Our good friend Ross Goldberg (aka Mr Traffic) says in his typical no BS style – “Your blog is the cornerstone of your social traffic campaign”.  While most of us share his enthusiasm for blogging not everybody is sure what is needed to create a brilliant blog that stands out from the crowd. To assist you in creating that awesome blog we would like to share with you “7 Brilliant Blogging Tips”

1. Get Serious and Buy Your Own domain
It’s important to be in control of your own destiny. If you are in it for the long haul you will want to have your own domain. Although it might sound complicated it’s not. There are heaps of hosting sites and domain purchasing sites that have great help desks and instructions for newbies. Personally we use Hostgator, and are a huge fan of its live chat feature.

 2. Choose a domain name that suits your blog 
I know it sound as blatantly obvious…But lots of people overlook this step. It’s no use having a  domain name like www.carwidgetsRus and having a blog that talks about growing tulips.

3. Use WordPress and wordpress plugins
WordPress blogs are easy to use, manipulate and there are thousands of themes. Don’t forget  to install wordpress plugins. There are heaps of wordpress plugins with specific functions so make sure you pick wordpress plugins that suit your blog, and assist with SEO and social  traffic optimisation.

 4. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Blah Blah Blah…Personally we get bored with lots and lots of words in a post. Make your post brilliant by the inclusion of pictures. Give the words a break every now and then by including a picture. Pictures serve two purposes they make the post more interesting and they can  convey a concept quicker than the words in lengthy paragraph 

5. The three C’s
Consistency, consistency, consistency…It’s important to blog with consistency. Resist the urge  to go off on a tangent, stick to the topic of your blog. Try to publish a blog post at least once a week. You want to deliver to your readers consistent information on a regular basis, this will assist in developing a relationship with your readers.

 6. Don’t Ignore Comments
We get a real buzz out of people leaving us comments. It means that people have read our post   and it had an impact on them… Make sure you approve the valid comments, and disapprove the spam. If the comment includes a question it’s imperative that you reply to the comment. A  blog is supposed to be interactive and you should take any opportunity to interact with your readers.

 7. Content is King
People visit your blog looking for useful information. Provide useful information with heaps of content and you will have them coming back for more. Remember that blogs are supposed to be interactive and your readers are no different to you. They want interesting and informative content. Our previous blog post 7 Reasons Why Blogs Are Vitally Important can assist with more blogging info.

We hope that you found these 7 Brilliant Blogging Tips useful. If you liked this post feel free to share it with your friends or leave a comment.

Share

Hide Sites

1. Know Your Audience
A lot of people are tempted to complete the Bio without thinking about why they joined twitter in the first place. Before you write your Twitter bio we suggest that you think about the Twitterites you want to connect with. As a guide ask yourself these questions.

Do you want people to find you by your career, company, industry, location?
Why are you using Twitter?
Who are the people you want to connect with?  

2. Include Keywords – Not Junk
We suggest that you don’t simply enter a bunch of keywords. A lot of people do this because they think the more keywords the more ways people have of finding them when using search functions.  This can be a costly mistake… If your bio looks like a jumbled collection of keywords then it will be totally uninteresting to people and they won’t want to follow you. Your bio might look something like this.

I am a keen gardener and hiker who also has a passion for the outdoors, internet marketing and affiliate marketing who loves social media

3.  Smile!  - Upload A Photo
If you want new followers putting a photo of yourself here is really important. People like to see who they are following and they will follow someone with a picture rather than someone who has the default avatar provided by twitter.

4.  So What  DO  you do?
Make sure your bio includes what you do. People use Twitter for lots of different reasons, however the networking and business twitterites  follow people based on what they do and their topics of interest. This aspect of your bio is even more important since the launch of Twitter lists, since most people when building lists use the information in peoples bios to build a specific Twitter List.  

 5. Location, Location, Location…
The location info assists people with searching and finding others in their same area. You can even make a twitter list based upon location. There have been some people who have met on twitter only to find out that they lived just around the corner.  FYI… If you are chasing rankings on Twitter your location is important as users are ranked by their locations.

6. Link Love
Include your website url, blog url or a specific landing site. Some people make the mistake of including a shortened url in this field. You know what we mean, tinyurl, bit.ly, ow.ly, etc. DON’T do this!  Twitter doesn’t shorten the links in this field, so don’t use a shortened URL link. Worst case scenario people will think its spam and no one wants to follow a spammer.

7. Its Not Carved In Stone
Bios were meant to be dynamic , changed  and tweaked as needed. There is no such thing as a perfect bio. So don’t hesitate to tweak it and then tweak it some more if you have to.

Its important to remember that the Twitter bio may be small, but it’s powerful. An awesome bio has the power to attract Twitter followers like a magnet. We hope this post was useful. If you like it please share it with your friends or leave us a comment.

Share

Hide Sites

Social Traffic Espionage has been walking the halls of twitter for the past year  and has put together a list of what we believe are the most retweetable words and phrases. Its amazing what a little espionage can reveal.

The nine most retweetable words and phrases are ;

1. you
2. twitter
3. please
4. retweet
5. post
6. media
7. social
8. free
9. blog

Looking at the list the words and phrases  seem pretty obvious. BUT if you watch the twitterfeed you would be amazed how may times these words and phrases are not used. Instead lots of tweeple seem to prefer to use words like going,  bored, and back.  Not very stimulating are they? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that the tweets containing  these words or phrases are unlikely to be retweeted…Which is OK if you don’t want  the information in your post to go viral. However  most people use twitter because of  its viral nature.

For those of you that have taken the time to read this post, here is a bonus twitter tip… To make sure your twitter posts are being seen by the most tweeple possible, the  best time of day to leave a post on twitter is around 4pm EST. If you do this on a Friday you will get maximum exposure.

If you enjoyed this post , please leave a comment, and  share it with your friends

Share

Hide Sites

Finally its here…. Its been 8 months in the making , BUT its HERE!  The complete collection of  12 Social Media Experts caught on tape spilling the secret tactics and strategies they use to make 6 figure incomes without spending one cent on marketing or advertising.  The mover and shakers of the Social Media world shared valuable information with us and now we would like to share it with you.

Twitter experts , LinkedIn experts, Blogs experts, Podcasting experts,  StumbleUpon experts, MySpace experts, Forums experts, Squidoo experts and more… Ross Goldberg, Mari Smith, Frank Sousa, Leesa Barnes are just a few of the experts who shared there secrets with us. Click here  to see  the complete list of experts.

Listen carefully as Ross Goldberg (aka  Mr Traffic) reveals how he gets a 30% conversion rate using just one of his many Social Media Traffic Strategies… I bet you could profit from a 30% conversion… 

Too many people spend too much time and they get too little traffic. They don’t know the secrets to Social Media Traffic. So what happens is that they end up spending all day on twitter, all day on Facebook, all day on MySpace and at the end of the day they have no money in their bank account.
 
Social Media traffic is some of the best   and easiest traffic to get and   best of all its completely free. However there is a catch – if you don’t know what you are doing Social Media Traffic is like navigating a jungle without a guide. 

Wouldn’t you just love to learn from the experts how to conquer these traffic blasting social media sites?Couldn’t you do with the inside scoop on social media…

Isn’t it time that you used a little Social Traffic Espionage? Click here to get instant access to the experts.

If you liked this post share it with your friends or better still leave us a comment.

Share

Hide Sites

1. Spam, Spam And More Spam

Ok so you have a blog and guess what,   you just added a post. Most people appreciate you informing them once, informing them twice is sure to get their attention but telling them more than  5 times  a day is just plain annoying and desperate. Keep an eye on your tweets and develop relationships with people instead of  annoying them.

2. Keep It Clean

Don’t swear… Swearing in tweets will get you unfollowed faster than you can hit the update button.

3 .  Tweet About How Many Followers You Have

It doesn’t matter how may Twitter  followers you have, its tacky to tweet about it. OK  we know its exciting to reach milestones but tweeting this information is  a big mistake. It sounds like you are bragging and indirectly sends out a challenge to people to unfollow you.

4.  Links, Links And Nothing But Links

We love clicking on links in Twitter, you can learn about really cool stuff , but we also like to know the topic of  link. It’s important to put some content with your link. You have got 140 characters, which is enough space to add a phrase or couple of words that indicate what the link is about.    

5.  It’s Called  Microblogging  For A Reason -  people!

Twitter is not an article writing social site.  A post on Twitter is  140 characters. It’s a limit, and should be respected. OK their might be an exceptional circumstance when  you need to send a tweet that is made up of two 140 character tweets, but this is the exception not the rule. Clogging up the Twittersphere with tweets that are 2 – 3 times more than the 140 characters  is self indulgent and will result in people choosing to unfollow you.

6.  Extreme Tweeting – It’s Not  A  Sport

Have you ever checked your twitter stream, only to find that one person has filled up an entire screen? Twitter is not a one person show. It’s about everybody contributing and developing relationships. Stop being a Twitter hog, don’t tweet 50 times a day and spread your tweets throughout the day.

7. Constantly Retweeting

You see an awesome quote and want to spread the word, so you retweet  it to your followers. Nothing wrong with that… Retweeting has it’s  place in the Twittersphere. Retweeting becomes a problem however when it’s the bulk of your tweets. Fellow twitterites don’t want to follow a person who is always regurgitating or  echoing other peoples thoughts and ideas. Make sure you mix in the retweets with you own ideas and thoughts otherwise you will have your followers hitting the unfollow button.

If you enjoyed this post, spread it around amongst your friends. If there is anything you would like to add leave us a comment, we would love to hear from you.

Share

Hide Sites

You know what its  like you build your blog, website, and squidoo lens,  you have a great product  that you are sure people will buy.  BUT you can’t  get any of  the FREE Social  Traffic that everybody tells you is out there.  You have heard the statistics,  facebook 200  million, youtube 80 million. Why aren’t you getting FREE Social Traffic… everybody else is!  Here are 6  great traffic tips that should get you started

1. Don’t just sign up to a Social Media Site , YOU need to participate
You can’t expect to get your share of  the Social Traffic market if you are not participating in Social Media Sites.  Yes,  we know that there are lots and lots of Social Media sites, but you don’t need to join all of them at once. Start with baby steps join one or two of the Social Media Sites, you can always join others later.  Most importantly don’t just sign up and consider that the jobs done, you need to participate not just stand on the sidelines.  How do you participate? That’s easy, join discussions, offer information, include links to useful tools or sites, tips, reply to people who make contact with you. 

2.  Look At Me! Look At Me! Be your own PR machine.
Don’t be shy, there are a number of ways that you can promote you and your business. We have listed just a few to get you thinking

• add your blog, website or squidoo lens url to  your social media sites profiles
•  include an RSS feed
•  include social bookmarking buttons on your blog or website 
•  add an “e-mail this” and “share” tab at the bottom of blog posts
•  add  your blog, website, squidoo lens  address to your e-mail signature
•  submit articles which have links to  your  blog or  website

3. Grab Peoples Attention
Does your blog, website or squidoo lens have neverending  blocks of  text,  text and more text…BORING!  C’Mon this is 2009, we have the tecnology. Make use of  video, podcasts, slide shows and other multimedia to create dynamic content. Don’t be boring

4. Link s
It is crucial that you include links,  links and more links.  You should link to other parts of your blog or website and externally to other peoples  blogs or sites.  Don’t forget about backlinking. Its OK to  ask other blogs to link back to you  and  to add your website to their blog rolls.  Submiiting your blog  to one or more blog  directories is a good idea.

Share

Hide Sites