MyBlogLog is a social site for bloggers. Started originally as a straight social site they have continued to add more items to it. You can join it free.

Now how do you get traffic from MyBlogLog?

MyBlogLog allows you to add a widget to your blog that will let you see who is visiting your blog that belongs to MyBlogLog. More importantly you will show up on other blogs showing the widget that you visit. These link to your MyBlogLog page and allow people to find out more about you and the blog/s you have.

You can add others as contacts through MyBlogLog just as you can add friends at Facebook or MySpace. It is another way to connect with others.

The real power though is that you can add your other social sites to MyBlogLog. Sites like Facebook, Stumble Upon, Digg, Furl, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

The nice things is that each of these creates links that Google finds that go back to your various blog/s from these social sites.

Here is an example by just looking quickly at my profile this am. The following links were created and do get indexed because they show up in my Google Alerts all the time.

• 4 Stumbles I made yesterday
• A comment I made on someone else’s blog
• A new video I added at YouTube
• 5 Twitter conversations
• Feed of my latest blog posts
• Latest updates at Facebook

So just by using MyBlogLog all of the other things I do to create backlinks gets amplified automatically. That is the real power of MyBlogLog.

I can also look and see the latest things that all of my contacts have done too. (So add me as a contact so we can interact.)

You get to network with others and create extra links on autopilot. Definitely worth the time to set it up once to help you generate more traffic.

There is one more thing about MyBlogLog though. If you upgrade they provide you with some excellent tracking of what is happening on your blogs. You will be able to see how people found your blog, which pages they viewed and what links they clicked.

Free members get to see the top 10 but paying the $25 a year lets you see all of the stats available to you. Truly invaluable information to help you improve your blog’s performance.

There are other similar type sites like Blog Catalog but noen that are as powerful as MyBlogLog.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, commenting, linking, mybloglog, traffic

This is the continuation of the series on blog traffic. I was using the 5 comment rule here and stopped it because of a lack of comments but comments have picked up considerably so I have decided to continue the series.

First a bit about what social bookmarking is. There are hundreds of sites out there that allow you to bookmark your posts. Digg, Stumble, Propellor are a few of the bigger ones.

Here is a definition from Wikipedia

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.[1]

So just like the bookmarks you keep on your browser to be able to return to at your leisure social bookmarks are similar except that others can see your bookmarks and rate them accordingly.

Here is the key though. You need to bookmark regularly and not just your sites. If you find a quality post let others know about it.

If you are sharing lots of posts and your quality is good on what you save others are more likely to pay attention to what you are saving. If all you save are your sites you will soon get branded as a spammer and in some cases may lose your account with that service.

So like most things in the Web 2.0 world the key is to be participating in the community. Trying to game the system may work short term but usually comes back to bite you.

That being said here are a few things you can do that will be helpful both to you and to the community. If you are commenting on other blogs and participating in the conversation make sure that you are bookmarking them.

This helps both the blog owner and you. More traffic for them is likely to see more people follow through to your blog. This is especially true if you are adding to the conversation and not trying to spam them.

So start bookmarking regularly and watch the traffic increase.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, social bookmarking, traffic

Before I start on this topic a special thank you to Joel Osborne who added the 5th comment on the last traffic post. Thought the series was going to die for lack of response.

You can also see that I have added comment luv to this blog which shows your latest blog post when you leave a comment. Go check out Joel’s to thank him for continuing the series.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Video has become huge and is increasing in usage daily. Look at the traffic stats for places like YouTube. See how many video sales letters and squeeze pages you run across now.

The reason is the spread of high speed connections. Back when most people accessed the internet by way of a phone modem it was not possible. Now it is and people love video they are trained to like it by watching television.

Now how can this help your blog get traffic?

When you add a video at places like YouTube add your full link into the start of the description. ie – http://miketestsite.info/wpt It is important to add the http:// or it won’t be clickable.

You can also add it as part of your video when submitting them. Now I use my videos that would promote this blog for my products because I have created products about WordPress but could use the same techniques to drive people here instead of to my products.

Videos also can be very useful when added to your blog. Each time WordPress issues an upgrade I tend to bring back my video that shows people how to upgrade here and as it promotes my product it works both ways.

Remember this post needs 5 comments before the next part of the traffic series will be posted and now I will even promote your latest blog post with comment luv.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, traffic, video, youtube

This is the next installment in the generating traffic series so the 5 comment rule is in effect.

Commenting can deliver traffic to your site whether or not the blog follows comments or not if…

You add to the conversation. It really isn’t that hard. Stay away from the I like whatever, actually read the post and comment with your opinion. You really need to add something. A prefect example is the previous post here on article writing. Check out the comments and you will see that most added to the value of the article.

A few were just a thank you comment but quite a few either added good information (thank you) or asked for clarification.

Now here are some tips for finding good places to comment on. Search the keywords that you want to rank for are on your blog and take the time to go through and find the active blogs on these topics. You can also search at Technorati for your topics.

Add these into your Google Reader (one of my favorite tools) so you can see when they are updated all from one place.

There are definitely advantages to commenting sooner rather than later, Then everyone that reads the post will see your comment and you will get more people clicking through to your blog if you have added solid information to the conversation.

If they follow you will also get a link back to your blog if your comment gets approved and it will most times of you are adding to the conversation. Both of these will add traffic to your blog.

Finally you can trackback to posts you find that are a good resource. There was a good guest post over at John Cow blog about Traffic From Commenting and they just had a good video added there about Comment Hitching.

This will help me add back links here but…

It helps them because I am linking to their content and it helps you as a reader because I have found more quality content on this topic for you.

Anyone reading those posts at John Cow that comes back to this post is getting more of the content they are looking for.

Everyone wins.

Now if I tried to trackback on a different topic it would be spam. It would not help you the reader it would only be trying to get back links. The same thing with irrelevant comments that don’t add to the conversation.

The key whether you are commenting or tracking back is to add good content to your site and the other persons site.

As always your comments are welcomed and needed for the next post in this series.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog comments, blog traffic, commenting for traffic

Today we will start with the first of the items you can do to help generate backlinks and traffic to your blog – submitting articles. This is because we met the 5 comment rule and that will apply here too.

Submitting articles can be a very effective way to add backlinks. When people use your article they are required to keep your signature links. That is where you can add a targeted anchor text link to your blog.

Lets first talk about using articles generally. There are a number of sites like Ezine Articles, Article Base, et al that allow you to submit articles for others to use. They usually have requirements and this does need to be a content piece not a sales piece or most of the better sites will not accept your article. Always supply quality content whether you write it yourself or outsource it.

This gives you a chance to showcase your expertise and the key for you is that you do get to use the signature file for promotion not the actual article.

Now here are two ways that you can use that signature box. The first and most effective way is the two part article. This is a technique I learned from John Taylor in forums and repeated in his report Article Profit Formula which is a great guide for the price on using articles profitably.

John is a big proponent of the 2 part article. He submits part 1 to the directories and posts part 2 on this blog. He uses the signature file to send article readers to his blog for “the rest of the story”.

Example:

Article was titled “5 ways to grow better roses“

John Smith has been an avid rose grower and writes regularly about tips and tricks for growing better roses. Check out “7 more ways to grow better roses.”

Hyperlink the title to the appropriate blog post with 7 more tips.

The other way is to just use the signature file to send people to your blog with a link using the proper anchor text you want for your backlink.

Example:

Article was titled “5 ways to grow better roses“

John Smith has been an avid rose grower and writes regularly about tips and tricks for growing better roses. Check out his Growing Better Roses blog for more tips on growing roses.

Hyperlink the “growing roses” to a specific article on that topic.

Either of these techniques will both send new readers to your blog directly and create targeted backlinks from every site you submit it to and everyone that uses the article for content on their blog or newsletter.

Submit a couple articles a month and you will be amazed at the traffic and backlinks you can generate if you have good quality content in your articles and on your blog.

Remember that I need 5 comments to continue the series.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: articles, blog traffic, using articles

Many of the questions I get on a regular basis here and on the monthly Q and A have to do with generating traffic.

Every one is looking for a magic button. Guess what the magic button is a 4 letter word you really don’t want to hear but I will tell you anyhow – WORK.

When is the last time you did any of these for your blog?

1. Wrote an article and submitted it to various directories linking to your blog
2. Commented on a related blog with a thoughtful comment and a link back to your blog
3. Posted a video with your link to You Tube, Revver, et al
4. Added a podcast and submitted it
5. Bookmarked your content and others at Stumble Upon, Digg, et al
6. Commented on others pages at MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, et al
7. Posted on Twitter about your latest post
8. Use Facebook and added your RSS feed
9. Added your RSS feed to a Squidoo lens, Hub page, Wet Paint, et al

If all you are doing is posting to your blog once a week and wondering why no one stops by guess what?

Spend a few minutes each day doing just one thing on the list above and you will see an increase in your traffic. Do 2 or 3 and see a bigger increase in your traffic.

Stop looking for the BIG RED EASY BUTTON and do something and do it regularly.

In future articles I will be going into detail on some of these items and how if you are willing to put in just a little bit of effort in a few minutes each day you will have found the button but…

Creating the button requires – EFFORT.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. For these traffic posts I am implementing a 5 comment rule. I will not address any of these topics unless I have received 5 comments on this post. So if you want me to continue to add valuable tips and tricks leave your comment below.

Technorati Tags: backlinks, generate traffic, traffic