If you’ve been online for any time now you’ll know that without doubt the best and potentially most successful strategy for generating income is through Joint Ventures.

The problem however for most is that the idea of “contacting the top performers” (so-called Guru’s) is completely out of the question. I mean, even if you spark up the courage to actually try to contact them, 99 out of 100 times you never hear back from them do you. That of course means that you most likely *never* hear back from them because you’ve given up well before 99 attempts; this is OK, after all, we can only handle so much rejection before it gets to us.

These problems have faced people working in the sales industry for decades. There’s nothing new about it, it’s just the way it is.

But –

Even though almost everyone out there says that ‘you have to contact the big guns’ to access the big lists to get a successful joint venture, I’m here to ask you… do you? Really?

Sure, it is true that one successful JV with a big list is going to put you in front of more people, and because of this you shouldn’t ever give up on that strategy, but perhaps you could also consider this one –

Let’s say for example that it takes 99 strike-outs to get that one, and you get access to a list of 50,000 or more. OK. Well, at the same time you could hunt around for the ‘small to medium players’ who have been established online for a year or two and probably have lists in the 1000 – 5000 range (I’m talking QUALITY here, not tens of thousands of pointless email addresses).

In this second example you’re more likely to get a successful ‘home run’ each 4 out of 5 times when you approach them. Doing some simple maths, for the 99 attempts it takes to pull in the big one, assuming only 3 in 4 wins and an average list size of 2,500 – that would give you the opportunity to put your offer in front of over 180,000 people… nice.

That now out of the way; where do you find them? Well, gazillions of places – eZine directories, article directories, online forums, and targeted keyword searches etc. The list is endless.

An opportunity that’s also good is through the use of Google Alerts.

I came across this one recently because I keep track of what’s happening online with my name and my products, and by using Google Alerts, each time there’s a change made to a page with contains my “Google Alert” search criteria, I get a notification about it sent in summary form each evening.

So how can we find Joint Venture Partners in this? Easy. The Google Alert system allows me to input any type of search parameter from which it will then send me an update on. So you could use your name… or your favourite “guru’s” name, or your targeted search term for your website / product or whatever. When you get the alert, you simply go to the relevant website, make sure that it all looks OK and contact them. Tel them how you came across their site and compliment them on it, then offer your JV.

What makes it really work though is this – consistency!

Sometimes you’ll only get 2 or 3 updates in your alert. If this happens continually, don’t get disheartened, be happy. Because it’s far easier to research and contact 2 or three people a day than 20 or 30. One of the biggest mistakes I see in business both online and offline is the setting of unrealistic goals. Be careful not to let yourself fall into that trap.

Your goal here is to plug people into your affiliate program through a specific joint venture invitation – people who may never have found you otherwise. Do it regularly, slowly and consistently; after a short period of time you’ll have a dynamic JV affiliate list that produces powerful results every time you mail to them.

Have fun!

- Paul Barrs

This easy guide for outsourcing will help you make the most from your time and your business. From a personal perspective I believe that you should never ask someone to do something for you that you yourself do not at least have a basic understanding of – so that you can CHECK the work – or have someone whom you trust who CAN check the work for you.

It’s a simple strategy and it can save a whole ton of heart-ache. Enjoy!

Plan the Week’s Outsourcing

Before you can run out and start posting jobs, you need to evaluate your needs. This means figuring out what jobs you need done both in the short term and long term in a variety of areas.

Now before we get into the details of evaluating your specific needs, let’s go over the three main categories of outsourcing.

Each of the jobs you need done will fall into one of these categories:

1. One-Off Tasks

This is where you hire someone to complete a fairly quick “one off” task. That means that once they’ve completed the task, they’re done with it.

While you may hire them again in the future to do something similar, there’s no guarantee that you will need their services again.

Example: Let’s suppose you just completed an ebook. You can hire a graphics designer to create the ecover graphic. You may get a turnaround on this task in as quickly as a few days.

Then once the task is done, your relationship with the designer ends. Maybe in another few months you’ll contact the designer again.

2. Ongoing Tasks (End Date in Mind)

This is where you hire someone to work on a very large project and/or for a fairly lengthy amount of time.

However, generally there is an end date in mind. That is, your relationship with the freelancer may go on for months, but in most cases it will end on a specific date.

Example: You’ve hired a freelance programmer to create software for you. This is a big project which will likely take four to six months to complete the initial coding.

After the initial coding is done, you’ll retain the programmer for another six months in order to do tweaks, work out bugs, patch security flaws, etc.

In other words, you plan to work with the freelancer for at least a year, but unless another big project comes up, your business relationship will likely end in about 12 months.

3. Long-Term Projects (Indefinitely)

This last category is where you hire a freelancer to work with you on an ongoing basis for the foreseeable future.

In this case there is no definite end date in mind.

There isn’t some project that, when wrapped up, will signal the end of your relationship with the freelancer.

Usually, the relationship ends for other reasons (e.g., the freelancer moves on, you fire the freelancer, you retire from the business, etc).

Example: One good example of this is a customer service representative. This person works for you for as long as you need a representative and/or as long as he needs a job.

Depending on the size of your business, the representative may work as little as a few hours per week.

But you expect to work together for the foreseeable future.

Those are the three main categories.

Naturally, any freelancer can float between these three categories as your business grows and your needs change.

Example: You might hire a programmer to customize a script (a one- off task). Then you may re-hire him to hand code a new piece of software (ongoing).

Then you may decide to go into the business of developing software, in which case you retain him indefinitely to create new products and fix bugs on existing products.

Here’s my point:

You can’t evaluate your needs once and be done with it.

You’ll need to evaluate them constantly, especially as your business grows.

The second thing you need to keep in mind is what type of relationship you’ll be developing with the various types of freelancers.

If you’re hiring someone to do a one-off task, then generally you’ll just hire them, they’ll complete the task, you pay them and your relationship ends.

As such, you don’t need to spend a whole of time motivating them or, for that matter, managing them.

However, whenever you start working long-term with someone, you need to take into consideration such issues as management and motivation. Since you want to retain your long-term freelancers, you need to keep them happy.

One way of getting great results from your freelancers is managing them more effectively. And for that I recommend you get a copy of OutVeo.

Later on you’ll learn a bit more about motivation and management. For now, just keep it in mind.

Brainstorm and Evaluate Your Needs

Your next step is to take out a clean piece of paper or open a new word processing document on your computer. Then I want you to list ALL the tasks you do in your business.

This includes your daily tasks (like customer service) to the tasks you do regularly, but less often (like your quarterly taxes).
Point is, list everything.

To help you get started, here’s a list of some of the more common tasks (especially for those who create and sell information):

• Copywriting. This includes sales letters, ads, brochures and other marketing collateral.
• Content writing. This includes ebooks, reports, blog posts, articles, newsletter content, press releases, social media posts and more.
• Graphics and design. This includes web design, ecover graphics, creating or tweaking blog themes and templates and more.
• Programming. This includes everything from script installation to script customization to custom software creation to mobile apps.
• Web technical. This includes things like managing your servers and databases.
• Marketing. This is a big area, which includes activities like joint venture partner recruitment, affiliate recruitment, affiliate management, affiliate motivation, pay per click (PPC) management, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing (newsletter management), publicity and press release distribution… and so on.

The above list is far from complete, as I didn’t even touch on things like accounting, customer service, product creation and all the other things you need done on a daily, weekly or ongoing basis.

So be sure to take your time to really figure out what tasks you do to keep your business running.

Once you have your list, then you need to ask yourself WHAT to outsource. Read on…

Decide What to Outsource

You’ve got a big list of tasks in front of you.

But the question is, which of these tasks should you outsource?

If you already have a big business budget in place, then the answer is you can outsource almost everything.

This allows you to work just a few hours a week. You’ll use that time to plan your business and hire/manage your freelancing team. Then you’ll have the rest of your time free to do as you please.

If you’re not yet prepared to start outsourcing your entire business, then you will need to pick and choose which tasks to outsource.

Generally, you should ask yourself a few questions with relation to how cost effective it is to outsource a particular task, whether it makes sense to hire a professional… and similar questions.

Now that you’ve drawn up a list of tasks you’d like to outsource, your next step is to begin the process of finding suitable candidates.

Brian Terry

P.S. Want a little secret? The easiest way to manage your outsourced workers and make sure you get 100% output from them is through this unique software program.

This makes outsourcing a breeze…

==> http://OutVeo.com

This is the kind of eMail I LOVE to send and I know that customer LOVE to receive. Notice that word “LOVE”… it shows that you *care*.

Sending a note of thanks is so easy and so simple to do that I often wonder why so many people STILL don’t do it! And I’m not just talking about in the ‘online world‘, I’m talking about offline as well… if you do a job for someone in the physical world you should still take the time to say “thank you”, maybe even send them a ‘card’. It will pay you back 100 x over in the future.

However, in the world of online automation it’s essential that you set up a system, that sends an automated “thank you” back to your customers, and there are many different ways to do this.

Most commonly you plug your customer into some kind of auto-responder system which  not only sends them a thank you, but also automated follow up messages as well. Ideally you want for your customer to be transferred to your “VIP Customer List” immediately after purchase.

The problem with this however is that if your customer was on your “prospect list”  then they ALSO get added to your customer list… it’s not too hard to embarrass yourself if your automated prospect list sends them a ‘why haven’t you ordered yet?’ message, lol.

And yes, THIS happens!

I proposed this scenario to my internet marketing program students at MSU a while back and a number of questions back last time asking… “But what if we don’t have a system that will transfer a buying customer off the non-buying customer list”?

Simple – if you’re using a good old fashioned auto-responder for your customer mail outs, just make sure that your eMails are neither one way nor the other – focus them on customer service and satisfaction and you’ll meet the needs of both.

This would be the confirmation email after the initial subscription (the one that the ‘system’ automatically sends after purchase).

“Hi John; thanks for placing your order for XYZ at www.website.com . In order to receive a special unannounced bonus for all customers, you will need to confirm your email address by clicking on the following link… (LINK – z)”

Sound a little familiar?

That link (link-Z) then confirms them into your double opt-in email auto responder which is hidden exclusively on pages that only *paying customers* have access to.

Two days later you follow up with this message… “Hi John, just wanted to make sure that all went well with your order and download…. If there were any problems please contact us (support desk) or click here to re-enter your order if for some reason it wasn’t completed properly on your end (link to order page and / OTO ).”

This first “follow up” is worded to make it look like it was written *for* customers, but if someone who is not a paying customer ends up on this list, it will work for them as well (and possibly generate extra sales also!)

Doing this will build for you a very warm list of both buyers and interested prospects. These are the BEST type of people for marketing further products later on.

- Paul Barrs

** Learn more about High Income Email Marketing Strategies with the “Email Marketing Success Strategies” free report.

This terrific guest post if from Brian Terry, developer of Outveo Outsourcing Software. Enjoy!

Is there possibly any hotter topic these days than “How do I get traffic from Google?” Well, for those who are still locked into the mindset that Google is the only traffic source out there, today’s guest post will help set the myths straight for you (it doesn’t get much easier than this!).

“Free Google Traffic BluePrint”…

Getting traffic from Google is easy when you know how.

Here are a few simple steps for you to follow…

Step 1:

• You first need to target the right keywords.
• Keep in mind that not all keywords are created equal.
• Some keywords people use just to research, whilst others they’ll type in when they’re ready to buy.

Step 2:

• Get the domain name with your target keyword either as a .com, .org or .net
• It’s critical that your domain name starts with your keyword…

Step 3:

• Install WordPress on your domain…

Step 4:

• Once you have WordPress installed install these plugins…

1. Platinum SEO Pack
2. GoCodes
3. Easy WP SEO

Step 5:

• Change your WordPress permalink structure to: /%postname%/

Step 6:

• Install a clean theme with lots of white space. I recommend and use WooThemes Canvas

Step 7:

• On-page optimization…

• Your websites home page should be optimized for the root keyword. This is the keyword phrase you found in your niche with the most searches.

Write a blog post on this subject optimizing it for that keyword phrase using the Easy WP SEO WordPress plugin.

Make this article post sticky so it remains at the top of your blogs home page.

• Then write at least 6 other blog posts on your site with each one optimized for a more descriptive keyword phrase based on your root keyword phrase.

For example:

how to quit smoking cold turkey, how to quit smoking and not gain weight — (you get the idea).

Step 8:

Internal page linking…

• Each blog post contains 2 text links back to the home page. One uses the keyword phrase how to quit smoking and the other link uses the keyword phrase for that page.
• Repeat this process for all your blog post pages using your keyword phrases.

So there you have it.

It’s a simple blueprint to follow that works exceptionally well for low-competition keyword phrases.

When you’re targeting more competitive keywords you then need to focus on backlinking.

This involves getting links to your home page and internal pages from authority sites.

The links to each of your blog posts must always use the same anchor text as the keyword for the page being linked to.

=============================================

BTW, if you really want to go great guns at this, I strongly suggest that you start looking at outsourcing; and the best outsourcing management software currently available is OutVeo.

- Paul

A quick question from Paul Barrs…

And yes, before anyone in the US asks… We spell summarize with an ‘S’ in Australia…  “Summarise”

So here’s my question: I use Feedburner to process my site feed and deliver it to my feed subscribers (some by email others by RSS). Over the last week I’ve sent some out FULL TEXT others just a SUMMARY. Feedburner gives you the choice.

Now, personally I’d rather send you the summar and have you click on the feed title to then stop back at Paulbarrs.com to read the full article But as a feed subscriber to half a dozen *other* website feeds, I prefer the Full Text so I can read it right there and then – if I want to make a comment, *then* I’ll visit the site and comment.

What do YOU want?

You’re reading this now because you’ve either (1) visited my website and are reading it online or (2) are reading it as a subscriber. Either way, YOUR OPINION is more important to me and what I do with this website than my opinion.

What do YOU PREFER? Full text in the RSS or eMail or just a SUMMARY?

Please LEAVE A COMMENT here to let me know (and feed subscribers will have to come back the site to leave a comment). I really want to know what you preference is.

Thanks,

Paul Barrs

They are -

On-page SEO and Off-page SEO

Once upon a time we built websites, submitted them to search engines and waited for people to come to us. These days we build websites and the people wait for us to take them to them!

Keys to on-page SEO

(These are the areas that need to be reviewed and improved).

How does your website compare to your competition??

• # of Indexed Pages
• Current Traffic Sources
• Backlinks
• Keyword Research & Analysis.

How does your keyword analysis compare?

• Review Competitors
• Google Keyword Tool

How well are your keywords placed on page?

• Keyword Placement on Website Page(s)
• Title Tag
• Meta Description
• H1 Tag
• In First Paragraph of Content
• Anchor Text

Keys to off-page SEO

(These are the areas that need to be reviewed and improved. This is the most time consuming part of search engine optimisation).

Article Marketing.

We need to write related articles for your business and and submit then to…

• EzineArticles
• Go Articles
• …submit to other article directories

Social Media

We need to create accounts and promote to…

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Hub Pages
• Squidoo
• …submit to other Social Media websites

Social Bookmarking

We need to create accounts and bookmark your content to…

• Mixx
• Stumble Upon
• …submit to other social bookmarking websites

Additional Blogs / Websites

We need to look at creating accounts and submit blog entries to…

• Blogger
• WordPress.org
• Linked In
• Typepad
• …submit blog entries to other blog directories

Forum Marketing

We need to look at opportunities to post answers to questions on…

• Yahoo Answers
• Relevant Forums for Your Business

Video Marketing

We need to look at creating videos & submitting them to…

• YouTube
• Google Video
• …submit to other Video marketing websites

Audio Marketing

We need to look at creating audio files from your videos & submitting them to…

• Podcast Directory
• Podcast Alley
• …submit to other Podcast / Audio directories

Review Site Marketing

We should look at create a system of encouraging positive customer reviews…

• Yelp.com
• Merchant Circle
• Google Places

Press Release Marketing

We should also publish press releases (great for backlinks)…

• WebWire
• Free Press Release services
• Subtopic

RSS Feed Directories

We can make RSS feeds from your content and submit them to…

• FeedAge
• …submit to other RSS directories

Directories Marketing

We need to claim your business listing at…

• Google Places
• Yahoo, & Bing
• Additional Business Listing Directories

etc.

Search engine optimisation is not an overnight job…

And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to your face! Hmmm, that’s a bit harsh… maybe I should say “gently trying to persuade you to part with your money so they can take their Bali holiday…!”

You get the point

The good thing is that you don’t have to do the whole thing all in one go – that stuff listed above is the $7,000 6-month package. It’s for what I call TOTAL SEARCH ENGINE DOMINATION.

For the moment though… the most important thing is that you get a health checkup for your website! Because if people are not finding you, it could be from one of *many* different reasons… not just SEO.

=============================

Note: I now offer a monthly back-linking service for internet businesses. You can read the full details on my web design / web development website PaulBarrs.com.au

- Paul.

Today you’ll find a terriffic guest post by well known blogger Kim Roach. It’s all about TRAFFIC and how to get more of it!

Want more traffic? Of course you do, we ALL do. So my best suggstion for you today is that you DON’T skim over the contents of this post. Grab yourself a pen and paper and take some notes. Better yet, print out the entire post, curl up in your favourite comfy chair with pen in hand and go for it.

As you read through today’s post you’ll spark ideas that you can apply in your own business. Write them down, and then when you’re finished reading; grab your daily planner and book in your action steps.

Remember – very few people get traffic to their websites by accident… for most of us it take a sh*tload of work!

- Paul

============================

How to Get 1,000 Visitors a Day… A Ten-Step Plan

1. Solo Ads

This is one of the BIGGEST traffic sources in our business. And there’s a reason I listed it first. So many people who start a business online shy away from actually spending any money on BUILDING their business.Sure, they’ll pay thousands of dollars for training – but VERY few will spend any money on traffic. Which is really sad because you can buy a $50 solo ad and start generating subscribers and sales. I do these every week. One of our solo ads that went out this week cost $50, sent me 249 unique visitors and generated 134 subscribers.That’s 20 cents per click and a little under 40 cents per lead. And the ad was profitable within 48 hours. It doesn’t get much better than that

And that why I LOVE solo ads. Consistent, predictable traffic.

And that’s what your business should be – consistent and predictable.

You could literally use this ONE strategy alone to build your entire business.

2. Ad Swaps

3. Rocket Deals

4. Integration Marketing

5. Forum Marketing

6. High-Level Guest Blogging

7. Pillar Content

8. Social Media

9. Paid Advertising

10. World-Class Affiliate Program

Kim Roach is a highly successful web-entrpreneur. Her website Buzz Blogger privides high quality blogging tips for the business mined blogger. Visti her site at http://www.buzzblogger.com/

Ever wondered what you *really* should send your people after they purchase something from you? Most send ads. Many send another offer. Some even send nothing! But this follow up email was directly responsible for generating at least $50,000 in additional sales during the year 2011. There’s a lesson to be learned here

== start ==

Hey {!firstname}

Have you gotten a chance to dive into the [freebie you gave them]?

I want to make sure you get the absolute most from this business
model I’ve shared. It’s extremely powerful… and pretty simple
too.

Before I start sending you more great content to help you build
onto the [freebie gift], I need to ask you a question…

What is it you would like me to teach you?

I don’t like to dilly dally on what content to send you. I only
want to deliver content that {!firstname} wants. That’s why I’m asking
you right now.

Your help makes my products and my emails the best they can be. I
would be so appreciative for the help.

Just hit reply now and tell me what it is you want.

Thanks. I will be in touch soon,

[Your Name]

I take the replies and create my next product. These products have generated over $50k for me this year.  I suggest you use something similar and listen to your audience…. 75% of the people that send you a reply will thank you for appreciating them. That’s how you gain someone’s trust!

- Travis Petelle

Get some great home business ideas as http://www.internetbizmasters.com/

It’s easy to build a blog, but hard to build a successful blog with significant traffic. Over the years, some blogs have grown to nearly a million visits each month. There’s an art to increasing a blog’s traffic, and given that we seem to have stumbled on some of that knowledge, I felt it compulsory to give back by sharing what we’ve observed.

#1 – Target Your Content to an Audience Likely to Share

When strategizing about who you’re writing for, consider that audience’s ability to help spread the word. Some readers will naturally be more or less active in evangelizing the work you do, but particular communities, topics, writing styles and content types regularly play better than others on the web. For example, great infographics that strike a chord, beautiful videos that tell a story and remarkable collections of facts that challenge common assumptions  are all targeted at audiences likely to share (geeks with facial hair, those interested in weight loss and those with political thoughts about macroeconomics respectively).

If you can identify groups that have high concentrations of the blue and orange circles in the diagram above, you dramatically improve the chances of reaching larger audiences and growing your traffic numbers. Targeting blog content at less-share-likely groups may not be a terrible decision (particularly if that’s where you passion or your target audience lies), but it will decrease the propensity for your blog’s work to spread like wildfire across the web.

#2 – Participate in the Communities Where Your Audience Already Gathers

Advertisers on Madison Avenue have spent billions researching and determining where consumers with various characteristics gather and what they spend their time doing so they can better target their messages. They do it because reaching a group of 65+ year old women with commercials for extreme sports equipment is known to be a waste of money, while reaching an 18-30 year old male demographic that attends rock-climbing gyms is likely to have a much higher ROI.

Thankfully, you don’t need to spend a dime to figure out where a large portion of your audience can be found on the web. In fact, you probably already know a few blogs, forums, websites and social media communities where discussions and content are being posted on your topic (and if you don’t a Google search will take you much of the way). From that list, you can do some easy expansion using a web-based tool like DoubleClick’s Ad Planner:

Once you’ve determined the communities where your soon-to-be-readers gather, you can start participating. Create an account, read what others have written and don’t jump in the conversation until you’ve got a good feel for what’s appropriate and what’s not.  Be a good web citizen and you’ll be rewarded with traffic, trust and fans. Link-drop, spam or troll and you’ll get a quick boot, or worse, a reputation as a blogger no one wants to associate with.

#3 – Make Your Blog’s Content SEO-Friendly

Search engines are a massive opportunity for traffic, yet many bloggers ignore this channel for a variety of reasons that usually have more to do with fear and misunderstanding than true problems. As I’ve written before, “SEO, when done right, should never interfere with great writing.” In 2011, Google received over 3 billion daily searches from around the world, and that number is only growing:

sources: Comscore + Google

Taking advantage of this massive traffic opportunity is of tremendous value to bloggers, who often find that much of the business side of blogging, from inquiries for advertising to guest posting opportunities to press and discovery by major media entities comes via search.

SEO for blogs is both simple and easy to set up, particularly if you’re using an SEO-friendly platform like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. For more information on how to execute on great SEO for blogs, check out the following resources:

• Blogger’s Guide to SEO (from SEOBook)
• The Beginner’s Guide to SEO (from Moz)
• WordPress Blog SEO Tutorial (from Yoast)
• SEO for Travel Bloggers (but applicable to nearly any type of blog – from Moz)

Don’t let bad press or poor experiences with spammers (spam is not SEO) taint the amazing power and valuable contributions SEO can make to your blog’s traffic and overall success. 20% of the effort and tactics to make your content optimized for search engines will yield 80% of the value possible; embrace it and thousands of visitors seeking exactly what you’ve posted will be the reward.

#4 – Use Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to Share Your Posts & Find New Connections

Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Google+ has nearly 100 million. LinkedIn is over 130 million. Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the “content distributors” description above, meaning they’re likely to help spread the word about your blog.

Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, study, attention to changes by the social sites and consideration in what content to share and how to do it. My advice is to use the following process:

• If you haven’t already, register a personal account and a brand account at each of the following – Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (those links will take you directly to the registration pages for brand pages). For example, my friend Dharmesh has a personal account for Twitter and a brand account for OnStartups (one of his blog projects). He also maintains brand pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.
• Fill out each of those profiles to the fullest possible extent – use photos, write compelling descriptions and make each one as useful and credible as possible. Research shows that profiles with more information have a significant correlation with more successful accounts (and there’s a lot of common sense here, too, given that spammy profiles frequently feature little to no profile work).
• Connect with users on those sites with whom you already share a personal or professional relationships, and start following industry luminaries, influences and connectors. Services like FollowerWonk and FindPeopleonPlus can be incredible for this:

• Start sharing content – your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who’ve impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go “viral” and earn sharing from others.
• Interact with the community – use hash tags, searches and those you follow to find interesting conversations and content and jump in! Social networks are amazing environment for building a brand, familiarizing yourself with a topic and the people around it, and earning the trust of others through high quality, authentic participation and sharing

If you consistently employ a strategy of participation, share great stuff and make a positive, memorable impression on those who see your interactions on these sites, your followers and fans will grow and your ability to drive traffic back to your blog by sharing content will be tremendous. For many bloggers, social media is the single largest source of traffic, particularly in the early months after launch, when SEO is a less consistent driver.

#5 – Install Analytics and Pay Attention to the Results

At the very least, I’d recommend most bloggers install Google Analytics (which is free), and watch to see where visits originate, which sources drive quality traffic and what others might be saying about you and your content when they link over. If you want to get more advanced, check out this post on 18 Steps to Successful Metrics and Marketing.

Here’s a screenshot from the analytics of the travel blog, the Everywhereist:

As you can see, there’s all sorts of great insights to be gleaned by looking at where visits originate, analyzing how they were earned and trying to repeat the successes, focus on the high quality and high traffic sources and put less effort into marketing paths that may not be effective. In this example, it’s pretty clear that Facebook and Twitter are both excellent channels. StumbleUpon sends a lot of traffic, but they don’t stay very long (averaging only 36 seconds vs. the general average of 4 minutes!).

Employing analytics is critical to knowing where you’re succeeding, and where you have more opportunity. Don’t ignore it, or you’ll be doomed to never learn from mistakes or execute on potential.

#6 – Add Graphics, Photos and Illustrations (with link-back licensing)

If you’re someone who can produce graphics, take photos, illustrate or even just create funny doodles in MS Paint, you should leverage that talent on your blog. By uploading and hosting images (or using a third-party service like Flickr to embed your images with licensing requirements on that site), you create another traffic source for yourself via Image Search, and often massively improve the engagement and enjoyment of your visitors.

When using images, I highly recommend creating a way for others to use them on their own sites legally and with permission, but in such a way that benefits you as the content creator. For example, you could have a consistent notice under your images indicating that re-using is fine, but that those who do should link back to this post. You can also post that as a sidebar link, include it in your terms of use, or note it however you think will get the most adoption.

Some people will use your images without linking back, which sucks. However, you can find them by employing the Image Search function of “similar images,” shown below:

Clicking the “similar” link on any given image will show you other images that Google thinks look alike, which can often uncover new sources of traffic. Just reach out and ask if you can get a link, nicely. Much of the time, you’ll not only get your link, but make a valuable contact or new friend, too!

#7 – Conduct Keyword Research While Writing Your Posts

Not surprisingly, a big part of showing up in search engines is targeting the terms and phrases your audience are actually typing into a search engine. It’s hard to know what these words will be unless you do some research, and luckily, there’s a free tool from Google to help called the AdWords Keyword Tool.

Type some words at the top, hit search and AdWords will show you phrases that match the intent and/or terms you’ve employed. There’s lots to play around with here, but watch out in particular for the “match types” options I’ve highlighted below:

When you choose “exact match” AdWords will show you only the quantity of searches estimated for that precise phrase. If you use broad match, they’ll include any search phrases that use related/similar words in a pattern they think could have overlap with your keyword intent (which can get pretty darn broad). “Phrase match” will give you only those phrases that include the word or words in your search – still fairly wide-ranging, but between “exact” and “broad.”

When you’re writing a blog post, keyword research is best utilized for the title and headline of the post. For example, if I wanted to write a post here on Moz about how to generate good ideas for bloggers, I might craft something that uses the phrase “blog post ideas” or “blogging ideas” near the front of my title and headline, as in “Blog Post Ideas for When You’re Truly Stuck,” or “Blogging Ideas that Will Help You Clear Writer’s Block.”

Optimizing a post to target a specific keyword isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds. 80% of the value comes from merely using the phrase effectively in the title of the blog post, and writing high quality content about the subject.

#8 – Frequently Reference Your Own Posts and Those of Others

The web was not made for static, text-only content! Readers appreciate links, as do other bloggers, site owners and even search engines. When you reference your own material in-context and in a way that’s not manipulative (watch out for over-optimizing by linking to a category, post or page every time a phrase is used – this is almost certainly discounted by search engines and looks terrible to those who want to read your posts), you potentially draw visitors to your other content AND give search engines a nice signal about those previous posts.

Perhaps even more valuable is referencing the content of others. The biblical expression “give and ye shall receive,” perfectly applies on the web. Other site owners will often receive Google Alerts or look through their incoming referrers (as I showed above in tip #5) to see who’s talking about them and what they’re saying. Linking out is a direct line to earning links, social mentions, friendly emails and new relationships with those you reference. In its early days, this tactic was one of the best ways we earned recognition and traffic with the SEOmoz blog and the power continues to this day.

#9 – Participate in Social Sharing Communities Like Reddit + StumbleUpon

The major social networking sites aren’t alone in their power to send traffic to a blog. Social community sites like Reddit (which now receives more than 2 billion! with a “B”! views each month), StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Care2 (for nonprofits and causes), GoodReads (books), Ravelry (knitting), Newsvine (news/politics) and many, many more (Wikipedia maintains a decent, though not comprehensive list here).

Each of these sites have different rules, formats and ways of participating and sharing content. As with participation in blog or forum communities described above in tactic #2, you need to add value to these communities to see value back. Simply drive-by spamming or leaving your link won’t get you very far, and could even cause a backlash. Instead, learn the ropes, engage authentically and you’ll find that fans, links and traffic can develop.

These communities are also excellent sources of inspiration for posts on your blog. By observing what performs well and earns recognition, you can tailor your content to meet those guidelines and reap the rewards in visits and awareness. My top recommendation for most bloggers is to at least check whether there’s an appropriate subreddit in which you should be participating. Subreddits and their search function can help with that.

#10 – Guest Blog (and Accept the Guest Posts of Others)

When you’re first starting out, it can be tough to convince other bloggers to allow you to post on their sites OR have an audience large enough to inspire others to want to contribute to your site. This is when friends and professional connections are critical. When you don’t have a compelling marketing message, leverage your relationships – find the folks who know you, like you and trust you and ask those who have blog to let you take a shot at authoring something, then ask them to return the favor.

Guest blogging is a fantastic way to spread your brand to new folks who’ve never seen your work before, and it can be useful in earning early links and references back to your site, which will drive direct traffic and help your search rankings (diverse, external links are a key part of how search engines rank sites and pages). Several recommendations for those who engage in guest blogging:

• Find sites that have a relevant audience – it sucks to pour your time into writing a post, only to see it fizzle because the readers weren’t interested. Spend a bit more time researching the posts that succeed on your target site, the makeup of the audience, what types of comments they leave and you’ll earn a much higher return with each post.
• Don’t be discouraged if you ask and get a “no” or a “no response.” As your profile grows in your niche, you’ll have more opportunities, requests and an easier time getting a “yes,” so don’t take early rejections too hard and watch out – in many marketing practices, persistence pays, but pestering a blogger to write for them is not one of these (and may get your email address permanently banned from their inbox).
• When pitching your guest post make it as easy as possible for the other party. When requesting to post, have a phenomenal piece of writing all set to publish that’s never been shared before and give them the ability to read it. These requests get far more “yes” replies than asking for the chance to write with no evidence of what you’ll contribute. At the very least, make an outline and write a title + snippet.
• Likewise, when requesting a contribution, especially from someone with a significant industry profile, asking for a very specific piece of writing is much easier than getting them to write an entire piece from scratch of their own design. You should also present statistics that highlight the value of posting on your site – traffic data, social followers, RSS subscribers, etc. can all be very persuasive to a skeptical writer.

A great tool for frequent guest bloggers is Ann Smarty’s MyBlogGuest, which offers the ability to connect writers with those seeking guest contributions (and the reverse).

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are also great places to find guest blogging opportunities. In particular, check out the profiles of those you’re connected with to see if they run blogs of their own that might be a good fit. Google’s Blog Search function and Google Reader’s Search are also solid tools for discovery.

#11 – Incorporate Great Design Into Your Site

The power of beautiful, usable, professional design can’t be overstated. When readers look at a blog, the first thing they judge is how it “feels” from a design and UX perspective. Sites that use default templates or have horrifying, 1990′s design will receive less trust, a lower time-on-page, fewer pages per visit and a lower likelihood of being shared. Those that feature stunning design that clearly indicates quality work will experience the reverse – and reap amazing benefits.

If you’re looking for a designer to help upgrade the quality of your blog, there’s a few resources I recommend:

• Dribbble – great for finding high quality professional designers
• Forrst – another excellent design profile community
• Behance – featuring galleries from a wide range of visual professionals
• Sortfolio – an awesome tool to ID designers by region, skill and budget
• 99 Designs – a controversial site that provides designs on spec via contests (I have mixed feelings on this one, but many people find it useful, particularly for budget-conscious projects)

This is one area where budgeting a couple thousand dollars (if you can afford it) or even a few hundred (if you’re low on cash) can make a big difference in the traffic, sharing and viral-impact of every post you write.

#12 – Interact on Other Blogs’ Comments

As bloggers, we see a lot of comments. Many are spam, only a few add real value, and even fewer are truly fascinating and remarkable. If you can be in this final category consistently, in ways that make a blogger sit up and think “man, I wish that person commented here more often!” you can achieve great things for your own site’s visibility through participation in the comments of other blogs.

Combine the tools presented in #10 (particularly Google Reader/Blog Search) and #4 (especially FollowerWonk) for discovery. The feed subscriber counts in Google Reader can be particularly helpful for identifying good blogs for participation. Then apply the principles of comment marketing.

Do be conscious of the name you use when commenting and the URL(s) you point back to. Consistency matters, particularly on naming, and linking to internal pages or using a name that’s clearly made for keyword-spamming rather than true conversation will kill your efforts before they begin.

#13 – Participate in Q+A Sites

Every day, thousands of people ask questions on the web. Popular services like Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com, Quora, StackExchange, Formspring and more serve those hungry for information whose web searches couldn’t track down the responses they needed.

The best strategy I’ve seen for engaging on Q+A sites isn’t to answer every question that comes along, but rather, to strategically provide high value to a Q+A community by engaging in those places where:

• The question quality is high, and responses thus far have been thin
• The question receives high visibility (either by ranking well for search queries, being featured on the site or getting social traffic/referrals). Most of the Q+A sites will show some stats around the traffic of a question
• The question is something you can answer in a way that provides remarkable value to anyone who’s curious and drops by

I also find great value in answering a few questions in-depth by producing an actual blog post to tackle them, then linking back. This is also a way I personally find blog post topics – if people are interested in the answer on a Q+A site, chances are good that lots of folks would want to read it on my blog, too!

Just be authentic in your answer, particularly if you’re linking. If you’d like to see some examples, I answer a lot of questions at Quora, frequently include relevant links, but am rarely accused of spamming or link dropping because it’s clearly about providing relevant value, not just getting a link for SEO (links on most user-contributed sites are “nofollow” anyway, meaning they shouldn’t pass search-engine value). There’s a dangerous line to walk here, but if you do so with tact and candor, you can earn a great audience from your participation.

#14 – Enable Subscriptions via Feed + Email (and track them!)

If someone drops by your site, has a good experience and thinks “I should come back here and check this out again when they have more posts,” chances are pretty high (I’d estimate 90%+) that you’ll never see them again. That sucks! It shouldn’t be the case, but we have busy lives and the Internet’s filled with animated gifs of cats.

In order to pull back some of these would-be fans, I highly recommend creating an RSS feed using Feedburner and putting visible buttons on the sidebar, top or bottom of your blog posts encouraging those who enjoy your content to sign up (either via feed, or via email, both of which are popular options).

If you’re using WordPress, there’s some easy plugins for this, too.

Once you’ve set things up, visit every few weeks and check on your subscribers – are they clicking on posts? If so, which ones? Learning what plays well for those who subscribe to your content can help make you a better blogger, and earn more visits from RSS, too.

#15 – Attend and Host Events

Despite the immense power of the web to connect us all regardless of geography, in-person meetings are still remarkably useful for bloggers seeking to grow their traffic and influence. The people you meet and connect with in real-world settings are far more likely to naturally lead to discussions about your blog and ways you can help each other. This yields guest posts, links, tweets, shares, blogroll inclusion and general business development like nothing else.

I’m a big advocate of Lanyrd, an event directory service that connects with your social networks to see who among your contacts will be at which events in which geographies. This can be phenomenally useful for identifying which meetups, conferences or gatherings are worth attending (and who you can carpool with).

The founder of Lanyrd also contributed this great answer on Quora about other search engines/directories for events (which makes me like them even more).

#16 – Use Your Email Connections (and Signature) to Promote Your Blog

As a blogger, you’re likely to be sending a lot of email out to others who use the web and have the power to help spread your work. Make sure you’re not ignoring email as a channel, one-to-one though it may be. When given an opportunity in a conversation that’s relevant, feel free to bring up your blog, a specific post or a topic you’ve written about. I find myself using blogging as a way to scalably answer questions – if I receive the same question many times, I’ll try to make a blog post that answers it so I can simply link to that in the future.

I also like to use my email signature to promote the content I share online. If I was really sharp, I’d do link tracking using a service like Bit.ly so I could see how many clicks email footers really earn. I suspect it’s not high, but it’s also not 0.

#17 – Survey Your Readers

Web surveys are easy to run and often produce high engagement and great topics for conversation. If there’s a subject or discussion that’s particularly contested, or where you suspect showing the distribution of beliefs, usage or opinions can be revealing, check out a tool like SurveyMonkey (they have a small free version) or PollDaddy. Google Docs also offers a survey tool that’s totally free, but not yet great in my view.

#18 – Add Value to a Popular Conversation

Numerous niches in the blogosphere have a few “big sites” where key issues arise, get discussed and spawn conversations on other blogs and sites. Getting into the fray can be a great way to present your point-of-view, earn attention from those interested in the discussion and potentially get links and traffic from the industry leaders as part of the process.

You can see me trying this out with Fred Wilson’s AVC blog last year (an incredibly popular and well-respected blog in the VC world). Fred wrote a post about Marketing that I disagreed with strongly and publicly and a day later, he wrote a follow-up where he included a graphic I made AND a link to my post.

If you’re seeking sources to find these “popular conversations,” Alltop, Topsy, Techmeme (in the tech world) and their sister sites MediaGazer, Memeorandum and WeSmirch, as well as PopURLs can all be useful.

#19 – Aggregate the Best of Your Niche

Bloggers, publishers and site owners of every variety in the web world love and hate to be compared and ranked against one another. It incites endless intrigue, discussion, methodology arguments and competitive behavior – but, it’s amazing for earning attention. When a blogger publishes a list of “the best X” or “the top X” in their field, most everyone who’s ranked highly praises the list, shares it and links to it. Here’s an example from the world of marketing itself:

That’s a screenshot of the AdAge Power 150, a list that’s been maintained for years in the marketing world and receives an endless amount of discussion by those listed (and not listed). For example, why is SEOmoz’s Twitter score only a “13″ when we have so many more followers, interactions and retweets than many of those with higher scores? Who knows. But I know it’s good for AdAge.

Now, obviously, I would encourage anyone building something like this to be as transparent, accurate and authentic as possible. A high quality resource that lists a “best and brightest” in your niche – be they blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, individual posts, people, conferences or whatever else you can think to rank – is an excellent piece of content for earning traffic and becoming a known quantity in your field.

Oh, and once you do produce it – make sure to let those featured know they’ve been listed. Tweeting at them with a link is a good way to do this, but if you have email addresses, by all means, reach out. It can often be the start of a great relationship!

#20 – Connect Your Web Profiles and Content to Your Blog

Many of you likely have profiles on services like YouTube, Slideshare, Yahoo!, DeviantArt and dozens of other social and Web 1.0 sites. You might be uploading content to Flickr, to Facebook, to Picasa or even something more esoteric like Prezi. Whatever you’re producing on the web and wherever you’re doing it, tie it back to your blog.

Including your blog’s link on your actual profile pages is among the most obvious, but it’s also incredibly valuable. On any service where interaction takes place, those interested in who you are and what you have to share will follow those links, and if they lead back to your blog, they become opportunities for capturing a loyal visitor or earning a share (or both!). But don’t just do this with profiles – do it with content, too! If you’ve created a video for YouTube, make your blog’s URL appear at the start or end of the video. Include it in the description of the video and on the uploading profile’s page. If you’re sharing photos on any of the dozens of photo services, use a watermark or even just some text with your domain name so interested users can find you.

If you’re having trouble finding and updating all those old profiles (or figuring out where you might want to create/share some new ones), KnowEm is a great tool for discovering your own profiles (by searching for your name or pseudonyms you’ve used) and claiming profiles on sites you may not yet have participated in.

I’d also strongly recommend leveraging Google’s relatively new protocol for rel=author. AJ Kohn wrote a great post on how to set it up, and Yoast has another good one on building it into WordPress sites. The benefit for bloggers who do build large enough audiences to gain Google’s trust is earning your profile photo next to all the content you author – a powerful markup advantage that likely drives extra clicks from the search results and creates great, memorable branding, too.

#21 – Uncover the Links of Your Fellow Bloggers (and Nab ‘em!)

If other blogs in your niche have earned references from sites around the web, there’s a decent chance that they’ll link to you as well. Conducting competitive link research can also show you what content from your competition has performed well and the strategies they may be using to market their work. To uncover these links, you’ll need to use some tools.

OpenSiteExplorer is my favorite, but I’m biased (it’s made by Moz). However, it is free to use – if you create a registered account here, you can get unlimited use of the tool showing up to 1,000 links per page or site in perpetuity.

There are other good tools for link research as well, including Blekko, Majestic, Ahrefs and, I’ve heard that in the near-future, SearchMetrics.

Finding a link is great, but it’s through the exhaustive research of looking through dozens or hundreds that you can identify patterns and strategies. You’re also likely to find a lot of guest blogging opportunities and other chances for outreach. If you maintain a great persona and brand in your niche, your ability to earn these will rise dramatically.

Bonus #22 – Be Consistent and Don’t Give Up

If there’s one piece of advice I wish I could share with every blogger, it’s this:

The above image comes from Everywhereist’s analytics. Geraldine could have given up 18 months into her daily blogging. After all, she was putting in 3-5 hours each day writing content, taking photos, visiting sites, coming up with topics, trying to guest blog and grow her Twitter followers and never doing any SEO (don’t ask, it’s a running joke between us). And then, almost two years after her blog began, and more than 500 posts in, things finally got going. She got some nice guest blogging gigs, had some posts of hers go “hot” in the social sphere, earned mentions on some bigger sites, then got really big press from Time’s Best Blogs of 2011.

I’d guess there’s hundreds of new bloggers on the web each day who have all the opportunity Geraldine had, but after months (maybe only weeks) of slogging away, they give up.

When I started the SEOmoz blog in 2004, I had some advantages (mostly a good deal of marketing and SEO knowledge), but it was nearly 2 years before the blog could be called anything like a success. Earning traffic isn’t rocket science, but it does take time, perseverance and consistency. Don’t give up. Stick to your schedule. Remember that everyone has a few posts that suck, and it’s only by writing and publishing those sucky posts that you get into the habit necessary to eventually transform your blog into something remarkable.

Good luck and good blogging.

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21 Strategies to Build Your Blog is a featured guest post from Randfish at SEOmoz and is reprinted with permission. As I read through this article I saw many openings for my own blog, and, I would imagine – yours. Let’s go to it

- Paul Barrs

Fact # 1: Comment posting for getting backlinks WORKS. Period. You just have to be careful on how you proceed with it. Read below for instructions.

[Side Note: Even though, without doubt the EASIEST WAY to do this is with auto-posting 'blog commenting' software, I have to point out that I DO NOT USE such programs and hate them with a passion. I believe in offering QUALITY at all points in your business, never spam crap. However, I know that some people are still going to do this so you may as well know the "rules" to help you get by.]

Fact # 2: Comments that are not related 100% to the content of a blog post are always considered to be spam. So please please, PLEASE only target related blogs to your niche or industry.

Fact # 3: Even then when you post comments to various blogs online IN MASS then *SOME* of the comments will STAY there and won’t be deleted. Why? Because it’s the name of the game. There are blogs that have been created for allowing such posts only for giving the impression of high traffic to search engines.

Fact # 4: NEVER (repeat NEVER) use a link that will direct people to YOUR SITE in a direct way (especially never to your money site). Why? Because IF there is always a chance that your site will be marked as a spam blog then it will never get it’s link juice again and the whole process won’t work at all.

What to do instead: Create a virtual property instead; create a lens at Squidoo.com or a blog at wordpress.com with a targeted unique article that has a strong call to action back to your site and then link that *to* your main site, blog, money site etc. Then use THAT ‘virtual’ address when posting comments in mass.

Fact # 5: EVER (repeat NEVER) use your primary email address for automated blog commenting as well. Some anti “comment spam” plugins will track and ban you by email address, which means if your main email address gets canned you won’t even be able to post a legitimate comment on a blog that you like.

In conclusion:

Understand this fact… auto-blog commenting is SPAM. No ifs, no buts, no exceptions. When ever you post a comment via some auto-posting software and you haven’t taken the time to read the post and post something useful about it – this is spam.

My best advice is that you choose half a dozen good traffic blogs and post comments regularly to them. Interact with other commenters and interact with the owners. The kind of quality traffic this will bring you is far more profitable than the random traffic generated through some virtual link posted randomly on tens of thousands of most likely unrelated and seriously low-traffic blogs. Screw the “link juice”.. always look to good quality referral traffic if you want to make money selling products and building a long-term profitable online business.

Paul Barrs

PS. I’d love to hear *your* comments on this topic