Got A Website – You Need Start Your Own Blog!

December 9, 2008

Is there really a compelling reason to start a blog when you could be spending your time working on your website? Is a blog really as effective a marketing tool as a traditional website? It all depends.

Whether or not you should start your own blog depends largely on the use to which you blog will be put. Many bloggers are blogging for strictly social reasons; other use their blogs for productive purpose; and some bloggers manage to combine socializing and being productive in a single blog.

If your intention in starting a blog is to socialize, you will be most successful by creating your blog at one of the high-traffic social networking sites like MySpace and opening it up for comments so that you can begin a dialog with your readers.

If you want a productive blog, on the other hand, asking yourself why you should start your own blog takes on added importance, because anyone maintaining a productive blog will have to make a commitment of time if he or she expects the blog to succeed.

If you are considering a productive blog, you would do well to steer clear of the social networking arena and set yourself up on one of the blog hosting sites like WordPress or Blogger. When you have your blog up and running, you’ll no longer need to ask yourself “Why start your own blog when you have an existing website?”

One time consuming aspect of maintaining a blog is that of monitoring the comments posted by your blog’s readers. While those fresh contents can keep your blog in the of search engines’ radar, you could end up with some less than desirable blog posts and even get caught in the middle of battles between your viewers.

Blog comments are also often abused by spammers who simply want to plug their own websites, blogs, or pet causes. And if you have to spend a great amount of time refereeing warring readers, you’ll have that much less time to attend to the marketing aspects of your blog.

If you think you can manage it, create a blog which allows you to interact socially with your readers at the same time you are using it to increase your productivity. Why?

If you want to run with the big dogs in your industry, you will have to find some way of communicating to them that you are ready to do so. Being available to answer their questions on your blog is one way.

If you have a firmly held, defensible, but generally discounted belief regarding your products, leave a few challenging comments on related blogs, with links to you blog so that those who are interested can drop by to argue your point. When they arrive at your blog, lure them to your sales page.

Why start a blog when you already have a website? To socialize, to become more productive, or to become more productive by socializing. Blogs simply function in ways that websites were never meant to!

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Keywords: Increase Link Popularity, Get Traffic, Link Building

November 21, 2008

link building methods
Cliff Posey Jr asked:


To increase link popularity, you need solid link building techniques. Link building allows you to establish relevant inbound links to your website, which in turn increases search engine rankings and helps you get traffic.

If you aren’t familiar with the different methods people use to increase link popularity and get traffic, the first thing you need to know is that not every link building method is considered acceptable. In fact, some of the methods used to increase link popularity are considered so unethical that they can actually get you in trouble with the various search engines.

To help you differentiate between what is ethical and what is not, here is a list of the most common link building methods used to get traffic:

Social Bookmarking

There has been a lot of discussion lately in regards to using social bookmarking as a way to get traffic and increase link popularity. Some people think that this link building technique borders on unethical.

The truth is that it depends on how you utilize social bookmarking sites. If you are an active member of a social bookmarking community who posts links to a personal website and other relevant sites to increase link popularity for everyone, you are doing nothing wrong. If, on the other hand, you create an account and repeatedly submit your own links and nothing else to get traffic, you are participating in spam-like behavior.

Spamming

Spamming can sometimes get traffic to your website, but it is not the best way to increase link popularity. Most of the search engines frown upon spamming and have the ability to catch inexperienced spammers within a month or two.

The following link building techniques are considered unethical spamming by the major search engines: participation in unrelated and centralized link farms, automatically generated doorway pages, and false redirects.

Article Submission

Manual and automated article submission is another link building technique that has garnered proven results over the years. Article submission is widely thought to be an ethical way to increase link popularity and get traffic. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to the rule.

For example, article submission that is fully automated but not targeted is usually considered spam. It is also a huge waste of time when compared to other link building strategies. If you want to get traffic and increase link popularity, you must submit articles to the right directories.

CBuying Links

Search engines often advise against buying backlinks as a way to increase link popularity and get traffic. The reason is because it cheats their ranking system and is therefore considered unethical. Even so, there are plenty of website owners who employ this link building technique and reap great rewards.

If you want to give this link building strategy a try, the key is to start slowly by buying only a few backlinks. Buying 1,000 links in one day looks suspicious. You will also want to be careful as to where you buy your links from. Ten quality backlinks will help you increase link popularity and get traffic; 100 poorly regarded backlinks will not. Keep in mind you backlinks need to come from what search engines will consider good neighborhoods.



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