The missing link in Ram-Sethu

If you have not heard about the Group Writing Project at Problogger, then there is a good chance that you started blogging yesterday . Everyone who’s anyone is contributing to this project and since i am one of them, i too wanted to write a top 5 list. I thought about the top 5 list i could write on, for a while and then seeing the massive number of top 5 lists being created, i decided to write a top 5 list of things that could be done with all these top 5 lists. So, here goes…

• Link to all the lists. I have already done so by creating a list of all lists. This will not only help me keep a track of all the links i have been to, in a central place (my blog), but also provide loads of surfing opportunities to the readers of my blog. Also, nothing is lost in linking to others. “Linking” is the foundation upon which the blogging world exists and as it is often said “Always share the link love”!
• Read each and every Top 5 list. Yes, you must be thinking that i must be crazy to read through 500 such lists, but believe me, at the end of it, you will realise its worth. It doesn’t matter whether you are a geek, a wanderlust, a music lover, a sports lover or whatever, there is a list for you in here. Read them, get to know the people who wrote them and who knows, you might make new friends in the blogosphere. There is a good chance that you have never visited many of the blogs in this list. You may like the writing styles of some of these bloggers and end up adding them to your regular feeds.
• Some of the lists might fascinate you to the extent that you could start a Blog Meme on the same topic on your blog. A Blog Meme is “an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs”. For example, you might like the list “Top 5 reasons boys are better than girls” and decide to start a blog meme on the same topic on your blog and tag others. But be careful, you might end up being the one responsible for the online war of the sexes!
• Comment on the lists you like. Don’t spam the blogs in the hope that they link back to you, but leave comments on the lists you felt a connection with or ones you felt you could contribute more to. For example, geeks (anyone who uses Mac must be a geek!) might want to contribute lot more items to the list “5 Mac Apps for Bloggers“.
• Promote the lists on your blog. This doesn’t end with just linking to the lists, but also providing your input on the ones you like and recommending them to you readers. Some of you out there might be high-profile bloggers and if you recommend any of the lists, it will result in that blogger getting more exposure. Surely, if their writing is good, they deserve that exposure, don’t they?

So, if you haven’t yet participated in this project, do go over to problogger and participate.

Technorati Tags: problogger top 5 list writing project Darren Rowse

written by Rajaram S

• How to make money through blogging
• How to increase search rankings of your blog/site (yes, indirectly to reach people, you have to do this)
• How to implement SEO techniques on your blog
• How to increase your site’s google Page rank

If you are interested in any of the above, search on google and you will find hundreds of sites. This is a guide to increase readership for your blog, in all the legal, ethical ways possible. So here goes:

• Original Content: Readers need content. So, the foremost thing to do is to have good content on your blog. The definition of “good” varies. We are not looking at writing content just to bring in readers. So, what is good content? Content about which, you are passionate to write about, content which interests you enough to write about. I once started a blog on reviews of the latest mobile devices, but it didn’t go anywhere, as i realised that i was just doing copy-paste work and not really interested in writing about it. You can write about technology, politics, entertainment, sports or anything else you like, but write original content. Copy-paste content might get you some initial traffic, but rest assured that they won’t come back. Original opinions, be it controversial or neutral are appreciated by the blogging world.
• Frequency of posts: Posting entries on your blog shouldn’t happen once in a blue moon. Neither should it happen dozens of times in a day. Don’t neglect your blog. If a visitor comes two or three times to your blog over a span of a week and doesn’t find any updates, he will most likely de-favourite it. Don’t get over-enthusiastic and spend your entire day on the blog. Readers should not get lost amongst too many things you write. Write often, write original content and you should steadily, but surely see your readership base grow.
• Submit to search engines: Go to google, yahoo or major search engines and blog directories and submit your blog. This doesn’t guarantee inclusion, but there is nothing in doing it if there is such an option in the search engines. The link for submitting your blog to google is this and to yahoo is this.
• Implement technorati Tags: This is probably the best thing i have done. Register your site with technorati and for each of your posts, add a section with the related technorati tags. Many readers prefer to read content of their liking ( a particular topic or a news item) by searching on technorati and then going to the returned links. I use the Technorati Tag generator at Fintan’s, which is simple and easy to use. The advantage of this technique is that the same tags are used by many other sites like icerocket which can get you more readers.
• Talk about your blog to friends: I do this shamelessly, of course to the closer circle of friends. If we attend a party, i put the pictures up on my blog and share the link with my friends. I do this rather than sharing photos on my PC.
• Add your blog link in your email signature: I don’t do this, because i use my official email id for practically all my communication and it wouldn’t be right to do this on my official id. If you have a gmail id or any other, put the link in your signature. But, a word of caution. I have seen people writing to huge mailing groups with their blog links prominently in a bigger font. Yes, if you are genuinely writing to the group on a related topic, this is fine, otherwise don’t do this and get classified as a spammer.
• Visit other blogs and leave your comments: No, not comments like “Nice blog, visit mine” or “Do find time to visit my blog”. Yes, if you do that on a very popular blog, you might get at least a few clicks to your blog, provided that the blog owner doesn’t remove your comment. Visit blogs, leave meaningful, related comments to topics which you have an opinion about. Don’t flood anyone’s blog with your comments. That is an obvious sign of a spammer.
• Implement a counter on your site. I use sitemeter and statcounter. Doing this will give you an indication of your most popular posts. It also will give you the “search strings” using which people land up on your site.
• Customise your blog template such that the page title of the individual post pages have the title of the post in them and not just your blog’s name. Also, make your post title link to this page.
• Link to other people whose blog belongs to the same domain as yours. If your blog is good enough, some of them might link back to you, thus getting you some visitors.
• If you write on something specific, look for wikipedia pages on the same topic and add your blog to the external links section. If your blog is not good enough, the link will be removed by the moderators. I maintain a page which has lot of quizzing links and i get lot of visitors from the page for Quizzing in India.

This is not an exhaustive list, but a few things which i felt might make the difference to a blog. Hope this helps. Feel free to add more.

Technorati Tags: Increase traffic to blog new to blogging blogging basics How to start a blog

written by Rajaram S

written by Rajaram S

written by Rajaram S