9 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid

Blogging Mistake #1 - Not Updating
It never fails. Somebody sets up a new blog and is all excited about it. We see a furry of posts for the first few days, maybe even a few weeks, and then the number of posts starts to go down until the blog is hardly updated at all. Nothing kills a blog faster than lack of updates. If you are going to blog, then pick a posting frequency and stick to it. Whether it’s one post per week or 10 posts per day, make a commitment to keep your blog updated. A non-updated blog is a dead blog.
Blogging Mistake #2 - Blogging Only For Money
If you’re blogging only for money, then you’re in for a shock. Yes, you can make good money with a blog, but despite what that National Post story on me said, it takes a lot more than “no effort.” 99% of blogs on the Web cannot make more than $100 a month. John Chow dot Com makes money because I don’t blog for money. If the only reason you’re blogging is to get rich, you will fail.
Blogging Mistake #3 - Rushing a Post
I am sure we have all been guilty of this - I know I have. A hot story comes up and you want to get it out ASAP, but in your rush to get the post published, you forget to proofread and just hit the Publish button. Whenever I’ve done that, there have always been mistakes in the post. Before you hit Publish, take your time to double/triple check the post to make sure it’s free of errors. If you spot an error after the post, correct it immediately.
Blogging Mistake #4 - Not Being Personal
A blog is not CNN or News.com. People read your blog to get your opinion and your point of view. Give it to them.
Blogging Mistake #5 - Being a Copycat
What makes your blog stand out from the millions in the blogshere? Is your blog unique or is it just another copycat? I am certainly not the first blog to write about making money on the Internet, so what makes my blog stand out other than me posting pictures of my dinner?
You can write about the same thing as the next blog, but you need to add your own views to make it unique. Don’t just copy and paste what another blog posted. Give your opinion because that’s what blogging is all about. The most unique thing about your blog is you.
Blogging Mistake #6 - Not Replying To Comments
A blog is a two-way communication tool, but many bloggers forget that. When readers comment in your blog, please answer them. If your readers don’t leave comments then try adding these Two Plugins To Increase Blog Comments.
Blogging Mistake #7 - Not Giving a Full Feed RSS
Unless you make 10+ posts per day, there are really no good reasons for not offering a full feed RSS. Since turning on my full feed RSS, my RSS subscribers has increased steadily. I expected traffic to the blog to go down but to my surprise, it kept going up.
Yes, a RSS feed is harder to monetize than a blog, but many RSS readers will unsubscribe to a feed if it’s not full. Not offering a full feed when you do only a few updates a day (or week) just makes you look cheap.
Blogging Mistake #8 - Not Reaching Out To Other Bloggers
The best way to get your blog noticed is by saying hi to other blogs in your niche. The easiest way to do that is to comment on their blogs. I check the comments on my blog all the time and I visit the commentator’s site. I discovered many great blogs this way. Other ways of reaching out to other bloggers includes linking to them, sending trackbacks and adding yourself to their MyBlogLog community. If you’re really creative and have a bit of money to spend, you can even try sending a Google IM.
Blogging Mistake #9 - Writing For Google Instead Of People
Some of you may recall that I am taking an Internet Marketing and SEO class. During this class, the teacher talks about stuff like key phases, keyword density, making sure your content is Google friendly, etc. The only thing I have to say about that is; write for people, not for Google.
You can have the most perfectly written Google optimized page in the world and still not ranked number 1 because Google follows people. And people won’t read a page written for a search engine because it makes no sense. I do keep an eye on my keywords and key phases when I’m writing a post, but I also keep in mind that the readers come first, Google comes second.

READ MORE - 9 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid

Six Powerful Blog Strategies that will Rapidly Increase Your Affiliate Referrals

Imagine this scenario. You’ve just came across an amazing website which offers a lucrative affiliate program. You signed up instantly as an affiliate and are itching to promote your referral link to as many people you know. You hook up a new thread in a forum and insert your referral link after a short pitch, perhaps you’ll also leave a few comments on a few blogs with the referral link as the URL or signature. You might even publish a short blog post which consists of nothing but a short opener, an excerpt from the website in question and your big fat affiliate referral link. You sit back and eagerly check your referral stats. How many people signed up? How much am I earning? You set plans for tommorrow: maybe send some emails to people you know and create a banner or button for your blog. You probably think you’ve done a good job and are guaranteed a cashcow that will give you recurring earnings. Right? Wrong. Promoting your affiliate link goes beyond the above steps, which are really promotional spurts directed at short-term gains. If the affiliate program offers recurring commission earnings, creating a focused, long term promotional strategy is of vital importance. Six Key Strategies to Boost your Affiliate Referrals Here are a collection of six points which anyone can use to increase their number of referrals for any affiliate program or website. These points apply across various industries and emphasize on long-term over short-term referral gains. Note that they mainly apply to blogs, though they could easily be applied to other general websites. 1. Early Search Result Listings are Essential - Get Ranked Fast. Being one of the first few people to write about a specific website or affiliate scheme will allow you to easily get ranked within the top 10 for most search engines. This is because there is very little competition for the specific term or keyphrase. Another benefit of getting listed early is that people will usually do a search for a specific website because they need more details about it. You should aim to fill that information need because they’ll very likely sign up through your link if there are no other or very little sources available. I’ve gotten over 1,000 Agloco referrals just because I’ve written a review of Agloco when it was just released a few months back. I’ve not even bothered to update the review with fresh information and I’ve done absolutely nothing to increase my referrals. No forum spamming, no blog post pitches, no PPC campaigns, no email marketing, no article submissions. Nada. Nothing. This was largely because I was ranked number one on Google for ‘Agloco Review‘ for some time. In fact, my post is still listed in the Top 5 results at the moment. This has allowed me to receive consistent search traffic everyday for several months. Dosh Dosh also has strong result rankings for dozens of unique keywords, which ensures that I continue to make money through affiliate recommendations, even though my blog is completely free of contextual or banner ads. 2. Project Authenticity, Personality and Objectivity through Your Blog Visitors who arrive your blog looking for specific information do not need another sales pitch. They’ve very likely been pre-sold, meaning that they’ve been persuaded to some extent by the website or business in question. What they want is personal recommendations. Strive for objectivity and honesty when you are writing your review about the specific product. This means giving both good and bad points about a specific product. Your review will be even better if you can include your personal experiences with the product in question. My Gangster Greed review is a good example of how I try to inculcate all these points. 3. Strive for Content Depth, Breadth and Uniqueness Always try to surpass the other blogger that writes about the same topic by coming up with a review of far greater depth and detail. Explore questions which have not been addressed and link to sources which the other bloggers have missed. Being unique and meticulous makes you a reference point and authority on the topic. This builds incoming links which will eventually help you rank well in the long run. An example of this is my post on Adsense Wordpress Themes. The amount of material covered and the uniqueness of it (no one has ever done it before) has led a very large number of natural incoming links over time and has allowed me to consistently rank in the top five for several keywords. Put yourself in the potential linker’s shoe. Would you rather send your reader to a short blog post with only 100 words on a product/website or you prefer to send them to a well-written 1000 word article which thoroughly examines the subject in question? 4. Optimize your Blog Post for Search Traffic Writing with search engines in mind can make the whole article feel stunted and so I’ve never emphasized on stuffing keywords or phrases in specific sections of content. Don’t do it. It’s a waste of time and may degrade the overall quality of your post. Demonstrating a personality that others can relate too is far more important when you are planning to increase affiliate referrals. The only place where its absolutely essential to include your keyword or phrase is within the title of your blog post. Adjusting your post-slug and permalink to include the keyword structure is also helpful and can help to reduce the length of the URL as a whole. However, pleasing the reader or potential referral is of utmost importance. Always try to target niche phrases that fit nicely within your article and if you really want to, buy or get others to include keyword links to your article. 5. Use Trackbacks Effectively to Generate Exposure Don’t just come across a specific item and write about it as if you were the one discovering it. By referencing the original news breaker, a relevant link to your post will be listed beneath their original article in the form of a trackback. This is a great way to get very targeted traffic because readers might need more information on the specific website/program. If your article is good enough, the blogger in question might even update the original post and include a link to it. The trick to trackbacking is to reference as many relevant and high traffic blogs as possible. To keep on top of popular news from other high profile blogs, I suggest using content aggregators or meme trackers which allow you easily reference several blogs at once. 6. Leech Traffic from Relevant Blogs This is a method that I have used for a while. Say you’ve just written a great article on a specific website or program and included your affiliate links. The next step is to promote your article through relevant niche blogs. How do you do this? Use Google Alerts to set up notifications when bloggers write a post about the specific topic in question. This sends an automated email to your inbox every day or once a week. You can then visit specific blogs and leave a relevant comment while discreetly mentioning your review. This is a great way to acquire potential referrals who are commitment-phobic and need more information. Depending on the traffic level for each blog, you’ll tend to get a few visitors who will be interested enough to visit your website. Just remember to deeplink to the specific post and not your blog homepage. This method also has the benefit of allowing you to easily stay in touch with the latest news concerning the specific program, which allows you to update your blog or website accordingly. Another way to do this is to hang out at social websites like Digg or Reddit and visit blogs that are very likely to hit the homepage. Leaving an interesting comment will induce visitors to your blog. This is far less targeted than using Google Alerts but can lead to greater traffic flow. Key Point Summary - A Checklist to Follow Write a blog post after you sign up for an affiliate program. Pick keywords or keyphrases that are likely to receive more search volume. Check if you are making a personal recommendation and come across as authentic/objective. Is your review detailed and unique enough? Does it cover new ground or offer new perspectives? Optimize your Blog post. Are the keywords in the title? Remember to use references and send trackbacks. Keep track of articles from other bloggers on the same topic. Have you set up a Google Alert or found a way to keep up with news on a specific topic?

READ MORE - Six Powerful Blog Strategies that will Rapidly Increase Your Affiliate Referrals

5 Steps to Business Success with Free Traffic

It is already a well-known fact that the more traffic generated towards a web site, the higher the number of visitors, and the higher the probability of getting customers. Traffic is an essential ingredient in Internet Marketing. It stands for the number of people viewing a web site or web page. In relation, there are ways on creating traffic for a site. Here are 5 suggestions on how to generate traffic to a web site. First, the web content must be helpful and original. People will enjoy reading through the content that is beneficial to them. The content must say something that would touch the lives or hearts of the viewers to hook them to stay with the site. It must be real and honest; and not just make-believe. This is especially important with advertising campaigns. Viewers somehow know which of the content is true and which are just persuasive without truth. Additionally, if the content can only be found on just one site, people who are interested will really get back to the site most often. Second, the web content must not be bound by time. It must be useful no matter what the season is unless the aim of the site is to promote a certain season or event. It will be very good to have a content that could be valuable for the readers at anytime if possible. If the content can be viewed and accessed without being bothered by time, people remember the site and even recommend it to others; thus, creating more and more traffic from generation to generations. Third, the focus of the content must be people and not computers or robots. Viewers' interest must be a priority. Catching their interest could create an endless impact. They can even print out the content that somehow cater to a certain need, then read it at some other time, and get back to the site for more. The truth is that people are the ones who dwell with the content and not the computers; people are the ones who buy and not the computers. Fourth, consider the site guests as human beings. Though the postmodern culture is inclined with the latest technology, the people viewing the content are still humans. The content must be treated with the idea that the viewers have their own minds, body, emotions, and spirit. There must always be a sense of care within the content. In addition, the site must be guest friendly. Something that could make the visitors feel that they belong to it in one way or another. Lastly, money making must apparently be the last goal of the content. Though everyone needs to earn and have a living, it is not all that everyone needs. It is better to show people that the site truly cares and that the product or service helps, than just making the viewers believe in just to gain more income. These are just simple tips that could help create more free traffic to a site. Simple as they are, they could work best.

READ MORE - 5 Steps to Business Success with Free Traffic