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://wptutorial.com/blog 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

It is called Revenge of the Minisite from John Taylor and brings up something I was aware of and recommend to client’s but have seen too many people ignore.

Seems a lot of people love blogs. Google loves blogs. I love blogs but…

There are certain things blogs are not good for and you should not forget about the minisite.

The power of blogs is the interactivity and ease to have a conversation but sometimes when you want a specific action they just have too many distractions and when you are trying to sell something or get someone to subscribe not having distractions is a good thing.

Consider it the next time you are considering adding a page to your blog to save time and avoid creating a minisite.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed and stop by and say hi to John at his blog as he has a lot of good information there.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. Last time I will mention it but there are still not enough comments on the last blog traffic post so the series is discontinued until that is resolved.

Technorati Tags: blog, blog vs minisite, minisite

WP-Spam Free is getting a thumbs up here.

I have been running it for the past 2 weeks and it has done a great job here. There is no captcha with it which I have found really limits the number of comments I get.

This will now be going on all of my blogs to speed up the daily maintenance when dealing with comments.

Recommend that you try it for your blog and let me know what you think.

As always your comments and questions are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. Traffic series is stalled because of lack of comments. The series will only be continued after each post gets 5 valid comments.

Technorati Tags: comment spam, plugins, wp-spam free

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

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

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

If I host a blogger blog or a wordpress blog on my own hosting account will I still have the same Page Rank as if it were hosted by blogger and wordpress?

Well this is a bit of a tough question because only Google knows what goes into your page rank. We get hints from results and what we see along with some of their patent filings but nobody but Google knows for sure and they try their best to keep it that way.

That being said for the most part your page rank is helped by incoming links and having the same linking to each type should generate the same page rank.

There is a big difference between hosting a Blogger blog and using the WordPress software on your own domain unless blogger has changed (I don’t stay up to date with blogger). You are still using their data base and software and it is primarily just a redirect when you host a blogger blog on your domain.

This leaves you open to them removing your blog at their discretion. Both Blogger and WordPress.com are not always affiliate friendly which is why I prefer if I am going to host it to use WordPress software on my site with my data base where I have complete control.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blogger, host blog, page rank, wordpress

How do you get a blog submitted to different search engines

The best way is to let the search engines find you. Submitting your blog to the search engines is a waste of time in my opinion.

Create a back link from another site. If you don’t have another site you can use any of the various free sites (blogger, Wordpress.com, Squidoo, etc.) or even any active forum. This way the search engines find you which is always better than submissions.

This will get you indexed much more quickly than any submission.

Now that does not mean that I won’t add my blog feed to the various rss directories as this can be beneficial but I never submit them to Google, Yahoo, etc.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. The seminar information is up and ready. You should download the resource guide and note sheets before Saturday at 2pm when the seminar will start. You will be able to call in or listen from the web.

Seminar Information

You can still also get a chance for free admission to the full WordPress Lessons by following the instructions at WordPress Lessons Contest.

Technorati Tags: add to search engines, search engines, submit blog

What should the content of a blog be?

Sometimes questions don’t have a correct answer. This is one of them.

The content will depend on the purpose of your blog. The nice thing is that a blog can be about anything you want it to be.

When I ran a blog exchange I saw blogs on all different topics. Everything from Mommy blogs about their life and kids to affiliate marketers pre-selling a product to out and out porn blogs.

A blog is just a tool to easily create web content and you can use it in just about any way you can think of using it.

Now if you are looking to use a blog to make a profit the topics don’t necessarily change. I have seen blogs that are profitable that just talk about the family. Two women started a podcast where basically they sit at the kitchen table and talk about their families and what is going on with them. They got enough listeners that they were able to get a corporate sponsorship.

So ultimately the key is to find a topic that people are interested and if you get enough traffic to a targeted market. Then you can either pre-sell or find advertisers that want access to your target market.

Finding a topic and checking profitability will be the subject matter on the teleseminar I will be doing Saturday at 2pm edt. Make sure to stop back and get the information here later this week.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog, blog content, finding blog content

This is why there are 5 sections to WordPress Lessons. the first section will be open to everyone for free. See I feel it is important for you to know that my teaching method will work for you. So step 1 will be given live on Saturday at 2 pm edt. More details later in the week but mark your calendar now.

The steps are

1. Niche research
2. Setting up your blog
3. Posting to your blog
4. Generating traffic
5. Testing and tweaking

Each of these are important but on Saturday we will discuss the first step which in my opinion is the one most often overlooked and kills most blogs before you even get started.

Make sure you are on the email update list to get the details later this week for the call on Saturday.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog training, profitable blogging, WordPress-Lessons