The Open Source Marketer

Are you interested in tweaking your blog to get more readers and generate more money. If so, here are four tips that will immediately help you build communication channels to bring more blog readers to your website.

Once you have read about these simple tips, be sure and implement them into your blog. Remember action is more important than collecting information. You have DO something to GET something. This is a big problem for most new and even existing online entrepreneurs. We get caught up in the ease and the instantness of the online world and we forget that we still have to put what we read into action. So there you have it (soap box securely put away).

Note: The suggested tips you are about to read are geared for a Wordpress blog, but you could apply these to any blog that provides similar option.

Tip #1: Create Permalinks

In the admin section of your blog, under Option > Permalinks, change your current setting to custom and enter this code:

/%category%/%postname%/

This will make links to your blog post show up like this

http://charlesmckeever.com/blog/email-marketing/stop-using-oulook-for-commercial-email-blasts/

instead of

http://charlesmckeever.com/blog/archive/123

The longer, keyword rich, link is more valuable to you than the archive/123 version. The cryptic version tells the search engine and potential readers nothing. The longer version is easily indexed and is readable by humans alike.

Tip #2: Announce Updates

Under Options > Writing add these urls to the Update Services box at the bottom of the page and update your settings.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://rpc.feedsky.com/ping
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://www.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

When you post something new to your blog these websites will be notified and it will help to bring traffic to your website. Now understand, this is a common practice so there are a lot of people doing the same thing. So this won’t be a magic bean for blog traffic, but is an available tool that does announce new content on your blog and since it’s automated, it doesn’t hurt you to add it to your toolbox.

Tip #3: Leave Comments

Start posting comments to other people’s blogs. This will help to build relationships outside of your own blog and it will create links back to your own blog. Each of these links is a small step toward increasing the traffic to your blog. The search engines follow these links and so do blog readers. If you say something valuable in a comment, then the reader may want to read more about you and they will get that on your blog.

Comments are also extremely encouraging. Everyone needs encouragement. So make it a point to start leaving comments (start on this blog for example). Then do the same thing on other websites. I know I am guilty of not leaving comments when I should, but I have made a decision today to start do it on the blogs I visit regularly.

Your comments also encourage others to leave their own comments. This helps the blog author and starts up real interaction within the reader community. This is a great way to get people connected and to add real value to the blog. So be generous and leave your comments so that others will see your good works and do the same.

Tip #4: Categorize Your Posts

Categorize your posts so they are grouped by related topic. By default posts get dumped into an uncategorized category and that doesn’t tell readers anything and it is not search engine friendly to your content.

You can add your post to a category when you write the post or you can go back and categorize your old posts. The categories you use will be specific to your writings and topics so it doesn’t strictly matter what category names you use. However, keep in mind that keywords related to your topic of writing interest are more valuable to you than just random words. So do a little keyword research and find out what fits your topic.

That’s it for now.

Now go out there and create,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

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