Archive for the ‘Business’ Category

Most people who run a website already know that they are going to need to spend a significant amount of time building incoming links if they want to have a lot of visitors, but very few people really understand how to do this in a smart and effective way. If you run your own site, whether it is a blog or not, or if you are thinking about setting up your own site then you really do need to think about how you are going to bring in visitors and one of the best ways is by leaving comments on other blogs. However, you shouldn’t just go around leaving comments at random because there are techniques you need to know about and basic etiquette you should understand.

Let’s cover 5 simple tips that will give you an edge when you go to leave comments and help make sure they are of the quality that will be appreciate by the blog owner:

Keep Comments Relevant – This is perhaps the most obvious rule, but far too many people ignore it in the quest to develop back links. You do not want to put funny little quotes like “Great read!” or “Nice site you have here” because that only makes the blog owner want to delete what you left. Not only will it annoy the site’s owner, but even if it does end up staying live, it is going to irritate potential visitors who will never click on your commenter name to visit your site. Respond to the written content or find something different to comment on.

Stick within Your Niche or Genre – If you run a music site, don’t go to a tax advice site to post comments. If you are thinking that any link is a good link, you are right. However, most blogs now are “no follow” which means they are not going to help your search engine rankings for your site. This means your comments need to appeal to human readers. Show the readers something that they will be interested in because it relates to what they have just read.

Show Some Personality – All this etiquette may make you a bit timid to say or do the wrong thing. Don’t worry about that when you first start leaving comments. You want to develop your personality as a webmaster and help build credibility for your site’s name and your name or nickname. If something makes you mad, be honest about it in your comment. Being a people pleaser won’t work constantly so allow yourself the full range of emotions you would normally have.

Stay Consistent – If you are building the reputation of your site then you need to try and visit the same blogs every once in a while to leave comments. Instead of scouring the net to drop one little comment on every applicable blog, find a handful of real movers and shakers. Concentrate on these blogs and let people get used to who you are and what you have to say. This establishes your identity and builds your reputation as a real person not just a hired commenting automaton.

Stick with it – You are going to need a lot of comments if you want to see a real effect on your site’s traffic. This means you need to comment at least a couple times a week for as long as you can stick with it. After a while it will become evident to both search engines and human surfers that you are real and your site is something they should check out. Long term efforts equal large scale rewards, keep that in mind.

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It has been said time and again, but many people are still confused by what is meant when people say that a blog should be focused on a niche if it wants to succeed. This is much simpler than it might sound and what it means is that site owners need to target a certain kind of reader. The internet is one of the world’s biggest resources, but it can be a bit intimidating to try and fit in if you don’t understand what you’re doing. This is all about specialization and if your site can’t be special then why should people bother visiting it? The fact is, they won’t. People online are traveling along at very high speeds, generally, and they are not interested in stopping to smell uninteresting roses. The cold, hard facts are that if you do not have something unique then you can forget about getting visitors. Find something the easy way, follow these three steps.

Keep It Real – One of the big factors that draw people to blogs is that they want to know they are reading directly about real people living in real life. They are not looking to be impressed by minor celebrities or amazed by a business with a full command of advertising jargon and clever slogans. They want to feel as if they are having a coffee with a friend who is explaining something to them, be it helpful information, entertaining stories or hard hitting news. Stay who you are and don’t try to impress people by trying to be someone else because the odds are good that people will smell that and go elsewhere in response.

By staying true to yourself, you are leading right up to the next area. Take some notes now and try to describe yourself in a series of ten to twenty “tweet sized” sentence similar to the 140 character messages used on Twitter. Doing this quick task will give you something to go off of for the next step.

Does What You Love – In your descriptions of yourself, you surely pointed out some things that you find interesting about yourself. Did you mention what you do for a living? Maybe writing about your job or your industry is a good way to go. Did you mention any hobbies or passions you have? These can be excellent fodder for a blog. How about what you wear or bands you like, did those things get mentioned? Fashion and music are always huge topics, especially if you have a smaller angle such as black metal bands or urban cowboy fashions. Use who you are and mine for the angles that help define your personal tastes in life. By bringing what you love to the blogging world, you can keep it both personal and passionate. People will respond to this.

Find Out Where Your Scene Is – Once you have a topic or subject area you want to blog about that is really from who you are as a person, it is time start searching Google for kindred spirits. Find out where your crowd is and as soon as you have your blog up, go meet them. Leave comments on their blogs, talk in their forums and ask if they’d be willing to come visit your site. You have to promote yourself in a niche market, but the odds are good that a great reputation within your niche will bring you a lot of visitors and the profits that go with that.

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