Quickly find quality blogs to comment on [ 3:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Blog commenting can be an effective way to generate back links and attract traffic to your site. Previously, I have discussed using a feed reader to find on topic blogs to do that and then taking part in the conversation. You can read about that in a previous post at “Finding blogs to comment on“.

Sometimes it can be hard to find quality blogs that are on topic to comment on.

Here is another way to find great blogs to interact with that doesn’t need to take all of your time. Before we continue first this warning.

Smart bloggers are active on Twitter and tend to share other bloggers quality posts. You can use this to your advantage to find great new blogs to take part in the conversation.

Here is how you can add this to your arsenal of tools and not take all of your time. After all we all have limited time.

First you should be using a Twitter app that allows you to create filters like Tweet Deck does. (At least as long as Twitter keeps allowing it, but that is another topic.)

When you find a quality blog, follow that person on Twitter and put them in a special column so it is easy to see what they are mentioning.

Take a few minutes a couple of times a day to go visit the blogs they are mentioning if the title interests you.

If you like the post and can add to, take the time to comment on it. Retweet it to your followers. Add that person to your Twitter followers and to your special column.

Now you can see what that person is retweeting and if they point you to quality posts you keep them in your special column. If not or if they are posting crap (it happens) just remove them.

Do this on a regular basis and you will gradually expand your reach and be surprised at some of the things you will find and how rapidly you can expand your reach.

As long as you are adding value with your comments, this can be a very effective way to attract more readers and find people to network with that are in your niche.

A few minutes a day can greatly expand your reach.

How do you find blogs to comment on? Leave a comment and let me know.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog commenting, bloggers, blogs, traffic, twitter

Was working on my Friday Freebie this morning for subscribers and as I put it together I had an epiphany (you know when the big light bulb goes off in your head and you smack your forehead and say why the H### haven’t I mentioned this before thingy.)

Yes as I was putting together a free report on press releases I realized that I don’t think I have ever mentioned them here. Have used them but just never mentioned them here.

Press releases are a great way to generate traffic, interest in your blog and backlinks.

You can use them any number of ways to promote your blog. If you…

• Change the look of your blog
• Get a high profile guest blogger
• Create a new product you are selling from your blog
• Guest post on a high profile blog

or anything else that you do that might be newsworthy. If you do then think about doing a press release and mention your blog in it.

Think that writing a press release is too much for you? Grab the free report I just put up a a Friday Freebie and use it.

So today’s question is have you been using press releases for your blog? How have they worked for you if you have and will you try them if you haven’t? Leave your comments and let me know. May be a topic worth more space if there is an interest.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: forehead, light bulb, press releases, subscribers, traffic, writing a press release

The start of another good week and time for a quick review of what I have liked this past week. Each week I try (I am old and bald after all) to pay attention as I travel through the blogosphere and keep track of some of the gems I find.

Come early Sunday I review what I have uncovered and grab 3 items to share. This week they are about images and video. Two easily overlooked items that you can add to your arsenal.

We’ll start with a good friend and fellow caffeine addict Barbara Ling and her blog Online Success. Her post was “Google Secrets #2 – Make Dynamic Viral Photo Galleries That Your Delighted Readers Crave To Share” and not only is it a funny read there is a neat lesson woven into the post.

Our second stop this week is to The Friendly Blogger and Lisa Drucbec’s post titled “Deep Linking: YouTube Video Linking“. It has some neat tricks on getting more traffic to your You Tube videos.

Our last stop (but certainly not least) this week id to Search Engine Journal and Scott Cowley’s post “23 Reasons To Add Video Blogging To Your Content Repertoire“.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I have and find them useful for improving your blogging. Leave your comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: Barbara Ling, blog, blogger, blogging, blogosphere, caffeine addict, cowley, gems, google, neat lesson, neat tricks, photo galleries, traffic, video two

It has been 2 months since I last looked at the stats. Guess the holidays got in the way. As there is no doubt that the blog that was almost dead has been revived despite me. I figured it was time for a wrap up.

We’ll look at what worked and what didn’t.

First a quick review of were this started. The first post and the project started on October 12, 2010. The quote below is from that post.

My original blog The Old Bald Guy got hacked two years ago and ended up getting banned by Google. Fixing the hack caused me to lose a lot of the content and except for getting it reinstated I have totally ignored it.

Well not totally I did three posts in two years. Not exactly a good way to get the traffic going well. Time to change that around and get this blog back up to snuff.

I figure it will be a good case study so I posted today for the first time since November last year which was the only post I made on it for the year 2009.

As you can see from the copy of the Awstats below it is only getting about 15-20 visitors on a good day.

Now despite planning hoping to post 3 times a week I have averaged about one new post a week. Why it was a hope not a plan.

I did do the other items that I planned though and one additional one. The two things I was planning to help boost the blog was to use WP Syndicator for creating backlinks and to use Traffic Bug for bookmarking the new content.

The unplanned addition was to use Tweet Old Post plugin. That plugin will automatically tweet past posts to Twitter once or twice a day.

The question was what has this done to my traffic. By the end of the year the daily visitors were consistently over 150.

And the daily so far this month has been averaging over 190 visitors.

If I can actually start posting there more than once a week I should be able to get the traffic back up over 500 visitors a day or more.

The biggest bump came from adding the Tweet Old Post plugin. The WP Syndicator and Traffic Bug usage led to lots of backlinks. A quick search in Google shows 177,000 links.

Unfortunately I did not check that in the beginning so I have no idea how many links I started with. Still it is definitely not a number to sneeze at.

The biggest jump (about 45-50 visits a day) came from adding Tweet Old Post which happened in the first week of December. The bad thing is that it is not necessarily a duplicable item.

I say this because you need a good bit of content on the blog already (this one had over 50 posts despite what got lost in the hack) and you need a sizable Twitter following to drive those type of numbers.

My following on Twitter is a hair under 10,000 followers so depending on whether you have more or less and how actively they follow you your results will vary.

In the end I am very happy with the results at this point. I retired the turtles to allow me additional time to add content to the Old Bald Guy so it should continue to grow.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: awstats, backlinks, blog, case study, google, traffic, traffic bug, tweet old post, WP Syndicator

One of the ways to generate more traffic and more visibility for your blog is through guest posting. Now it is a two way street and can be the proverbial win win for both parties.

I have decided to allow guest posting here after much thought.

There is a new tab that lists the guidelines and how to be considered for a guest slot here.

If you are accepted I will promote the post but you need to do the same. (Part of the way we both win.) You will need to interact with any commenters too.

So if you are interested click the link in the top menu and follow the directions.

Look forward to featuring you here.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: blog, commenters, guest blogging, more visibility, traffic

We all want more traffic. We all work hard to increase the number of visitors.

This can be through a blog commenting strategy, social bookmarking, guest posting, article marketing and many more things.

Targeted traffic is the key.

The funny thing in going through my stats, some of my busiest days traffic wise are my slowest days for the things I want to happen.

You do have a list of what you want your visitors to do? Don’t you?

So what do I want to happen when people visit my blog?

For me I would like people to subscribe to get updated, make comments and take part in the conversation and follow links to recommendations whether they be resources or affiliate links.

Am I getting interaction on my blog is the real key.

Unfortunately most days that I get a lot of traffic from certain sites like Stumble Upon and Digg the amount of interaction goes down.

When I say goes down I mean overall it goes down not the percentage of visitors interacting going down.

Yes, even though traffic may be double, less people subscribe, less people comment and less people follow any links.

Now I have looked at the various posts when this has happened and so far have not found a pattern but will continue to look.

My questions is are you seeing the same thing? More important though is are you tracking your results to know if this is happening with you? Inquiring minds would love to know

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: article marketing, blog, funny thing, inquiring minds, interaction, stumble upon, traffic, would like people

Love them or hate them Google has some neat tools you really should be using. One I overlook too often is Google Trends.

This morning I opened it up and there is a listing for Cartoon characters on Facebook images.

It has become the thing to do to change your image in Facebook in support of and to speak out against child violence.

Now if you are writing anything about Facebook, social marketing or even like I am using Google Trends to find topics you can hang on to the coat tails of this current trend.

Now that is just one example but it is driving a lot of searches right now. Looking at the top 20 searches quite a few of them are also cartoon characters as people search for the right image for their profile.

Something I plan to do more of is make it a habit to check there before I start writing and see if any of the current hot topics fit or can be used as a twist in what I am doing.

If they can I will add the twist and if not it just took me a couple seconds and you never know what idea will come to you.

Definitely worth the couple seconds it takes to look before you get started writing. What’s hot with you? Leave your comments below.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: cartoon characters, Facebook, google, google trends, hot topics, traffic

Amazing what you can find when you pay attention. Started seeing some tweets like “Best of.. post name url ” on Twitter. When I looked closer I saw at the bottom from Tweet Old Post.

So I went and checked in the plugin directory and saw a plugin by that name. Read about it and decided to try it.

Regular readers know that I love anything that recycles or repurposes content. This fit the bill perfectly. It automatically will randomly pick an old post and tweet it at a schedule I determine. Works like a charm.

Now to be clear there are two things you need to have to use this plugin and have it be of value.

1. Lots of quality evergreen content
2. An active Twitter following

It won’t work for you if a lot of your posts are time sensitive or if you are not active on Twitter.

If you are though this can be a great way to point traffic to some of your older posts automagically. And I love automagical things.

It is easy to set up and you can set the minimum and maximum date ranges and how often to tweet posts. It does it randomly for you.

As Twitter gets indexed this should not only be sending instant visitors that follow you from Twitter but doing some deep linking to your older posts too.

Definitely a tool to consider if you meet the qualifications above.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: backlinks, traffic, tweets, twitter, wordpress plugin

Building a subscriber list and letting your subscribers know when you have added new content is an excellent way to generate extra repeat traffic. I have used Aweber for this for a long time because of the ease of automating the sending of these notices.

You can set up the emails to happen at any schedule you make and they check your feed for new items for you. No extra work to login and set up an email it can al be automated.

Aweber has just made it easier to use their service to add a form to your blog. They just released a new plugin that will allow you to add your form without doing any html to your sidebar.

First you need to install the plugin. Search for “Aweber web form” then click the Install Now.

Once it is installed you need to set up the settings. This is a two part session. 1) Get your authorization code. 2) Once you get it paste it in the box and make the connection.

When you click the link you will need to log in to your Aweber account.

When you login you will get the code you need to put in step 2 above. Just copy and paste it and click Make Connection.

Now your widget is ready to work. Now you will need a list set up at Aweber and as they have good tutorials on how to do that I will skip that part here.

Go to Appearance Widgets and drag the Aweber Web Form to your sidebar where you want it to appear. That will open like this when you have drug it into place.

Select your list and you will get a drop down for your forms.

Select the form you want to display then click save and your form is added to your blog. No HTML needed.

Makes it very easy for anyone to add an opt in form to their blog. Add in the ease of their form designer and Aweber makes it a good choice for any blogger to use to keep their subscribers updated.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: aweber, blog, blogger, email, sidebar, step 2, subscribers, traffic, widget

5 Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic [ 3:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Copyright 2010 – Mike Paetzold – All rights reserved

Here are 5 things you can do to increase your blog traffic.

The first and one of the easiest is to make sure your blog is set up properly. Using a plug in that allows custom title tags like All In One SEO can make a huge difference in how the search engines rank your content. Having a quality ping list that gets pinged each time you post is another easy item to setup.

Both of these are one time efforts that will continue to pay off for you in the long run.

The second way to increase your blog traffic is by commenting on other related blogs. It is important to actually be taking part in the conversations there.

It is even better if the blogs you are commenting on are do follow and use the Comment Luv plugin that will allow you to create backlinks to your internal pages.

This takes some time and effort but will ultimately allow you to get more visitors.

The third way to increase your blog traffic is through submitting articles. If you are blogging regularly you are already creating content. It is easy to adapt this content into article content that you can use for article marketing.

Another way to generate backlinks to your blog which will help you to get higher rankings in the search engine leading to more traffic.

The fourth way to increase your blog traffic is to add a podcast of your content. It is easy to do with WordPress. Just add a podcasting plugin like Podpress and read your blog posts.

With free software like Audacity you only need a microphone and your computer to create the necessary mp3.

Submit your podcast feed to the various directories, particularly Itunes and you get access to another audience for your blog content and back links to your blog.

The fifth way to increase your blog traffic is to use your content to create videos. It is easy to do. Create a power point of your blog post and read it.

You can use Camtasia or even one of the free video software products available makes it easy. Submit your video through Tube Mogul and you can easily create more ways for people to find your blog.

These are just 5 ways to get more blog traffic and there are many more. Keep up to date with this blog and find even more covered here regularly. Check out Sunday Night Cash Plan and get step by step help on exactly how I do this regularly.

Here is the video from this post.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably. If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.

Technorati Tags: article content, article marketing, audacity, back-links, blogs, podcast, power point, search engines, title tags, traffic