by Paula Neal MooneyI'm on my way to my sweet home Chicago to hang out with these smart and beautiful women.
So while I'm laughing it up with like minds, I thought I'd leave you with a doozy of post that will help you increase visitors to your website, and hopefully increase your earnings.
If you like current events and helping search-engine seekers find your website, try these tips -- then leave comments and let me know how many more website visitors you got.
10 Step-by-Step Ways to Get More Website Visitors
These are the exact steps I take that have grown this blog, my TV online website, and my Find the Answers blog to a combined 600,000 hits and growing:
1 - Get exact hot search terms in quotes......like "Remy Ma shooting" or "Scott Baio married" preferably with high percentages next to them, reported in the most-recently posted Yahoo Buzz posting. (If you write a niche blog, it may take some creativity to relate it to your topic.)
2 - If no dice with Yahoo's Buzz log that day...
...scan the entire list of Google Hot Trends that day (make sure to change to current date) for something interesting.
For example, the other day "Chocolate Rain" appeared on the list. I clicked on it and saw under "Related Searches" additional search terms like "Tay Zonday" that people were looking for in relation to the song.
3 - Type your hot search words in quotes in Google to check out the competition.
Say you went with the "Scott Baio married" keywords. Type those words exactly in Google.com's search box and see how many results pop up. Note especially if there aren't many results in positions 1 - 3 that actually have "Scott Baio married" in the URL. If so, you've got hot keywords.
4 - Check Google Suggests Labs real quick for more keywords.
So I know that wistful housewives are typing in "Scott Baio married" aplenty. But what else are they typing in?
When I start typing "Scott Baio" into Google Suggests Labs, you can see all the other search terms that pop up in this attached image.So now I've got other keywords to incorporate into my blog title, including "Scott Baio," "married," "shirtless," "45 and single," etc.
5 - Write your post.
Type it up just like you were talking to a friend, or write it on paper in a journal like I did the original version of this article -- in between a losing round of Wii -- to appease my family and get away from the PC.
6 - Link early, link boldly, link liberally...and label a lot.
Anchor your keywords to the max. You see my resulting piece called "Scott Baio is 45 and Single and Shirtless and Still Not Married and Trying to Be Celibate on VH1"?
Notice how I named my hyperlinks -- or "anchored" as the techies say -- them in the first and second paragraphs with the "Scott Baio is 45 and Single" text. This is an effective way to get ranking for those search terms.And notice that I usually bold my hyperlinks, too. I hear that helps.
But the most important is having those search words early in your blog post title, therefore early in the URL.
And I labeled that post with all this stuff:
"Watch Scott Baio is 45 Online, Scott Baio 45 Episodes,Scott Baio 45 Online,Scott Baio Not Married,Scott Baio Shirtless,Scott Baio No Sex,Scott Baio Erin Moran Video,Scott Baio Reality Show,Videos,Online,Episodes,Web"
They say not to go too crazy with the labeling, but I take it to the 200-character label max on Blogger, and go a little crazy on WordPress. It's done nothing but help more people find me...
7 - Proof, preview, publish and ping...
That could be our bloggers' anthem, huh?
Proof your post -- I prefer to do this in the preview mode of Blogger, nice and big and formatted all pretty on my screen. WordPress preview is even easier.
Right click all your hyperlinks in your article and choose "open in a new tab" to make sure they go to the place you're expecting while still in preview mode.
Read over it, aloud is best. Then publish the post.
WordPress makes the pinging step a breeze by allowing you to enter all the places you want to be automatically notified of your new magnum opus post by entering them once under the "Options," "Writing," tabs. In the "Update Services" field.
Here are all the specific URLs I have WordPress automatically ping:
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
Blogger doesn't tell you which places it's pinging, so ping these places right away after you publish:
1 - Google Blog Search ping
2 - Feedburner ping
3 - Pingoat
8 - Add your new URL to Google and Yahoo at a minimum.
If you're not on their auto-bury list like I am, see how the Diggers at Digg.com take to it.
9 - Create an updated Sitemap.XML file to help Google find your new content.Use this cool place I found that generates free sitemap.xml files after you type in your website address. The resulting file can be uploaded to your server -- I only know to delete my existing sitemap.xml file and upload the new one each time. But it doesn't take that long.
Then I go to Google Webmaster Tools and select my WatchFreeEpisodes.com site that I've already set up there, click on Sitemaps, check the box for my sitemap and choose resubmit selected. Pretty soon it flips from "Pending" to "OK" -- and I just love seeing all those URLs submitted. Gee, I'm up to 92 already...
That works for my hosted site, but for those of us still on free hosts like Blogger, we must make do with using our feeds as sitemaps.
After you've added your blog to Google Webmaster Tools and verified it per their instructions, go to the Sitemaps tab, choose "Add a Sitemap," select "Add a General Web Sitemap" from the drop-down box and then type "rss.xml" only in the "My Sitemap URL is" box.
For example, my full sitemap URL is:
http://paulamooney.blogspot.com/rss.xml
So type rss.xml and select "add web sitemap," then come back and make sure it eventually says "OK" under sitemap status. The URLs, unfortunately, will only be maxed out at the 26 most recent blogged about items.
10 - Repeat these steps for every single post about which you feel the fire...God willing, this should definitely get you more traffic to your site -- and if that traffic likes what they see, some of them may stick around.
But let me know how this experiment worked for you.
And please, please, please leave me your steps for getting good blog traffic.
Hey! Where ya going? Don't leave without:And check out my other sites:
WatchFreeEpisodes.com -- Watch full and partial episodes of your favorite TV shows and movies online -- all for free!
Find The Answers -- Okay, I'm just tryin' to give this one some link love to get a Google Pagerank
Comments
Great post!
How do you this?
"I only know to delete my existing sitemap.xml file and upload the new one each time"
Now that's what I'm talking about. ;-) ;-) I love your comments!
Hi Geoffrey Philp
Only on websites where you have paid hosting, like my other site is hosted at DreamHost, that's where I go onto DreamHost and delete my sitemap.xml file.
I see your Geoffrey Philp's Blog Spot (nice name -- nice play on the "blog spot" dealie) is on Blogger, so your "rss.xml" will have to serve as your sitemap file when you go on Google Webmaster Tools as I described above.
Leave any more detailed questions you have here, and I'll answer them as I can...or at least lead you to the answer!
Hi BloggingWriter
Thanks be to God. I hope you come back and let me know how much more website traffic you get.
Take care all,
Paula
Blessings,
Geoffrey
Just before You go to Chicago,
let me say Thanks to God Our Father for
comments at our Blog. Faith is abounding in Jesus Christ and we can appreciate Your claiming
every provision God has in His storehouse of blessing to extend His Compassion to everyone.
Great Post and that's why You can call it done. Faith calls things that are not as though
they were.
Success is doing all things for the
glory of God Our Father. Therefore,
How blessed are the the people whose
God is the LORD! Psalm 144:15
We are experimenting with a Viral Tool to help bring some more exposure to the workmanship of Christ Jesus in vessels of mercy like Paula today.
We were just adding the finishing touchs on Monday to this Report More Website visitors.Paula and look for a test drive link coming to You soon.
My Home Domain has experienced nice web traffic since bringing our focus more into Viral Marketing in March 2007. To remain modest and humble, let me just say to God be the glory. If You get time before leaving for Chicago, Paula a blessing coming to You as soon as we finish here!
Matter of fact we have already added this Post to Delicious to preserve it for use.
Thanks You for another great Post. You've made it a good habit. Bless The LORD!
I've got a site that isn't quite niche but deals with business, money and real estate interviews.
When I genuinely wrote about the Apple iPhone I saw my traffic spike quite well prior to the release . . .
I have other examples. But I also get less traffic than I think I should . . .
It would be nice if you could provide some "non-celebrity" examples since this blog is about blogging . . . and not just celebrities . . .
I also received a spike when I wrote about a flight on Spirit Airways. One of the search results a week later was "spirit airways stroller" since I wrote about a stroller we had.
No problem...I LOVE comments!
Yeah, I meant around the first 3 listings in the first page of the Google SERPs -- which stands for "Search Engine Results Pages."
And a good example of a political and non-celebrity post with specifics that brought me tons of traffic is laid out in the 19,000 Free Blog Hits in 59 Hours -- Give Your Googlers What They Want...Then Keep Them Updated post.
The Google Hot Trends has plenty of subjects that range from the political to the absurd to celebrity and sports and other news topics.
And come to think of it, so does the Yahoo Buzz log.
You just gotta check it often.
Hey...I think you just inspired another post from me.
Thanks,
Paula
Can't wait for you to give full coverage of this while you're there or after you get back.
Thank you!
I'm rooting for you.
Michael
My head is spinning!
I just want to emphasize to those that think that they couldn't make a good adsense income with their blog that you couldn't be more wrong. But you do have to work at it - but who says the work can't be fun!
I know that these tips may seem like a lot of work but if you can earn money from blogging - isn't it well worth it!
To Paula: I link to your blog post about blogger salaries all the time just to show those that are new to adsense or those who have had adsense for a while but aren't making money with it that it is possible to make some adsense money with all different types of blogs and websites
- they shouldn't give up on their blogs or websites!
Adsense has created a monster!
For the Ping section in Wordpress, you can add:
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Love your smiling avatar! If you want, I can make a small favicon from it and you can hop aboard my favicon train at Join my favicon matrix!
God bless!
BlogHer was fantastic!
And problogger mom, I hope your sitemap is no longer pending but okay now.
Let me know,
Paula
I really appreciate your tips here and intend to apply them to my blog which I've been nurturing for a little over 6 months now. Although it is a history blog it seems to be turning into something of broader interest to folks. http://thesilverpeoplechronicle.blogspot.com Thanks again and God bless.
i didn't do anything different i just wondered what happened for me to get that many hits. oh well, such is life one day i'll figure out how to create a blog that will make at least $30 a day like that one young lady. wow. :)
That single hot term brought in over 100 extra hits on my blog in one day. WOW!
Thank you so much for writing about this, and Thank you Bonnie Calhoun for mentioning her on your blog.