Blogging for traffic

Utilize the current power of blogs

The search engines adore blogs so they are currently a must when considering ways to drive more traffic to your site.

Wordpress is the platform of choice right now due to the number of SEO friendly plug-ins available. The "all-in-one SEO" plug-in is essential. It will automatically optimize your pages for the search engines.

By submitting your blog posts to the myriad of Web 2.0 properties, your ability to get traffic quickly has grown like crazy! Whenever you make a significant post, you can also submit that content to the article directories too.

As in the advice given for article writing elsewhere in this site, make sure your keywords appear at the beginning of your title and throughout your article/post.  Always have a link back to your blog URL in any article submission.

Create accounts at Digg, Propeller, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Twitter and make sure your posts get some play there too.

Find out who your readers are - and what they seek. Find out their problems and give them solutions. Build a strong relationship with your reader and don't do anything to damage the trust you're slowly building.

Have a mechanism in place like AWeber's autoresponder series in order to capture email addresses and slowly build your list. Fire off a quick note to your list whenever you have something meaningful to share with them at your blog. Allow them to add you as friends at Digg, Twitter, etc. and also make sure you've installed the "share this" plug-in so they can also help your viral marketing efforts.

Have a certain regularity about posting - aim for a post daily or every other day. Remember that each post is also an opportunity for increased search engine coverage so vary the key phrases used. Or use variations and different order of text.

Wordpress allows you to add video quite easily - either your own grabbing the code from YouTube.com. Use moderation as it can suck the bandwith of your site and make it less than satisfying for your visitors.

Don't hestitate to use affiliate links or reviews; though make sure these are products/services that you actually utilize.  Again, gaining the trust of your reader is paramount.