Hello again,

Continuing in our Keys to Success series, we will now delve into the almighty search engines.

In order for your blog or site to come up in search engine results, the search engine must know it exists. Getting discovered, and indexed, by search engines is a critical first step to securing search engine traffic.

Contrary to the beliefs held by some, a search engine cannot simply “find” your blog or web site on its own. It must be led to the blog in some fashion. There are two general ways by which this can happen. You can either tell the search engine about your blog, or you can devise a means by which it will find you.

At first glance, it seems like just telling the search engine would be the optimal solution. At one time, this strategy was the easiest way of getting indexed. However, it is no longer the best way to go about things.

You can directly submit your site to Google, for instance. However, it may take the search engine months to get around to your request. At some point, in frustration, you might be led to submit the information again. There are fairly credible reports that frequent submission of a blog or web site directly to the search engine may actually lead to a penalty. They would prefer to find you all by themselves.

I have personally not noticed any problems with direct submission to MSN’s search engine. However, considering the variety of ways by which one can be found without utilizing direct submission, it does not seem necessary to tip off MSN in that manner.

This is a bit of an overview.  In the next few days we’ll get more into the meat of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Have a great day!

pj

Tags: designer, webmaster, website, web development, design, creation

Blogging, credible reports, google, keys to success, link popularity, msn, optimal solution, Page Rank, search engines, search engine results, search engine traffic, SEO, submission, Traffic, Training

Controversy

Continuing our series on driving traffic to your sites, I thought I would briefly touch on the topic of Controversy.  You see this in the newspapers, tabloids and more.  You have probably heard the adage, “Bad publicity is still good publicity.”  Nothing gets noticed quite like the controversial. If you are looking for a way to get some attention (and, thus, traffic), it is possible to do so by taking controversial stands on issues related to your topic. This can get you noticed in a hurry!

However, utilizing controversy as a means of generating traffic is not usually a reasonable long-term strategy. First, how controversial can you be on a regular basis? If your site’s success is based upon your willingness to take outlandish or controversial positions, you will put yourself in a position where you are forced to either constantly one-up yourself or becoming boring by comparison.

Second, intentionally taking a non-mainstream perspective just to get some attention risks alienating a portion of your potential audience. You want traffic, but you would probably prefer that not all of it came from people who want to argue with you! If you have a strongly held position that might create some controversy, don’t feel as though you have to hold back. Self-expression, after all, is what blogs are all about. However, you probably should not fall into the rut of using wild claims or inflaming rhetoric to drive traffic to your blog or web site. Instead, concentrate on authoring relevant, quality, thought-provoking content.

More on the “Keys to Traffic” tomorrow!

Have a great day,

p

Tags: website, design, designer, creation, webmaster, web development

authoring, controversy, drive traffic, mainstream, strategy first, Traffic, Training

Quality Content and Uniqueness

There are many things you can do to produce content that really have no direct relationship to the quality of your blog, and you should consider pursuing them. However, nothing will turn a blog into a success like high quality content.

Good content creates a readership. Those repeat visitors can be the lifeblood of a successful blog. Additionally, other people who operate blogs notice good content and web sites and they will often link back to your quality posts. This creates a direct traffic stream from those links, as well as adding to your total cache of backlinks, which can help in search engine results.

People will come back to a site they know provides grade-A information or that touches them in some way. Humor sites that are not funny do not get repeat visitors. Sites about technological advances that contain inaccuracies do not develop a readership. Blogs that are littered with grammatical and spelling errors seldom generate massive traffic.

Effective writing is key to a successful blog. It is beyond the scope of this ebook to outline what makes a writer entertaining or informative. Most of us, fortunately, have an idea of what separates the good from the bad. Writing effectively may take more time and effort than simply spewing forth a few posts to your blog, but the end result is worth the extra energy.

In addition to writing well, you should strive to produce unique content that will distinguish your blog from others. This includes choosing topics that are interesting, opinions that are compelling, and doing whatever else is necessary to capture and hold a reader’s interest. You need to give people a reason to choose your blog over others in the same field. You must provide them with something they cannot get elsewhere.

This raises the subject of re-blogging. Re-blogging occurs when a blogger provides a synopsis of what someone else has written (perhaps even with an excerpt) and then adds a small amount of personal commentary. Re-blogging can be effective in two circumstances. If your blog is operating primarily as a news aggregator and a means of providing readers with an edited compendium of potential items of interest, it is a natural fit. Second, if your commentary somehow illuminates or provides an interesting twist to the original content it can also be effective. Too often, however, reblogging is nothing more than repetition of what could be found elsewhere and fails to impress readers.

Instead of relying upon re-blogging, a successful blogger will generally try to stay on top of his or her chosen field and will become the initial source of exciting information and opinion. It is fine to share the remarkable work of others–making sure that information gets out to everyone is one of the great things you can do with a blog–but it is even better if you can make yourself into a primary source of quality, unique content.

More on this tomorrow!

pj

Tags: design, creation, website, web development, designer, webmaster

blog, Blogging, blogs, content, Traffic, unique, Web Development