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blogging tips and tricks

How To Jump Start Your Blog

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Jumpstarting Blog Statistics

Whether your blog is about gardening or food, you can easily jump start that blog. As you continue writing blog posts, your blog will eventually see a dramatic rise in traffic. That’s what plenty of the experts say, but there is a shortcut. Although this shortcut requires more work on your part, it will allow your blog to become successful at a much faster rate. In order to jump start your blog, you need to build a targeted following on your social networks.

The numbers game no longer works. Tools like TwitterAudit are being used every day to find out who has the real followers and who has extra cash in their pockets to buy fake followers. Building a targeted following is the only option we have left to be successful on social media. The blogs that we all know about were created by a blogger who now has a big presence on a social network.

Having a targeted following on a social network guarantees that your followers like the content that you post. In addition, these followers are eager to click on your links and read your blog posts. The reason this blog experienced exponential growth over a span of several months is because I got targeted followers at a much faster rate. Although the exponential growth has sizzled down, I will expect to see more exponential growth in the summer. That’s what happened last year, and this year should be a repeat.

The moment it becomes much easier (and free) to schedule pins, my traffic will be able to exponentially increase. The reason is that I have over 10,000 targeted followers on Pinterest. In addition, I gain hundred of targeted followers on Twitter every day.

Ever since I started to focus on gaining targeted followers, I have seen a noticeable increase in my blog traffic. In August 2013, I got 587 views. Less than 6 months later, to start off 2014, my blog got 11,709 views for the month. That is what exponential traffic looks like, and in order to get that exponential traffic, you need to grow a targeted following on your social networks.

Social media has played a big role in this blog’s success, and social media will continue playing a big part in this blog’s success. My prediction is that once my blog starts to gain traffic exponentially again (last year, this started in the fall), my blog could reach 100,000 monthly views by the end of 2014. If you want to give your blog a big jump start, do not focus on the search engines. Focus on growing a targeted following on your social networks. In fact, building a strong presence on a social network improves your SEO.

 

4 Big Reasons To Schedule More Blog Posts

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Scheduling blog posts was a game changing experience. As I was able to schedule more blog posts, I decided to try publishing two blog posts every day to give myself a bigger challenge and get better results at the same time. The entire process has been very rewarding, but scheduling blog posts has other benefits as well. Now, I have numerous blog posts that are scheduled, and throughout my adventure, I have learned about the four big reasons to schedule more blog posts.

  1. Better results. I briefly mentioned getting better results, but I would like to go more in-depth about those better results. Immediately when I published two blog posts every day, my traffic doubled, and people who visited my blog stuck on for longer periods of time. That was because content was getting added to my blog at a faster rate. Therefore, visitors had more content to read.
  2. The more you practice, the better you get. There is no limit to how good of a writer someone can become. In order to become an effective writer, you need to practice often. By frequently scheduling blog posts, you will be able to get in the practice that turns you into one of the best writers around.
  3. Less stress. You do not have to be writing every day in order to publish a blog post every day. Instead of coming home on day at around midnight and rushing to write the blog post your readers are expecting, you can schedule blog posts in advance so you deal with less stress.
  4. You can focus more on big projects. If your big project needs to be completed in a week, and you still have to write blog posts during that week, that will take up a lot of your time. However, if you have your blog posts scheduled weeks in advance, you will be able to focus more of your time on the big project.

These are the four big reasons to schedule more blog posts. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any other reasons that you schedule blog posts in advance? Please share your thoughts below.

 

Creating The Free Prize For Subscribers

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One of the best ways to get more subscribers is by offering them a free prize. The free prize that I offer my subscribers is the Pinterest Mastery Video Tutorial. Social Media Examiner offers a free video about Facebook, and many other bloggers either offer a free video or a free report.

This free prize will serve as an incentive towards getting someone to subscribe to your blog. The thought of getting something makes people more likely to enter in their details. If you knew you could win a giveaway by subscribing to someone’s blog, would you subscribe to that blog? The free prize allows everyone to be a winner…that is everyone who decides to subscribe to your blog.

The free prize will do a good job at getting people to subscribe to your blog just like a Christmas present attracts attention. Once you get the visitor’s attention, and that visitor becomes the subscriber, they are opening the present you gave them. If the present you gave them (the free prize) is bad, the people who receive the free prize may decide to unsubscribe to your blog. If the present is a good one, the people who receive it are more likely to stick around.

When you create the free prize, you need to create a product that you could charge for. An empty box of cookies is technically a free prize, but it is not necessarily the free prize that consumers want. 30 second videos with bad content and lighting are not the things that people want. 30 minute videos with quality content and lighting are the things that people want. The 5 page report does not keep as many subscribers as the 50 page report. The more time and effort you put into creating the free prize, the more likely your subscribers will stick around and engage with your content.

The free prize is a simple, easy to implement concept with numerous benefits. Before I distributed the Pinterest Mastery Video Tutorial to my subscribers, I was stuck at 10 subscribers. Immediately when I introduced the free prize, I was getting subscribers every day. In addition, some of those subscribers leave comments on my blog posts to this day. Introduce the free prize to your visitors and see what the free prize can do for you.

If you have any thoughts about the free prize or any additional tips, please share them below.

 

4 Simple Ways To Get A Quick Increase In Blog Traffic

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Traffic

Going from 0 daily visitors to 100,000 daily visitors takes a lot of time and effort. The thought of getting more blog traffic has been believed to be a slow process in which the most persistent bloggers are the most successful ones. However, there are some ways to get more blog traffic immediately. These are 4 ways to do that:

  1. Include share buttons at the bottom of your blog. This is a simple step to implement that will allow more people to share your content with their social networks. Some blogs get a few extra visitors with this method while other blogs get a few thousand extra visitors.
  2. Include links to your older blog posts in your new ones. Once you get visitors, you want them to stick around. If your visitors read multiple blog posts on your blog, that reduces your blog’s bounce rate. A blog with a low bounce rate has a better SEO rank. Decreasing bounce rate is a simple way to get a better PageRank on Google.
  3. Write a guest post on a popular blog. Putting your content in front of a larger audience will allow more people to know about you. When people look at your bio, they will see your social networks and a link to your blog. Once you get them to visit your blog, your bounce-rate-improved blog will keep those visitors on your blog for a longer period of time. Writing a guest post and including a link to your blog in the bio will also count towards a backlink.
  4. Use HARO. I have mentioned HARO (Help A Reporter Out) many times because it is an easy way to get free PR. Big media outlets related to your niche are using HARO to find people like you. If the journalist likes your submission, they will feature you on a popular blog, TV show, or magazine. Being featured on the blog gives you another backlink while all three give you free PR.

Those are 4 ways to see an immediate change in your blog traffic. While some tactics take weeks or months to see a big change from, these tactics will allow you to see an immediate increase in traffic. I can’t promise you will go from 0 daily visitors to 100 daily visitors overnight, but I can promise you a noticeable increase in traffic.

 

5 Reasons To Comment On Other People’s Blogs

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There are a lot of ways to build your presence as a blogger, and one of those methods is commenting on other people’s blogs. While this is a slower approach towards building a powerful presence, consistently commenting on other people’s blogs will one day give you a surge of traffic. Of all of the reasons to comment on other people’s blogs, these 5 reasons are the ones that stand out the most.

  1. Your blog gets more backlinks. Leaving comments on other people’s blogs results in a backlink for your blog. Getting more backlinks will get your blog more traffic from search engines.
  2. You get to build connections with other commentors. The people who leave a comment after you are very likely to see your comment as well. This will result in you making numerous connections depending on how popular the blog is.
  3. You can connect with the blogger. Some bloggers respond to the comments of their visitors. This gives you the ability to build a strong connection with the blogger. Then, you can ask that blogger to be a guest for an interview (Google Hangouts or an email with questions). Interviews end up helping out both you and the blogger.
  4. Some blogs have widgets on the sidebar that show the top commentors. The blogs with these widgets will allow you to easily get another backlink to your blog. In addition, your name will appear on multiple places in the same blog. The more times your name shows up, the more likely someone is to visit your blog.
  5. People see you more often. As people see you more often, their trust for you will grow. This concept is a big reason why many companies have not given up on the TV advertising game. They need to be seen often in order to gain our trust.

Those are the 5 key benefits of commenting on other people’s blogs. Whether you want to give it a try on this blog or comment on other blogs, commenting on other blogs is a great way for you to build your own blog’s traffic.

 

Does The Length Of A Blog Post Matter?

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One of the big questions of blogging is whether the length of a blog post matters or not. Do longer blog posts necessarily equate to more shares and subscribers? The answer is no. That does not mean a long blog post is going to result in less shares and subscribers either.

The length of a blog post does not matter. The amount of time it takes to make your point does matter. Some blog posts are less than 50 words long because that’s how long it took for the writer to make his point. Some blog posts are over 1,000 words long because that’s how long the writer needs to make his point.

In addition to making a point, blog posts should also reinforce that point with examples or more information. “More information” can range from a few sentences to a few paragraphs. Examples can range from one example to over 10 examples.

Going back to the question, the length of a blog post does not matter. What your targeted readers get out of your blog post is what matters. If a targeted reader understands the point you are trying to make, then you did a good job.