SUBMIT BLOG

Once your blog is created, remember to submit your blog to search engines so that they can index your blog and crawl over it whenever there are matching searches. Here are few search engines that you should submit your blog to:-

• Google
• MSN
• Yahoo!
  

UPDATE BLOG

Google prefers blogs that have been around for sometime instead of new blogs. While Yahoo! prefers newer blogs. And they all love UPDATED blogs. Update once in a week if possible.

PING BLOG

Whenever your blog is updated, remember to “ping” your blog. In other words, tell search engines that your blog has been updated with new contents. You can ping your blog manually at pingomatic.com or pingoat.com (my 2 preferred sites before I started to use Windows Live Writer).

If you are using Wordpress or Windows Live Writer, add the following to your ping list:-

 
Windows Live Writer will automatically ping those sites when you update your blog. For users of Windows Live Writer, you can copy and paste the above ping list to “Tools, Options, Ping Servers”. I’m not so sure about Wordpress though.

Actually the extensive ping list tends to slow down my blog publishing time but I’m loath to leave out any of them so I just keep them in my ping list. If you find it causing delay when publishing, choose several popular ones or anyone you like.

More tips:-

• Promote your blog
• “SEO” your blog, make use of keywords
• Add links to your blog

What is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation, a process of improving traffic of a blog from search engines. Yeah, I know everyone knows that but how to implement? The most popular search engine is not Google. Everyone is saying “please Google the company name” instead of “please search the company name on internet”. Due to Google’s popularity, everyone is targeting to appear in first few pages of Google search under certain keywords.

Its all about keywords. Determine keywords for your blog and use them in your blog. How would you know what are the keywords for your blog? Make use of Google Keywords. Type a topic (phrase) that you would like to blog about and Google will suggest bunch of keywords for you. You can see the search volume of every word or phrase suggested by Google Keywords.

If your niche is very special, you will most probably be highly ranked in search engines. If you are writing about a common niche – analyse the search volume of keywords listed in Google Keywords. Keywords with higher search volume means more people searched based on those keywords. You can opt to use these keywords but bear in mind you’ll be competing with many other bloggers like you. Consider using less general keywords, narrowed according to particular topic in your blog. Although search volume may be lower, you blog tends to stand out amongst the few.

To implement keywords, just USE them in your blog! And use them many times. To give an example, if you are writing a topic about Chinese food and you chose keywords like “Chinese food, recipes, easy cooking”, USE THESE WORDS MANY TIMES in your blog. Probably about 5 to 10 times in a post. Implement similarly to your other post in the blog.

Don’t make your blog “keywords stuffed” though. People surf for information and not meaningless blogs.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT TIP – search engines love words and just words. They don’t recognise images. EVERY WORD in your blog COUNTS! Including the title of your blog, your URL address, name of every files (such as photos) attached to your blog.

Say for example you’re writing about food recipes, give your blog an URL such as “chinesefoodrecipes.blogspot.com” instead of “yourname.blogspot.com” (save this for your PERSONAL blog).

Choose a title for your blog because this is the catchy headlines that will be displayed when your blog appears in search engines. Eg. Chinese Food Recipes – Easy Cooking Recipes. Its ok to make title a bit longer to fit in few keywords.

Name the photos in your blog with keywords or words relevant to your blog niche. Eg. a photo of fried rice has better be “fried_rice.jpg” instead of “img_001.jpg”.

BOLD the keywords in your blog. Let search engines know that your blog is “strong” with those words. I’m applying all the above to some of my blogs to test my blog – they have not failed me. :)

However, I opted out from the BOLD tip because my reader complained that words in BOLD confused them and they thought those were links. On the other hand, some readers commented that it is easier to find what they want because they found my site based on those KEYWORDS anyway…So its up to you to decide.

More tips:-

• Promote your blog
• Submit your blog to search engines, Update and “ping” your blog
• Add links to your blog

Promote blog and get visitors immediately.

You can promote your blog at your Facebook, Friendster or any other online social networking group. Just display your URL (blog address eg. http://impressive-blogger.blogspot.com) in your networking accounts.

Get traffic exchange. Pop your head into forums on topics related to your blog. Assuming that you’re writing about food, you can leave comments at other people’s blog/ website with your URL address included to the comments. Make sure that your comment is relevant to the topic such as “Hey, you’ve got a good recipe for Chinese Fried Rice here and it seems easy to do too. I must try it out – let you know how it turned out later! I’m also into food blogging. Feel free to drop by at www.myblog.blogspot.com. I’ll come back for more tips from you :)” Don’t have to be exactly, just something like that.

Take note that some forums require you to join them and login first. I THINK it is ok because I’ve been doing that and was not spammed.

List your blog anywhere you deem fit. There are directories that let you list your blog for free. You have to do some research on that though – to look for places that let you list blogs for a certain niche. If you are writing about food, try search with keywords such as “add website about food to our directory”. This is only example.

Enclose your blog’s URL wherever possible.  You can make good use of email signature so that every email you send will show your name and blog’s URL.

More tips:-

• “SEO” your blog, make use of keywords
• Submit your blog to search engines, Update and “ping” your blog
• Add links to your blog

You can get traffic to your blog or website almost instantly when you’re done with these tips but getting your blog into search results via search engines does not happen overnight. Just do what you can and all you have to do after that is wait and continue to drive traffic to your blog. When I first started blogging and driving in traffic, I only get visitors to my blog after 2 weeks. But that is also because I did not promote my blog to friends. I want them to find it from search engines since I’m testing the search engines. None of them ever managed to find my blog for sure! Lol!

Here are some easy tips to get you started:-

• Promote your blog
• “SEO” your blog, make use of keywords
• Submit your blog to search engines, Update and “ping” your blog
• Add links to your blog

These tips works for blogs and websites. But since I’m sharing on tips to earn money without spending money, I’d rather say “blog” instead. :)