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Okay, so we know we need backlinks and we need to be commenting on other blogs. We know it is not all about the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN anymore… by the way who the heck searches with MSN anyway… seriously?

Whoaaa… Hold on Cow, what do you mean it is not about the search engines anymore?

Good, we had hoped you would ask that question.

Take a look at the social communities from Alexa’s top 500 sites (yes, we know that Alexa stats are debatable but they still give you an idea). There are sites such as: Facebook, YouTube, Friendster, Flicker, hi5, Myspace and more… just to name a few. These sites are all getting traffic that is very comparable to Google and the wonderful thing is these sites are begging you to give them content. The other thing is there are hundreds of these type sites being added daily and many of them get stampedes of traffic very quickly.

You see, we can spend hours of our days, banging our horns against our keyboards, or in some cases throwing them across the room to do everything we can to keep that traffic coming into our sites but the fact (or at least we think it is a fact) is that we are at times our own worse enemy when it comes to this. We read something or hear that something works and so we do it, but the problem is…

That Is ALL We Do!

We get excited and see that it works and so we stick to that only and do the the same thing over and over again… and at first it works but then it plateau’s and eventually starts to droop like a saggy utter.

Think about any new traffic tool that comes out. People will often slam them right out of the gate, saying…

“we are NOT using that, we are sticking to what we know works”

…but the problem is they are not seeing the big picture. These tools are never intended to be the end all be all of traffic and neither should any one source be the end all be all of your traffic. If it is, then you run a huge risk that if they change something, it could destroy your existence on the web. We should all be constantly looking for different ways to increase our grazing areas. When these new tools come out, test them out, see how they fit into your business. If they work, then use them, if not then drop them.

This is true for relying on any one source of traffic such as Google, Stumbleupon or any other one site. The trick is that you need to be as diversified as possible and always look for new opportunities. Yes of course you want to provide excellent content and reasons for your readers to return but what about grabbing new readers? Are you constantly looking out for new opportunities of places to get more readers… more traffic… more mooney?

Do You Like Sloppy Seconds?

Over here we are not totally keen on the idea of getting sloppy seconds. And waiting until everyone is using or recommending something is just like that. You get in after the spammers have ruined it for you. The fantastic thing is there are 1000’s of these type sites popping up all the time. Some of them are new and some have been around a while but the spammers have not exploited them yet.

A great example of a site we started using not too long ago is feedbite.com (hence the title of this post). Now we are not telling you this site sends a flood of traffic, but it does send some, and the effort to set it up was literally minutes, so the return on time investment is worth it. Now by sharing this site, it will probably start to get abused… but who cares, we will find others to use.

What we really like about this site is that it uses your rss feed and so once you set it up, you are done. It is not like Stumbleupon and Digg, were you have to have the content submitted each time manually, of course it does not get the traffic those send either.

The links do not have a nofollow tag.. which is a bonus and people can vote up or down you content so it gets on the front page. Google Also seems to respond good to it.

So breaking it down, feedbite.com may not roll in the traffic like crazy, but it does bring in traffic and any extra traffic is great… especially when it is so easy so easy to set up.

Now back up for a second. Our point here is not to promote feedbite, this is not a paid review or anything like that. Instead it is simply a process for you to consider implementing, a process that expands your pastures and also grows your backlinks to your blog. Lets call it the…

Cow Traffic Diversification Process

…and it goes like this…

• Once a week go to http://www.go2web20.net/ and look at the tags “Bookmarking”, “Blogging”, and “RSS” (need to do that separately)
• Check out some of the new “Web 2.0″ sites and look for ones that you can post public accessible content on.
• Submit your rss feed (if allowed), content, pictures, videos or whatever else they allow BUT (and a big one at that) make sure that if you are adding content such as a post, that you add a link back to your blog with a call to action (read the post “Using Content to get Traffic” for more on that).
• Check your stats in a week…. Look to see if that site sent traffic to your site. If it sends traffic, keep it and expand your use of it… if it doesn’t then drop it and move on.

This is powerful because it helps expand your reach and the side benefit is Google loves the variety in backlinks to your blog. You also do not have to update the content here regularly like your own blog…. Unless of course you see loads of traffic from it then you will want to take advantage of that (we would anyway).

Go try it out and let us know how it goes.

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Anyone who knows anything about SEO should understand that blackhat techniques are clearly against Google’s webmaster guidelines and place websites at risk of being banned or strongly penalised in the search engines. The problem is many of these tactics actually work (even if only for a short-period of time) and many people are willing to […]

I know that Kevin has touched on the marketing implications of the change in Google’s trademark protection laws but I just wanted to flag up some interesting figures I came across today.
From May 5th, Google is to allow all companies and marketers to bid in order to place their paid search advertising alongside search results […]

Great! All the technical stuff is done and you can now start filling up your blog with content. We suggest that you at least have 10-20 posts before you even start thinking about telling people about your blog. A blog with no or little content will get nobody excited but yourself. If your blog at least looks the part, visitors will get the idea that they are dealing with an established blogger, someone that could teach them a thing or two, so they’ll be back.

You don’t want to be perceived as the new kid on the block because readers just can’t be bothered with yet another new blogger. Appearance is everything!

Speaking of appearance, make sure that you double check the facts for each and every post before you publish. You don’t want to get caught with your pants down, when it turns out that something you’ve been telling your readers isn’t true. Don’t think people will bother visiting again when they find out you’ve got no idea what you’re blogging about. After the facts, make use of your spelling checker. Nothing turns a reader off more than bad grammar. (Luckily for us, English isn’t our first language, so we can get away with the odd mistake here and there).

With sufficient content in place, you can now start looking for visitors. Networking with peers in your niche is key here. Seek out established bloggers and make sure you start leaving interesting comments on their posts. We say interesting; because that is the only way you will spark their reader’s curiosity. If they feel your comment was a good addition to the whole discussion about the topic, they will hit up your blog to see what else you’ve got to say. Just be genuine with your comments and do not become a comment spam whore, as most readers will be on to you in a second and never visit your blog, EVER.

Remember – “if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain”.

There are tons of ways to get your name out in the blogosphere. Sign up with blog communities like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Entrecard. In time these sites will help with your name recognition and branding. Do not expect a lot of visitors from them straight away, but it is important that you become a familiar face. Make sure you use only one avatar and stick with that all over the place. Preferably something in your blog’s colors. If you have a mascot like us, use it!

Another powerful tool us bloggers have at our disposal are the social networks that are all around us. If you use the right approach, these can give you tons of visitors from outside the somewhat restricted blogosphere. Here you will find all sorts of Internet users, not only savvy webmasters and bloggers. Why is this good? Because they have probably not heard of whatever affiliate scheme you’re promoting, and they might actually sign up, unlike your peers! Yes, you need to find and target the right crowd if you want to make money online.

Be sure to use the big social media sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com and Del.icio.us with care. Do NOT go around submitting your every post. You’ll be banned before you can say moo, cutting yourself off from a great deal of potential exposure in the future. Preferably, don’t even submit a single one of your own posts, just make sure your readers have a quick option to submit it for you. Use a social plugin for your wordpress blog, perhaps something a little visual, to remind them that they can share whatever post they think is worth sharing. If it’s worthy of sharing, it will be shared. Oh, and don’t forget to ask your online friends for favors, just make sure you don’t start spamming them with requests!

So now you’re commenting on all the right blogs (popular blogs in your niche), you’ve signed up with the blog communities and you’re getting a bit of traffic coming in from social media sites. Well done, on to the next step – contests.

A contest is a great way to get others to write about you. As you are in charge of the entry rules, so you can have other bloggers write about your contest! (e.g to win this fantastic prize XYZ, all you have to do is write a little post on your blog about this contest.) Needless to say; The bigger the prize, the more participants and the more exposure you’ll get. Besides the linkbacks in their post, you could ask them to link back to you with a specific anchor text to increase your SERPS for that keyword. (Careful with this one, Google frowns upon these kind of link building tactics.) Try to find a sponsor - a company that has a lot in common with your blog’s niche. You’ll always have NO if you don’t ask!

Checklist:

• Make sure you have plenty of content for new readers before you start your self-promotion. No content equals not interesting equals not coming back.
• Quality control. Enough said.
• Network with your peers. Comment on the right blogs. Get your name on the blog networks. Use social media with care.
• Organize a contest, preferably sponsored by a company in your niche. (Companies have the money to put up a big prize, and big prizes attract big crowds!)

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Microsoft has proudly announced the addition of something that looks very similar to Google sitelinks to their search results.
In fact if I was Google I would be digging out the patent they have that shows how these results are generated and thinking hard about whether to challenge how Microsoft is doing this.

One commenter put it […]

Thanks to the value of the inbound link, the internet has become a massive information resource. Industry figures are actually competing to share their opinion, to offer up their expertise for free as they claw their way to higher rankings.
Because of this, valuable knowledge has become free – a fantastic situation for a new SEO […]

Last week Britannica.com decided to adopt a “first click free” strategy allowing web publishers to link directly to article pages. Readers who clicked through to the page were allowed to see the content of that article for free and if they wanted to explore further they need a subscription.
This is a very interesting piece of […]

A couple of weeks ago I reported that Yahoo! Site Explorer UK & Ireland launched in beta, today I noticed that they have also rolled out a country specific Yahoo! Site Explorer for a wider range of countries.
So far I’ve noticed this for Germany, Australia, Spain, France and Italy. Looking at the results returned […]

Internet advertising in the UK grew to be the third largest such sector last year, a new report has revealed.
The study, conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau alongside PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Centre, has predicted that the amount spent promoting through the web will overtake the amount spent through television marketing by the end […]