Caroline Middlebrook, a work from home Internet entrepeneur, has just released her first e-book, called “How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with Wordpress.” The e-book is fairly short, 46 pages, and does well to guide a newbie from installing Wordpress on a domain to fine tuning it to eventually building content for the Wordpress blog. [...]

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A delicate problem every blogger is facing at present date, is the issue of content theft. Notice I said every blogger, as no blog is spared of copyright theft, no matter how big or small it is. It’s a question of when, not if, so it’s important to realize that’s imperative you take [...]

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I’ll admit it. I will probably never be as successful a blogger as someone like John Chow but that doesn’t mean I have nothing worthwhile to say. I am a blogger that does something 95% of you are already doing. I blog about something other than blogging.
Since starting my blog, tailgatingideas.com, [...]

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We as consumers, most of the time, fail to see the importance of branding, because we simply don’t really think about it. We just seem to go with the flow and in the process, are letting brand names become synonyms with day to day activities, in our lives. Take Nike, one of the [...]

Yesterday night, Google updated the Page Rank and back links for websites. From what I’ve read the process isn’t over yet, and some data centers are still to be processed. No change here at LOAB, but I’m happy one of my blogs got a 0 to 4 PR. Discussions over the subject here and here.
Mark [...]

Everyone knows that starting a new blog from scratch is tough, but anyone who’s been blogging for enough time, will tell you that keeping your posting pace and readers is even a harder task. The problem is that, there’s a time in any blog’s life, when it simply stagnates, in all possible ways: traffic, subscribers, comments etc. This is probably because you’ve limited yourself to a few promotion campaigns and reached your demographical peak; chances are a few visitors stumbled across your page more then a few times by accident, which can both be a bad or good thing, depends how you see it I guess.

To overpass this obstacle, the most obvious thing to do is to bring new readers to your blog. Well easy said, harder to do, but let’s have a look at a few ways that are sure to at least bring you a fresh and constant surge of new traffic.
Before you read on you first need to make sure your new readers stick around, not just drop and leave, so if you haven’t read my ‘making your blog sticky‘ post, then this is a good time to do it.

1. Write Remarkable Content. Ok, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times from me, but it’s truer then ever, nonetheless. You can’t go wrong with building constant great and useful content. If you manage to pull that off, you’ll have new people crowding in on all directions, through word of mouth, linkage, bookmarks etc.
2. Comment on Similar Blogs. My bet is this is your best shot on gaining new readers and getting some attention, from behalf of other bloggers as well. Be sure to comment on blog that are similar to your, both in niche and development; truth is commenting on major blogs like let’s say ProBlogger and CopyBlogger, won’t get you too much attention, because there are simply tens, maybe hundreds of comments on each post. Also when commenting, make sure your comment should be as useful and contributive as possible, you don’t want just to drop a line like “great post, bye” and hope people will click through your link. Make sure you make your comments count.
3. Write Catchy Titles. Great titles are always a great way to catch somebody’s attention. A good title alone can motivate a visitor to read your whole article and outside of your blog a good post title will definitely make your site stand out. This is especially important with traffic from social bookmarks, such as digg or reddit.
4. Improve Your SEO. Search engines are a great way to drive targeted new readers to your blog, but because the competition, no matter the niche, is so fierce nowa days SEO can be extremely difficult, but if properly mastered it can be a powerful tool.
5. Promote Your Blog on Forums. This has been one of the oldest way to market and promote a website, of any kind, for loads of years and frankly it’s not a surprise, as it works like a charm. However problem with forums is that you have to be prepared to invest a lot of time into building your profile and authority, but if you manage to do so you’ll have a lot to gain from. Keep this in mind while posting on forums:
   • Be on topic and contributive as much as possible. Nobody likes a spammer.
   • Answer to any questions a forum user might have there, this way you’ll establish yourself as an authority.
   • Actively participate in discussions, so you can raise your rep and post count.
6. Guest Blogging. This is really one of the best way to raise awareness to your blog and gain some new readers. I’m really a guest blogging fan, as there’s so many benefits to gain from it, although a lot of people kinda avoid it, because they hate the idea of writing content for somebody else, but I’m sure if they’d better analyze the potential advantages, thing would be a lot different. To make it really big you have to land a post on a really popular blog (1-2k RSS subscribers), as it will definitely land you the most targeted traffic and the best link juice, but the more popular a blog is , the harder it is to have a article posted. Keep this in mind when guest blogging:
   • Introduce yourself. In a few words say who you are, where you blog at and politely ask the blogger if it’s possible for him to have a look at a article you’ve written, that you’d like to be guest posted on his respective blog. Here’s a little article I wrote way back, about pitching notes and networking with other bloggers.
   • When contacting your fellow blogger, be polite and concise. Popular bloggers get tons of email every day, so it’s better not to waste his time with pleasantries.
   • The article you’ve written for guest posting has to be very well written and relevant, not only for it to get accepted, but for it to stand out among the blogger’s readers. You want some attention and a excellent article, will make readers click on your link and read your blog.
7. Advertise. This is one of the most straight forward ways to attract new readers and most of the time is quite effective, but unfortunately a good campaign usually costs a lot of money. If you’re willing to spend some cash for your blog, advertising may be the right thing for you, especially with blog advertising getting easier, most effective and cheaper by the day.
8. Social Media. This is my personal favorite blog promotion method and it may just be the best. Due to a blog’s flexibility you can really harness the web 2.0 potential at a maximum, and easily drive traffic. The only problem with it, is that it’s a bit poor in terms of visitor quality, a powerful tool nonetheless. Be sure to read my introduction to Social Media and Social Media Marketing, before continuing.
9. Make Link Bait. If you manage to pull off a really good link bait, you won’t have any problem in brining in some new readers, in addition to the ginormous amount of link backs. If you want to read more about link bait and link baiting techniques, have look at my link bait guide.
10. Just Be Patient. Building traffic and a popular blog takes times, even though you’ll hit a growth slump keep on posting and working hard. It’ll eventually pass one way or the other, afterwards you and your blog will be back on the marvelous road towards success.

If you enjoyed this article, please reward it with a stumble or digg. Thanks !

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And with it, more hope of better things to come; after all, this is a time for rebirths and new beginnings. At least I know my life and agenda will definitely change a lot this year, as I’m moving to another city for collage, which should either mean I’ll have a heck [...]