Search Engine Optimization

You could look into stumbleupon. Not sure how many people use it, though. FriendFeed was catching on for awhile but it seems to have died down.

Crystal Lewis said:

I have written quite a few articles, but the revenue I've earned from them is rather low. I am trying to find ways to increase the amount of traffic to my articles. I am already using Digg, Twitter, Reddit, and my own blog.

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I use StumbleUpon and I find it is great for a big surge of traffic if you build a community of followers.

That said, the title of this thread is Search Engine Optimization and you didn't really touch on what you are already doing to check out your keywords. Are you using the Google Keyword Tool to find related keywords and check search volume? Do you use these keywords a few times in your articles (especially in the titles and subheadings)?

Learning the best way to use keywords in your title, subtitles, headings, and throughout your blog post is the best way to get consistent traffic. I'm not a big fan of Stumble, and I don't use the other methods at all, but my 10 month old "Quips & Tips for Achieving Your Goals" blog sees 1,000-1,5000 page views a day. New visitors is lower than that. I find Stumble to be a source of one-time visits, but not a good source of consistent traffic.

Remember also that it takes time for blogs to get and stay busy! Reader comments, links, and consistent posting all helps blog get more popular.

I've learned a TON from Problogger (just google problogger) -- he's a fulltime blogger, and he's built several successful blogs! His info is amazingly helpful, practical, timely, etc.

One thing he's said that I won't forget easily is that it's hard work -- practically a day job -- to build a busy, popular blog. It takes time, dedication, and constant learning.

Wow, what a downer! Sorry that I don't have an easy answer -- I just don't think there's an easy road to increasing traffic....

Good luck -- and if you find a way to make it a fun challenge, it'll be easier than you think to get thousands of readers per day!

Laurie

Laurie PK said:

Learning the best way to use keywords in your title, subtitles, headings, and throughout your blog post is the best way to get consistent traffic...New visitors is lower than that. I find Stumble to be a source of one-time visits, but not a good source of consistent traffic.

Remember also that it takes time for blogs to get and stay busy! Reader comments, links, and consistent posting all helps blog get more popular.

I've learned a TON from Problogger (just google problogger) -- he's a fulltime blogger, and he's built several successful blogs! His info is amazingly helpful, practical, timely, etc.

One thing he's said that I won't forget easily is that it's hard work -- practically a day job -- to build a busy, popular blog. It takes time, dedication, and constant learning.

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Like Laurie, I'm not a huge Stumble fan. I use it fairly sparingly and find it may give me an occasional one-time bump of one-time visitors. I'm failing to see how it builds much in the way of consistent traffic for me.

I'd echo her ProBlogger endorsement. Very helpful.
(he also has a good digital photography blog that I turned on the photographer in the family to visit).

I haven't figured out a lot of SEO yet, but one thing I've tried to pay attention to lately is the titles of my blog posts. I remember reading (probably on ProBlogger) that cute and clever titles may be less effective that titles that plainly state the subject of your article in driving traffic to your site. I've been trying to get more in the way of words specifying location and specific subject in my titles lately...don't know whether it's helping or not.

Speaking of photos...a lot of my traffic seems to come in through Google images. I'm writing about Midwest travel and include a photo or two with most posts.

I hate digg and stunble. Sorry for the lower case and typos...typing 1 handed.

i have some info on using keywords i can email you. just pm me your email. might be later today or tonight, chasing kids and trying to work, too.


rehotod- totally. relevant pics do up traffic.

google keywords tool helps

using phrases that non writers search for does, too.


i'll add more later for everyone. if you look up different pregnancy terms you will often find my family resource artic,les on 1st google page, so i'm not clueless...but someone else is getting that revenue, darn it

Just a note, Social MEDIA optimization and Search Engine Optimization are two different things. SMO is using social sites to naturally get your articles out there and get traffic. SEO is using keywords, headers, titles, etc stuff within your article to get it ranked higher in search engine results.

If you want your articles to rank well in search engines, you've got to get links to them. It's a misconception that the way to rank well in search engines is to stuff pages full of keywords. That used to work in 1997.

Keyword stuffing is definitely a bad idea. However, in order for your website to appear on a search it has to have some keywords that people are searching for. A blank page with thousands of links to it is not going to appear because there is no content for the search engines to spider. The Google Keyword Tool is helpful because you can find information about search trends, and also find ideas for similar search terms to use instead of repeating the same phrase over and over.

Keyword density still works, it just isnt the only part of the equation as it was in the past.

I just stumbled upon this post during my random browsing (taking a break from Writers Bureau assignment), and I just wanted to thank you all for posting such useful information.

I am not even officially a freelance writer yet (though I have just been accepted for suite101 - yey), but just trying to get things right from beginning to soaking up all the knowledge you guys are putting up here.

Cheers