Music & Marketing: URBANIZED!

How do you measure the success of a blog? By the number of visitors it receives. Traffic is essential to the survival of a site. So, what are easy and efficient ways to get it?

from wagtiradio.com



1) Provide quality content
Quality over quantity is a motto that should be in every blogger's mind. As such, editing and proofreading are two prerequisites. Before you publish anything, make sure that your content is as typo-free as possible.

2) Provide useful content
A blog is like a product. If you want to sell, your articles must be unique and visitors must relate to them. At times, it may be difficult to come up with new ideas. To overcome this problem, you could:
- set up Google alerts to receive news in your inbox. When you find an interesting article, share an extract in your blog or write something on the topic.

- visit websites like AllTop or Mashable and subscribe to valuable blogs in your niche.

And if you are an entrepreneur, why not check out the questions asked by members of LinkedIn? Some will fuel your creativity.

3) Write great titles
Titles are the main attention grabbers. When written well, they will make visitors read the articles attached to them. For example, if you want to offer tips on book promotion, something like X [number] Great Tips to Promote Your Book would work. Remember that people love numbers and lists, so organize the post as such. Be clear and concise.

4) Blog often
A blog regularly updated will bring traffic. So, try to contribute to its growth at least twice a week.

5) Ask questions
Asking questions is the best way to engage readers and show them that you care. There are three proven ways to do it:

• Ask a question in the first paragraph of your post. This will draw their attention to the problem that you are trying to solve.


• Ask a question in your conclusion in order to open the discussion. Visitors will leave comments more easily.


• Invite people to suggest future topics. Why not conduct a survey?

6) Tag, Tag, Tag
Tags or keywords are specific words that describe an item. When blog articles are published, they will be indexed by search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) according to those specific words. Without them, search engines may overlook the posts and they will end up at the bottom of the pile. So, tag all your articles and pictures.

7) Share your posts
Share your posts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, and Stumble Upon. Search engines love them. Use Hootsuite and Ping.fm to update all your networks at once.

8) Allow visitors to subscribe to your blog
By using a tool like Feedburner, you give visitors the opportunity to stay connected with your blog by subscribing to it. Every time you publish a new article, subscribers receive a notice. It is a great way to build up a loyal audience.

9) Submit articles to directories
This is a very efficient way to get your name out there. EzineArticles and eHow are the best article submission directories right now and rank really high in search engines. Let me give you an example.

A while ago, I submitted one of my previous posts to EzineArticles. The article got accepted. Type 'rejection reviewers' in Google search and you will see 'Authors & Six Tips to Avoid Rejection from Reviewers' appear third on the first page of the search engine.

10) Answer comments & visit other blogs
Too often, bloggers do not follow up with readers comments or emails. They do not even take the time to visit others blogs or sites. Imagine a company that would not care about its customers. It would lose business very quickly. A blog works like a company. If you do not set aside some time to provide good customer service, you will get no traffic.

Should you really have no time to connect with those who contact you privately, just let them know that you will respond to their messages later. And make sure that you do!

11) Add a link to your blog in your signature
In this day and age, we all use emails. It takes a couple of seconds to add a link to your blog in your signature block. And it may bring a LOT of traffic.

12) Be patient
Solid and constant traffic does not happen overnight. So, continue working hard and do not lose heart. Good things happen to those who wait!

Now, are there other tips that I may have forgotten?

Whether you’re running a website, or a blog, you need to know about the most effective advertising methods. Advertising methods can make or break your website. Some methods are extremely expensive, while others are far more cost effective. In general, the cost of the advertisement does not dictate how effective the advertising is.

Pop Up Advertising

Some of the most expensive ads that you can purchase are pop-up ads. Not only are they expensive, but visitors also find them downright annoying. In fact, almost all people today have some form of pop-up blocker which prevents them from seeing these ads in the first place. This expensive marketing method is one you can easily live without. Don’t forget that fly ads are similar to pop-ups can do little more than provide a description and chase visitors to your site away.

Pod Casting

Podcasts are a very slick sophisticated Internet advertising method. However, since more and more people are utilizing them, they can be a very effective if somewhat expensive advertising method. It’s important to remember that podcasts are similar in nature to a television broadcast. In general, they will be worth the money that you spend for them.

Search Engine Advertising

Paid search engine advertising means that you pay the search engine a fixed amount that allows your URL to be included in the first page of top results. If you are considering purchasing these rights through Google or Yahoo search, it may be worth the investment. However, if you using lesser-known search engines or those that are not as heavily utilized as Google and Yahoo, it may not be worth your investment.

Blogging

One of the least expensive advertising methods is blogging. Sign up for a blogging account, which is oftentimes free, post to your blog on a regular basis, and utilize social bookmarking tools to drive traffic. Not only is this method inexpensive, but it almost always will result in additional traffic.

Small search engines

Another inexpensive advertising method is to submit your site to smaller search engines. Because the small search engines smaller, they tend to accept URLs more readily. This means that your site will not get overlooked by the giants that could dwarf your site on Yahoo and Google.



Text Links

Text links can be extremely effective, and in general they are free. You can contact other blog owners and ask for them to list you in their blogroll. You can easily as reciprocate and the end result is you’ve not only gained a back link, you’ve also effectively advertised on another site.

Summary

There are several ways that you can advertise your website inexpensively. Today, there is no reason to spend thousands of dollars marketing your site. Social networking sites such as Twitter or Redgage, other blogs, smaller search engines, and myriad other tools are available to you.