only they don’t know about it.  A press release is a “pseudo” news story, designed to show reporters and newspaper editors “the story” they could write.  In other words, it’s a marketing pitch.  And if you aren’t marketing your blog, why not?  Your blog is the number one draw to your website.  Market it!  A press release about your blog can be used alone, and it can also be part of your full press kit.  Don’t limit yourself to people and publications who might be interested in your books.  Market outside the box.  Local media might be interested in the “local” angle if your blog includes tidbits about life in your area.  If you blog on various topics, think about each topic and what type of publication might be interested in a blog about that topic. Think regionally and nationally, too. Send the press release not only to your local newspaper but to regional newspapers, national newspapers–and magazines. Don’t forget to send it to television stations, too.

Recently, I wrote a press release for my blog and sent it to several publications.  As a result, so far I’ve been featured in two publications and have enjoyed the traffic increase as a result.  My press release was geared toward country living, marketing outside the box of my “writer” angle.  Think about your blog from different perspectives and market it outside the box, too.

Here is a sample press release template: [Read more →]

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