If you don’t have a blog yet, then you’re about to learn why you should get one set up today, BEFORE you start your other traffic efforts. And, if YOU DO have a blog, you’ll discover how to leverage it to help drive traffic to your site.
Your blog can be used in two different ways: the blog itself can be your business, or if you’ve got a product to sell, the blog can get people to your sales page.
Either way, the blog is critical to your traffic work.
Here’s why.
Blogs are natural traffic magnets. You’ve heard me talk already about how it’s important to set up your pages so that the search engines know what your site is about, right? Well, blogs are naturally built that way, especially WordPress blogs.
All you need to do is title your post with your keywords, and that post title (and your keywords) end up in the page heading — which Search Engines look at to learn about the text on that page. And those same headings also show up in your Page Title (the text in the blue bar), which is probably the single most important part of on-page SEO.
When those headings appear on your blog’s home page, they are also links to the post’s own page. And as you learned, link text with keywords are also heavily weighted by the search engines.
There’s lots of other stuff that’s automatically built into blogs to make them extra-juicy for the hungry search engine spiders.
But there’s more, much more about a blog that makes them an essential tool in your traffic strategy.
Have you heard of Digg, and Reddit, and Del.icio.us?
These three sites, and dozens more just like them, are called ‘social bookmarking sites’. People go to these sites to “bookmark” sites they like. Then they share their bookmarks with the public.
There are lots of people who do such a good job of recommending certain kinds of sites, that if they recommend your site, you’ll be flooded with thousands of visitors within hours. And of course, there are thousands of other people with smaller followings, who can still deliver a consistent flow of traffic based on their recommendations.
Most of the sites that are bookmarked are blogs.
Most of the tools that work with these social bookmarking sites are made specifically for blogs. Have you ever seen a button on a blog that said “Digg this!”? On my blog, there’s a button that says “Share This” and if you click that link, you’ll get a window with a couple dozen social media sites.
Sites like StumbleUpon.
Stumble upon is another site where people can recommend sites for other people to ‘stumble.’ So let’s say someone likes your blog post. They recommend it. Those who follow that reader’s recommendations will see your site on the list. And hundreds or thousands more who said they were interested in your category, and who click the “stumble” button on their browser will also end up on your site.
Remember my recent Seth Godin blog post? That page got stumbled by someone, and Digged by some others, and I had more traffic for the next two days than ever in the history of TrafficAndConversion.com.
Nice, eh? And that can happen for you, too.
Here’s what I want you to know, though…and this is IMPORTANT.
Unless you’re selling something very VERY unusual, you’re not going to get anyone to bookmark your sales page. No one is going to want to Stumble to your site. And the users of Technorati, Facebook, Xanga, MySpace, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Bookmarks, Furl and hundreds of other websites WILL TOTALLY IGNORE YOU.
Why would you choose that?
There are lots of other reasons to have a blog, too. And we’ll be going over those reasons — and showing you exactly how to use your blog — during the blog session of my new Traffic System.
http://www.FirstOneDone.com/priority
The expert faculty I’ll be bringing to you is a friend of mine, a respected author of books about Google, a successful blogger, and a popular speaker about work-life balance.
He’s the kind of guy you really want to know, if not for his extremely deep blogging and social media knowledge, then because he’s just a great guy. Brilliant. Funny. Pleasant. Explains things in a way that make them EASY to understand.
And if you join my Traffic System, you’ll stumble upon him during the first half of the course.
The course isn’t open yet, but the “priority list” is. Members of the priority list will be given first opportunity to register, which means they’ll have access to the steepest discounts and the most valuable bonuses (some of which will be limited).
http://www.FirstOneDone.com/priority
There’s no obligation to register for the system once you join, so add your name right now.
To Your Success,
–Mark Widawer
P.S. In just a few days, I’ll be announcing more details about the traffic system — including how you can EARN A SCHOLARSHIP for the entire tuition. But you need to be on the priority list to get first access to this information.
Add your name to the list now.
http://www.FirstOneDone.com/priority
P.P.S. If you’re inclined to set up a blog today, let me make a quick recommendation to you. The new hosting company I’m using has a one-click install for a WordPress blog. There is NO EASIER WAY to set up a blog on your site — whether it’s on your existing site or on a brand new site.
What I like about this company are two very important things.
1) They have 24 hours online and telephone tech support. That means if you don’t get around to working on your site till 11pm, and you’ve got a question, you’ll get it answered NOW.
2) If you’ve got an existing site, they’ll move it to their servers for you, totally free. If you had to pay a programmer to do it for you, it could cost a hundred dollars or more — especially if there is a database or other complicated stuff. These people will still move your site for free.
If you need a new web host, or want to set up a new blog, go here:
http://www.HostGatorFreeTransfer.com
Oh, and they’re running a 20% off sale now, too. So go check them out.
-M