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It could be that you have a good reason outside search engine optimisation to feature a blog, but maybe not. Any good SEO service will tell you that having fresh and original material on your site is important when it comes to SEO. A site can be built to perfection in terms of style, but if new content doesn't appear then search engines won't stay interested, and all-important exposure through search engine ranking will be lost. Any good search engine optimisation agency will inform you of this and stress the importance of having a blog. So after you've realised the importance of new, high quality content and put a blog on your site, how are you going to increase traffic to it? Here are 7 tips for increasing blog traffic
1. Blog Domain
Be sure to host the blog on your own domain. Hosting it on a site that's different from your primary domain will not help your site and search engine optimization specialists would probably call it madness. Remember that a blog, especially a good one, will attract links, attention, trust, publicity, and search engine rankings.
2. Title Tags
Think about two audiences when writing title tags. Remember, of course, that the blog exists primarily for people who visit your site regularly or have a subscription to the feed. Besides them, you really need to keep search engines in mind, particularly if it's a new blog. Title tags that are smart, relevant and memorable are what you need. Think about keywords users will type into search engines and which ones you want to use to bring users to your pages.
3. Get Involved
Get involved in blogs and forums that relate to your own. Keep in mind that whatever the nature of your online enterprise, there's a pre-existing community of related forums and bloggers. You can increase your exposure by purposely involving yourself with the established online community. A good way to do this is to search using technorati.com, and of course to pay attention to links. Be aware of your image and how far your blog can take you if you get things right.
4. Adding Comments
Launch your blog without a 'comments' function and add it later. If you want to avoid a scenario whereby you have a lot of blog entries openly displaying that there are '0 comments' then simply delay the introduction of comments until you're sure of some traffic to your site. This will prevent those visiting your site early on from assuming that it's simply an unpopular blog on an unpopular page.
5. Be Unique
Try to stand out from the crowd. Make your content unique, valuable and interesting for people to read. This might sound like an obvious tactic, but many sites fail on all fronts. If it's not interesting then people won't want to read it and you'll lose out. It's as simple as that. So if all related blogs are covering the same thing, take the time to wonder how you can do things differently and better.
6. Link Intelligently
Search engine optimisation experts will tell you how important it is to pay attention to the quality of the links in your blogs when it comes to offpage SEO and website optimisation. Remember that links should be relevant, useful and valid. It's far from optimal to have a lot of random links on your page, and as SEO experts know, when it comes to links, less is often more.
7. Select the Correct Blog Software (or Make it Yourself)
When it comes to creating a good quality blog, those who want to stand out from the crowd and attract readers know the importance of using the right blog CMS. You'll want to decide early on where content will come from and what features you want the blog to have. If you're writing it yourself then custom-made software will allow you to produce it in exactly the way you want. Think about how you want comments, archives, categories, sub-pages, multiple feeds, and user accounts to operate. Remember that increasing traffic is what's important and so you want your blog to be as good as possible. Don't just accept a standard format and include cheap substandard text. Not many users will read beyond the first sentence or visit your site again.
A blog can help your site in many ways but it's going to work for you only if it's nurtured. Even if it's only there for SEO purposes, give it love and attention if you want it to work.
1. Blog Domain
Be sure to host the blog on your own domain. Hosting it on a site that's different from your primary domain will not help your site and search engine optimization specialists would probably call it madness. Remember that a blog, especially a good one, will attract links, attention, trust, publicity, and search engine rankings.
2. Title Tags
Think about two audiences when writing title tags. Remember, of course, that the blog exists primarily for people who visit your site regularly or have a subscription to the feed. Besides them, you really need to keep search engines in mind, particularly if it's a new blog. Title tags that are smart, relevant and memorable are what you need. Think about keywords users will type into search engines and which ones you want to use to bring users to your pages.
3. Get Involved
Get involved in blogs and forums that relate to your own. Keep in mind that whatever the nature of your online enterprise, there's a pre-existing community of related forums and bloggers. You can increase your exposure by purposely involving yourself with the established online community. A good way to do this is to search using technorati.com, and of course to pay attention to links. Be aware of your image and how far your blog can take you if you get things right.
4. Adding Comments
Launch your blog without a 'comments' function and add it later. If you want to avoid a scenario whereby you have a lot of blog entries openly displaying that there are '0 comments' then simply delay the introduction of comments until you're sure of some traffic to your site. This will prevent those visiting your site early on from assuming that it's simply an unpopular blog on an unpopular page.
5. Be Unique
Try to stand out from the crowd. Make your content unique, valuable and interesting for people to read. This might sound like an obvious tactic, but many sites fail on all fronts. If it's not interesting then people won't want to read it and you'll lose out. It's as simple as that. So if all related blogs are covering the same thing, take the time to wonder how you can do things differently and better.
6. Link Intelligently
Search engine optimisation experts will tell you how important it is to pay attention to the quality of the links in your blogs when it comes to offpage SEO and website optimisation. Remember that links should be relevant, useful and valid. It's far from optimal to have a lot of random links on your page, and as SEO experts know, when it comes to links, less is often more.
7. Select the Correct Blog Software (or Make it Yourself)
When it comes to creating a good quality blog, those who want to stand out from the crowd and attract readers know the importance of using the right blog CMS. You'll want to decide early on where content will come from and what features you want the blog to have. If you're writing it yourself then custom-made software will allow you to produce it in exactly the way you want. Think about how you want comments, archives, categories, sub-pages, multiple feeds, and user accounts to operate. Remember that increasing traffic is what's important and so you want your blog to be as good as possible. Don't just accept a standard format and include cheap substandard text. Not many users will read beyond the first sentence or visit your site again.
A blog can help your site in many ways but it's going to work for you only if it's nurtured. Even if it's only there for SEO purposes, give it love and attention if you want it to work.