Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

An online business trying to improve their online visibility, target audience and increase exposure must create a blog that is totally dedicated to the site of their business… period! There is no shortcut to online success. A proven and tested principle that search engines use when ranking a website is to look at the frequency at which the content of the site is being updated. The surest and easiest way, therefore, to ensure there is a constant supply of fresh content is through blogging.

Note, however, that blogging with specific high quality content that is targeted at the niche market is not enough. You must create some more buzz and attention around your site, distribute your content, and more importantly be around your blog readers. How do you do that effectively? Here are a few ways of doing it.

• Familiarize yourself with how bookmarking tools like ping.fm or HootSuite can be utilized to boost the amount of high quality inbound links to your website by posting each of your blog posts to at least 25 of the leading social networking and bookmarking websites automatically
• Use online available tools like the famous Google Keyword tool to establish the kind of long tail keywords the market is using to search for information related to your business.
• Ensure there are enough social networking icons within the blog that will encourage your readers to retweet, bookmark or even post a link on their site redirected at your blog post
• Ensure your primary keywords feature generously in the title and body of the blog posts in order to have them rank highly on the Search Engine Results Page.
• Ensure there is a comment section after every blog post which will encourage your readers to share their views and comments regarding the information contained in the blog.
• If you are good enough, try to post some of your content on other blog that accept guest articles. Most of them will offer you 2-3 links back to your website.
• Build social community with people that are really interested in your niche. Is worthless if you have 30000 followers on Twitter if only 5 people are interested in your posts.

Don’t think that the above mentioned is an all-inclusive list of measures to take in your link popularity strategic development plan to boost web traffic. The strategies, tips and techniques that will drive traffic towards your site are only limited by your very own imagination.

This is also not all there is for you to do, you have to search your specific niche market and find websites and blogs that rank the highest. Ensure you get affiliated with the blogs as they already have a well established page rank. By having your blog posts feature on their pages, you will get more visibility, publicity, and broad exposure. Request for a link in exchange for them posting your blogs on their sites and you will sure get the traffic that you want.

A lot of people do not realize that even though you have an online presence in several popular social networks that you are going to reel in the traffic, and then sit back and make money. It takes more than your online efforts.

All those connections online are great, but what about those in your surrounding community. There are thousands of aspiring small business owners who are looking to get ahead. They are struggling with what few tools that have, and with what little knowledge in business practices. They start a business because:

They found a passion they would like to pursue.

No matter what type of service, I have found a lot of business owners who give up because they had no idea they had so much they could do if they had down the work to learn how to manage a business properly. While it is exciting to start a business, it takes a lot of work. People are hard to convince that something is worth purchasing.

If you are doing okay online, try your community. Go to businesses in person, shake their hand, and tell them a little bit how you can help their business grow online. Make sure you have done a little research and know their genre so you can catch their interest the best. They want to make money and if you say you can do it and explain in a brief introduction how you can help them do it, they may just hire you.

These are the people that if they do find success online using your methods, they are going to mention you (both in the community and online) and that will increase your reputation both online and in the community. Online businesses owners might just be the next thing local Rotary clubs and Chamber of Commerce chapters might invite.

Are you reaching out to your local community? How have you connected? What advice can you give for successful encounters with local business owners in increasing their social media marketing awareness?

So, I came across my first Twitter begging scam. It was unfortunate because a couple of my regular followers decided to chip in out of their own kindness. I highly respect people who have big hearts, but sometimes I fear for them at the same time. It kind of goes hand in hand with the beggars on the side of the street or highway off ramps – it is annoying!

I am not going to reveal them as pretty much I am sure some of you have seen begging a time or two on the social network streams.

This particular begging dealt with a person who is relatively unknown with over 8,000 empty followers and yet after viewing their social stream, the majority of their messages were begging with a few empty pieces of chat with people that are smart enough not to reply. The sob story of the “woman’s” 4 kids, and cheating husband who left is enough to pull my sympathy card, but not enough to make me dish out some bucks.

Will we see more of this going on? What can be done?

My own action was to click the link to report for spam because obviously, donations were all they wanted. It is okay to accept donations… I have had my own PayPal button up from time to time, but at least people got something in return – free graphics, great advice to help them make money, or other useful resources.

Perhaps I should have sent her a direct message and said, “Hey, I have some great information that is free that you can use to start your own website and eventually make your own money.”

???

However, I did not think so in this case.

What are your thoughts about Internet begging on the social network streams? Are they a harmless annoyance or should they seek better ways to make money (like build a business or get a job)?

There is a lot of hype on people saying they are coaches or specialize in social media, but when it comes down to it, their experience is merely a year or two under the belt… especially online.

While social media is a special term that had been produced in 2009 for a type of marketing, people are jumping on board and claiming their success in that name.

However… is it really tried and true. Just because someone skyrockets in rank in Alexa, can it be that they are someone you should follow? Are they giving you they best information that could honestly get you ahead or are they feeling obligated to get you materials that cost you money and still happen to make you sink?

There are a lot of great places that have built a great and sturdy reputation over the past few years. These are the places that pioneered the way for a lot of bloggers today. While there are thousands of blogs helping bloggers get ahead, there are those who are giving accurate information.

The sites giving information are professionally paid and know a lot about websites, like developing and designing. These are the places that can deliver the articles that benefit even newbies who are desperately seeking information to get ahead with their website.

There are a lot of people who have risen in rank but do not have much in marketing experience other than one website that gives them status above others. While you may like one person, you will eventually build a guideline for what you expect of that person. You need to ask yourself:

1. How long has the person been in the niche?
2. Who are the people that influence them?
3. Does that person rely more on the community? (Are they merely a place where the majority of the site is fueled by guest bloggers?)

The people who are successful are people noticeably speaking in coventions and even making money helping other businesses get ahead. While you might blog at some other site, you are merely getting link juice and some traffic.

If you want to get ahead, read after people who motivate you to get ahead like Liz Strauss and Chris Brogan.

Who are you following? Are they recent successes or established social media professionals?

Social media marketing is something most bloggers who want to reel in traffic and be competitive must use. Despite the fact that a lot of people, including myself mention how to promote your product and site in a way that makes it seem easy… the truth is, it is not easy. It takes work. I repeat this a lot, but I do not think people realize it.

With that said, hopefully you are still reading this article, because I am going to tell you, regardless of how experienced you are as a blogger or site owner how social media marketing is good for you.

1. You get exposure for your site. Unless you pay someone good money or do it yourself, no one will know where you are or what you want them to do. This includes the search engines.
2. You get exposure for yourself. The more you participate, the more people see you and might even interact with you.
3. You become reputable within and outside of your niche. The great thing about being human is that you get to have as many things that you are interested in as you want. People who are even the least bit curious will find out about you if you are someone who is recommended by others regardless if they are in your niche or not.
4. You learn a lot of great ways to promote your site in ways that it would have cost more using other marketing methods. There are so many tools out there that are free. Of course, there are others that cost, but you can still get ahead, be thrifty, and market your product or site successfully online.
5. You can make good money if you are dedicated.
6. You meet new people. Unless you like to be a hermit, I know a lot of people enjoy meeting others. Even if it is not face-to-face, exchanging conversations can really be fun.
7. You can potentially reach more people online versus other media. There are a lot of people embracing social networking and with some research and work on your part, you can connect with others that you never thought were possible.

What are other reasons why bloggers should use social media marketing?

LinkedIn is a great tool in itself that has become a way for professionals to connect. You can use it to reel in traffic.

In a way, LinkedIn has become a social network for mature users, rather than convoluted with game apps and other things like Facebook and MySpace. By the way, I do love Facebook, but sometimes there are things I really did not want to see and remind me of my old MySpace days.

You do not have to be “friends” to connect. Some people take the word “friend” to heart. LinkedIn is where you can try to establish any type of connection… though I am sure for a lot of you, a professional connection is ideal.

Here are just a few methods I use in bringing traffic to any of my websites from LinkedIn:

1. Install the WordPress applications for LinkedIn on my profile. When people visit, they will see what you write about. If you are someone who blogs about your career field, this could be an added bonus especially when finding a job.
2. Join groups and participate. There are a load of people who are looking to connect with other professionals in their niche. With the hundreds of groups available, you cannot go wrong.
3. Share your articles on your LinkedIn social stream. You can connect your LinkedIn account to other social networks or manually enter your update.
4. Submit your articles to group news. This is a nice addition, especially if the group has a lot of members. It might be a bit tedious, but you could bring in traffic and even feedback that you would not have found anywhere else… and you know what… it would be with people who are actually interested in what you have to say.

If you used LinkedIn, what other methods do you use to promote your site in order to bring in traffic?

So, you have decided to dabble in accepting guest blogging. Perhaps you have accepted posts, but have been only accepting the articles via email and posting them yourself.

STOP!

You are making more work for yourself.

Guest blogging is like regular blogging… it should not be a chore. You should be accepting posts, reviewing, and publishing, so streamline your work.

Here are ways to prepare your site for guest bloggers:

1. Create a page just for Guest Writing. It can be “Guest Blog Here”, “Guest Write Here”, “Submit Your Article”, or whatever. That page needs to have your requirements and how a person can submit their post.
2. Secure Your WordPress Site. You are opening your site to people. Make sure to try to keep your WordPress installation up-to-date and make sure you keep an eye on who registers on your site.
3. Install the Role Manager Plugin for WordPress… that is, if you are using WordPress. You will be able to specify exactly what capabilities your guest bloggers will be allowed to do on your site.
4. Create an Author Box for your posts. Forget bylines when the author box can be filled out by your guest bloggers filling out their WordPress user information. This is where they can promote their own sites or businesses they work for.
5. Create an Author Page for your guest bloggers. If you have a few regular guest bloggers, this is a nice page for your guest bloggers to bring back to their own site to promote.
6. Promote that your site is open. It might be once a week you have to mention it, but it is necessary. People need reminding and while they may not jump for the chance immediately, they may sometime down the line.

While I would put in the list Adsense revenue sharing, I am going to leave that as optional as that is more of a personal choice rather than something that is truly necessary.

What other resources should site owners use when preparing their site to accept guest bloggers?

I recently re-activated my sign up form for MailChimp (by the way, please sign up… it is in my sidebar.) This was after being asked more times than I can count on where to sign up.

Feedburner is nice, but it is not a substitute for Mailing Lists. For some, you might be hesitant to try your hand at starting an email marketing campaign. You might think you have nothing to sell, but as I have said in the past, you are selling something, even if it is free advice.

You want to attract people back to your site and email lists can do that. A weekly list is nice and unobtrusive. You can include recent posts, a few featured posts, product information, and some extra tidbits of information.

People who are really interested in your site will subscribe and keep returning to see what goodies you have. However, if you have nothing to remind them… well, they are just going to eventually forget. It is just something that happens and that is not always your fault, no matter how memorable you have made your brand to be. People need reminding.

Some of the mailing lists out there may be a bit daunting price-wise, especially for beginners. I use MailChimp, which is pretty nice considering your first 500 subscribers are free. There are others like Aweber and GetResponse. Hopefully in the future I can get a post out that compares each auto-responder side-by-side.

Do you use an auto-responder or mailing list? If so, what advice do you have for newbies?