I know deep down if you are here reading this, at some point  in your blogging life you want to make money blogging.  To do that usually the more traffic your blog gets the better your chance is to make money.

This is maybe the only time you will hear me say “ more traffic isn’t always a good thing”

You may of heard or even tried Entrecard.com, basically you get a 125×125 picture that you use to promote your blog, and you get credits by “Dropping” other peoples card’s on their blogs.

Now I used Entrecard pretty much as perfect as you can…

1.    I did 300 drops a day “daily limit”
2.    I dropped in my niche
3.    I returned every drop I got in return
4.    Any blog PR 3and above I dropped and commented
5.    I placed my add on niche blogs, and had 50-100 ads running each day

Now I got a HUGE amount of traffic from this, But then I started to dig deeper into my stats.

Stats Start Getting Ugly

First I noticed time on my site dropped pretty low from about 6 – 6.5 min to about 2 – 2.5 min

I noticed my bounce rate sky rocket from about 57-58% to about 80%

My page views dropped badly from about 4 to about 1

Now all this was within a 2 week window. So I decided to drop the entrecard system.

Now Why I did this?  Well I want a long term authority blog with a great Alexa traffic rank and a high PR.

At the rate I was going with entrecard, just my bounce rate would have been enough to keep my PR from getting higher then the PR 2 I have now.

Not All Bad With Ecard

Ok, I will say it wasn’t all gloom and doom with entrecard, I did receive a good amount list signups and my Alexa score dropped pretty far in 2 weeks, and I made a few new connections/partnerships and friends thru them.

But for me and the goals I have for Money Dummy blog, entrecard wasn’t the right fit.

But if you are have a new blog or website “they except websites now” then stats are not that important and it is all about getting traffic and getting your blog seen then ecard is a great fit, also if you have a established blog and stats don’t matter to you, then ecard is a great fit for you too.

Better Ecard System

Few things ecard can do to make it better, is to either except only blogs that are a PR 2 and above, or at least categories blogs by PR and niche.

Monitor the blogs closer, I found many blogs that didn’t even have the drop card widget that you need to be in the system.

Bottom line is if you care about your stats and want to make money blogging long term then stay away from ecard.  If all you care about is traffic traffic traffic then ecard is a great tool for you.

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Receive Email Updates

There are so many ways to increase blog traffic out there, but today I wanted to cover 6 simple steps you can do to optimize your blog, and up your ranking.

My last post How To Get An A+ On Your SEO Blog Page Report Card talked about optimizing your posts.  Today I will go over steps to optimizing your whole blog.

Create Pretty Permalink Structure

The permalinks Wordpress uses by default are not search engine friendly. You can make this simple change by inserting %postname% instead of the default that is already there.

This will successfully create URL’s that include your post name which should include your targeted keywords.

So instead of having a page URL look like this..

http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/page=2   “Not Pretty” Right?

Your URL will now look like this..

http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/how-to-get-an-a-on-your-seo-blog-page-report-card/

Ahhh So Pretty..  Now this look’s a lot better.

Install All in One SEO Plugin

This plugin allows you to specify a title, description, and the keywords for the search engines. This will make your life a lot easier..lol and trust me any tool that can help my blogging, is a great tool for me.

Once you have it set up, it pretty much works automatically for you, the only thing I do once I make a post, is change the title if needed.

Install Related Posts Plugin

Search engines love it when you interlink your pages and posts. The plugin will automatically add your previous posts at the bottom of your new post that are relevant to that post.

This is important because for one, you are interlinking your content, SE’s love this and will increase blog traffic and second, you are giving your readers more related info and a place to go at the end of the post.

Now I personally stopped using a related post plugin, since I have to many plugins installed as it is, I use Zamanta.com  to add my related posts.

Research Your Keywords

When people search, they search by keyword or keyword phrases. It is important that you know what these keywords are if you want to rank at the top of the search engines. Your posts should be written around these keywords.

Make Your Blog User Friendly

Make your blog clean and easy for your readers and search engines to find information. That means including your blog’s archives, categories, recent posts and pages.

This also means having a nice clean design, now this is where I can see both sides of clean user friendly, and attention getting design, I have tried to do both..lol “I hope”

Expand the Ping List

When you make a new blog post Wordpress will “ping” the blog search engines. This alerts them that content on your site has changed and ready for readers to view. This can help you get indexed fast and increase blog traffic.

Do a Google search to find an expanded ping list you can include in your wp-admin so you make sure you get as many of these sites to update you as possible.

Increasing blog traffic can be the most challenging part to to a new blogger. 

These 6 simple steps will help you on your way to optimizing your blog, increasing your blog traffic, and making your blogging tasks a little easier.

Twitter Bird says “Please RT John’s Post, He Is Tweet-Tastic”

Just Click Here To Add To Twitter and RT…Thank You!

________________________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like…

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Receive Email Updates

One of the biggest things most bloggers that are looking to make money blogging run into is, more blog visitors! At the end of the day your goal is to not just make money, but to make money every day, Right?

I deal with this on a daily basis, trying to get more blog visitors and make more money online. If you are like me and most other bloggers and need more blog traffic, then the 6 Simple Steps below should help you..

These tips are all designed to attract more blog visitors to your blog, and the best part?  It’s all Free to do!. Once you get the hang of these tips for attracting more blog visitors, they should become a part of your daily blogging routine and you will see a jump in your total blog visitors, and begin making money every day with your blog.

Update New Content On Regular To Be Successful

Start updating on a regular basis and you write content that fits your niche in order to keep   your blog visitors coming back for more. Updating on a regular basis is will give you fresh content for the search engines which will make it easier for people to find your blog.

Use Your Keywords When Your Write

Your content should be easy to read, and have your main keywords in it, when possible. In the Title, in your first sentence, middle of your content body and at the end.

Keyword optimized content is a big factor in increasing blog visitors.

Post To BloggersBase To Get Noticed

BloggersBase is a online community for writers, bloggers to post their content, and have people read and voted on. This is a great place to get noticed and drive people back to your blog and it’s Free.

You can also be part of the weekly contest and monetize your posts, it’s a win win 

Use Blog Carnivals To Reach More People

Blog carnivals are hosted in one blog, and include links to blog posts all over the internet that fit different topics. Post your content in the blog carnivals that fit your niche and as often as you can to get exposure for your own blog.

This is a simple way to attract more blog visitors to your blog..

Post Comments In Related Blogs

Find blogs that relate to your blog niche, read the entries that you find there, and post RELEVANT comments, Do Not Spam!  Make sure your have something to offer before you post your comment.

When you leave solid comments in other related blogs, and link back to your blog, you will find an increase in more blog visitors. This works because if you post quality comments, people will read that and want to read your blog to learn more about you.

Build Conversation Within Your Blogs Comments

Building relationships and conversations in your blog is very important if you want new and existing readers to come back for more.

You can do this by replying to all of the comments that they leav. The more you communicate with your readers, the more likely they will be to return, as well as to tell other people about your blog, which will lead to more blog visitors, and more money in the end.

Keep these six tips in mind and pulling  more blog visitors will become a lot simpler and hopefully get to your goal of making money every day!

What it really takes above all else is the ability to communicate within the niche or industry that you are writing about.

The more you know, the more you share, the more you will be pulling more blog visitors!

What are some of your tips on getting more visitors?

 Twitter Bird says “Please RT John’s Post, He Is Tweet-Tastic”

Just  Click Here To Add To Twitter and RT…Thank You!

Oh Yea! Go to My Twitter account and Add me to a List!…Thanks!

______________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like…

Subscribe to RSS Feed

Receive Email Updates