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See How Easily You Can Boost Your Traffic With EzineArticles.com and YouTube.com

EzineArticles and YouTube logos

If you want to get traffic quickly, I can’t think of a better way than publishing an article on EzineArticles or posting a video on YouTube.

These two sites get a lot of traffic because they both have great rankings in the Google search engine. Google looks at the title of the article or video, so the key to using these sites is having good keywords in the title. I wrote about finding traffic generating keywords in this previous post (second section of the post), so check that out if you don’t have experience with keyword research.

To drive traffic back to your blog, EzineArticles lets you have a link to your blog at the end of each article. And with YouTube, you should display your blog URL at the beginning and end of your videos. Also, you can leave a link back to your blog in the description of each video.

The Lazy Blogger’s Way to Write Multiple Blog Posts in Less Time

The EzineArticles blog has a great post about a method of “writing” multiple blog posts in a short amount of time. I put “writing” in quotes because you don’t actually write anything.

Instead, you use your voice. Basically, you record yourself and pretend that you’re giving a seminar to a live audience. Next, you take your recording and send it to a transcription service. After they send you the transcription, you separate and edit the text into multiple blog posts and publish it online.

The reason this method works so well is because most of us speak faster than we can write. Also, it forces us to split up the writing and editing process. Too often bloggers get bogged down with editing while writing the first draft. It’s much more time efficient to write a crappy first draft and then edit it.

The post states that you can expect to pay the transcription services about $60-$100 USD/per hour of audio. However, I’ve had good results using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for less than $20/hour.

Voice recognition software is also an option. I bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking software and use it to create my longer posts (500+ words). I would use it for my shorter posts but I think I’ve gained enough blogging experience to create a short post quickly without having to use audio.

Non-Monetary Benefit to Blogging: Positive Feedback from Blog Readers

I know I talk a lot about the monetary benefit to blogging. Blogging can definitely help any online business make more sales and increase traffic. However, there are also non-monetary benefits.

I bring this up because a common thread with the business people I interact with seems to be their passion for their industry. They didn’t just go into business to make money. They wanted their business to be in a field they love. They wanted to enjoy their work.

Blogging adds to this enjoyment including getting positive feedback in emails from blog readers. After you blog for a couple of weeks and with a little bit of marketing, you’ll probably start getting emails from your readers. If you’ve been publishing great posts, many of these emails will be positive. Here is an email I just received from my Magic The Gathering (strategy card game) blog:

Hi, I just wanted to say thank you so much for this site! I have played magic for a while (previously) but am getting back into it after a rather long hiatus! I’m supposed to be going into a tournament on the weekend(lol I think it is a Pro Qualifier) and I had no idea before coming here. Seriously, I googled around and this site has all the strategy etc plus it has the neat effect of showing the card without having to go into another window or tab (which saves so much time!). Anyway, just wanted to give you some feedback on how great your site is!

These type of emails are very rewarding. They show that you’re on the right track. They motivate you to keep blogging. And not only that, you can actually interact with your readers in a personal way. This is great because running an online business can be an impersonal endeavor, since you’re not interacting with customers in a face-to-face basis. I like to ask readers who email me what future blog post topics they would be interested in.

Finally, make sure to put a link to your contact page in a prominent position so that your blog readers can easily contact you. The contact page link should be one of the most visible links on every page of your blog (and maybe even every page on your whole site).

Don’t Waste Time, Focus on What Already Works

The Pareto principle, or the 80-20 rule, is a famous principle that says 80% of the results comes from 20% of the causes.

Many business people have taken this theory and applied it their businesses.

They’ll look at their salespeople and figure out the top 20% performers. Then, they’ll fire the low performing ones and try to hire people with characteristics similar to the top salespeople.

Or they’ll analyze their marketing activities and see which ones have been the most effective. Then, they’ll stop doing the ineffective activities and spend more time and effort on the effective ones.

The Pareto principle can even work with products/services. A business can figure out their most profitable product and then give that product more promotion than the other products.

How This Applies to Blogging

In blogging, you’ll have to do a little bit of trial and error to figure out the best strategies.

When you first start, you won’t know what works because you don’t have a lot of experience. However, as you begin publishing posts and doing a little bit of marketing, you’ll begin to notice certain things working and other things not working. When this happens, focus on the things that work and stop spending time on the things that don’t work.

Let’s look at some practical examples.

Keywords

Check out your analytics program for high performing keywords. You’ll sometimes find that you’re not fully targeting your best keywords.

For example, let’s say you run an online retail store that sells mp3 players. One of your best keywords is inexpensive mp3 players. However, the post that is doing well for that keyword is titled “Cheap mp3 Players”. You should retitle the post “Inexpensive mp3 Players”. This will make your post increase in the search results and you’ll get more traffic as a result.

Also, if you’re getting a lot of traffic from a short keyword phrase (less than 5 words), it’s usually worth it to create other posts that are based on that phrase. For instance, if you have a lot of traffic from the phrase best rated mp3 players, you should write posts like

The Best Rated mp3 Players for Joggers
The Best Rated mp3 Players for Mac Users
The Best Rated Discount mp3 Players

The reason this tactic works is because many internet searchers will add modifiers to the main keyword phrase. Also, longer keyword phrases have less competition so it should be easy to rank well for them.

I advised my friend on this strategy. She had took her top keyword, modified it a little, and published a post based on the modified phrase. In less than two months, her new post was the fifth most visited post on her blog.

Post Topics

Certain posts on your blog will be a big hit to your audience. They will get a lot of traffic and positive comments.

For example, let’s say you’re a wedding planner and you have a blog to attract new business. You write a post about the timeline in wedding planning. The post does really well and seems to meet a need for many couples. You should take that post and do an series of related posts that cover each event in the timeline with more depth.

Social Media Marketing

I’ve already talked about participating in too many social media sites. It’s much more effective to focus on a few sites. For example, if you’re on three forums and one of them is sending much more traffic than the other two, stop participating on those two forums and focus your efforts on the top forum.

Over to You

What things have worked for you?

Warning: Inspiration for Blog Posts Often Comes When You Least Expect It

Have you ever come up with a blog post idea when the farthest thing from your mind at the moment was blogging?

If you haven’t started blogging, you’ll find that once you start, you’ll get ideas when you least expect them.

You could be in a restaurant hanging out with friends when you randomly think of a post topic your blog audience would enjoy. Or you could be driving around town doing some errands when inspiration strikes. For some business bloggers, they get their best ideas while exercising. For me, the moments right after I wake up seem to be when my subconscious works in overdrive and gives me multiple blog post ideas.

The subconscious is a weird animal. It likes to give us good ideas at the weirdest moments. It’s almost like if you’re not focusing on blogging, you get the best ideas.

Ever heard of writer’s block? I’ll often turn on my laptop and prepare to write, but my mind is blank. I can’t think of anything to write. However, just a couple minutes ago while watching TV or reading a magazine, I had some good ideas. It’s too bad I can’t remember any of them.

Take Advantage of Those Moments of Inspiration

To prevent the above event from happening, I started carrying 3×5 index cards and a pen with me wherever I go. Whenever I unexpectedly get an idea, I immediately write it down so I don’t forget it. While driving, I bring a small voice recorder because it’s hard (and unsafe) to write while driving.

You don’t have to be low tech like me. Use your favorite PDA if you have one. PDAs make great idea capturing tools.

This idea capturing process has helped me overcome writer’s block. By the time I sit down to write my next blog post, I already have some ideas to work with.

By harnessing my fickle yet creative subconscious, blogging has been much easier for me. I think this is because much of the difficultly in blogging is coming up with enough blog post topics.

Over to You

How do you capture your ideas? When does your subconscious give you ideas unexpectedly?