I have found that Ezine Articles has great support. They also give you traffic info – like how many people have read your article or what were the keywords people were typing in to find your article. If you are creating great headlines but don’t include any of your keywords, you may be missing lots of traffic. Your headlines have to grab people and lead them to want more (by going to your site). Ezine Articles also provides you with a widget to install on your website like I have on my right side column. It lists the recent articles that I have written.

At the bottom of each article, there is a place called a Resource Box. In that area, you can send your traffic to your site or opt in page or sales page. One link is best but Ezine Articles allows more. The whole idea is to drive traffic to your site. One article won’t achieve that. You must continue to write articles. The article is just the starting place. After that, you can re-purpose that article into a teleseminar (or audio), video, or short reports.

As a fellow blogger writes, “there’s something that separates the winners from the losers, and it’s the fact that winners are constantly moving towards their goals and taking action.” What’s your next step?

A great looking blog will keep your traffic searching your site. But if they leave, you are forgetting the ‘connection appeal’ on your site. You want people to visit. But you also want them to stay. You want them searching your site and leaving comments. When you make a connection and develop a relationship with a customer, they will give you feedback on your site as well as share your site info to their friends and the world. Sharing is (or as many people know it) the same as word of mouth. That’s the best reference you can possible get.

Getting people to stay on your site is the $64 million dollar question. One recommended step to keep traffic on your site is to have great writing content. We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect. Well, I don’t know about perfect but your writing skills will improve if you work at it. Remember to carry paper or a notebook with you at all times. You never know when you’ll see an idea for your next post. How are you connecting with customers?

What are your goals to grow your list? How can you grow your list? The most common way to get people to sign up on your list is to give them something in exchange for their email address. How do you keep people coming back to your site? You must continue to give them great information. If you bore your clients, they will leave and not come back. You need to grab hold of them and get them to hold on through a wealth of information of great blog posts.

You must know your business and the niche you are in. You are solving their problems by communicating through your blog posts. If you skip over that step of knowing your target market, you might as well skip writing your blog. You need a foundation before you build a house. You need a foundation before your drive traffic to your blog or website. How are you building your list?

You need to improve your writing skills. An old TV program called Dragnet used to have a saying, “just the facts, Ma’am.” I think blogs can start there with the facts about your company. What products do you offer? What services do you provide? But then you need to take it a step further and add a personal aspect. You need to tell stories of how you got into that business in the first place. You need to tell how you helped your customers and solved their problems. Having testimonials on your site can only help your business.

At the mention of ‘writing tips,’ people clam up remembering their high school English teacher. But forget her and move into the present. What do you read online that may be influencing your writing? How does that writing differ from yours? How can you improve your writing? Practice is the short answer. But many people have provided their tips to make you a better writer. I always suggest you start small. Take one idea and use it. When you master it, then you can move on. How has your writing improved over the last year?

The 2 main blogging platforms, as of this date, are Typepad and WordPress. There are differences between the two. When you sign up for Typepad, they will host or house your blog for you. When you sign up for Wordpress, you must find a place to house, or host, your blog. Both can be learned over time or you can hire someone to guide you through the process. Both can be set up within a short amount of time.

I have used Typepad for a few years and I am used to it. I started a Wordpress blog last summer to learn how to use it. I seem to favor Typepad even though there seems to be more plugins for Wordpress. Or maybe more blogs that I subscribe to seem to favor Wordpress. But either way, you must make a decision. The idea of a blog is to get your information out there. So, pick one and just get started. Which blogging platform do you prefer?

Are you boring people and putting them to sleep? Then you need to improve your content through great copy writing. If you have a business blog and are posting about what you had for breakfast or what you did with your kids today, that’s going to get people to leave your site quickly. To make the biggest impact through your blogs, you need to be consistent and educate your readers. Do you post regularly? Do you tell a few secrets of your expertise area? You are in business for a reason.

Show and tell does not have to be just for kids. Tell your customers about your business. Show them your products or services. The more potential customers get to know you, the more they will purchase from you. It refers back to the ‘know, like, and trust’ factor. What are you showing and telling your customers?

Your blog can lead customers. As Adam Singer says in his post,

“More noise increases the value of signal. If your content marketing defines you as that source of signal, you’ll consistently be found, referenced and chosen ahead of competitors.”

In other words, you need to lead the pack. Blog posts are a dime a dozen. Look to see what makes your posts different from the other 900,000 ones out there. Would you like to be the one customers think of when they need answers to their questions? Singer says that 58% of bloggers have become better known within their industry.

Read the 10 tips that are listed on his blog. Take them to heart to see how you can improve your content marketing. Marketing is advertising. You need to let your personality come through your posts by connecting with customers. How do you do that? Read tip #4. What tip is your favorite?

Is your blog or website bringing you traffic? A key to increasing traffic would be a great name like the name of your team or the name of your blog, your domain name. Headlines catch your prospective client and reel them in. But once they get to your site, how are you going to keep them? You need to set a plan of regular posts every week. Take it one day or one week at a time. Don’t give up after the first quarter, or one game. Be consistent. Put into action what is needed to reach your goal whether it is a Superbowl for football or your super blog for your expanding business. Congratulations Saints! How can you be a winner like the Saints?

Process your emails quickly. Don’t leave unread emails in your in-box. Read, or scan, and process it – whether that means to respond to it or delete it. By leaving unread emails in your in-box, it becomes hard to sort out the important ones. That delete key will become your friend. If someone needs a response to an email, do it right then and there. Remember you are scheduling to open and read emails. This will be the only time you should respond to them. If you try and put it off, there is a good change you will forget about it. Scan the subject lines of your emails. There may be keys to show you who you are reading that you shouldn’t be. Those may be your time wasters.

For more great email tips, read Daily Blog Tips. Your time is your most valuable possession. Don’t waste it reading meaningless emails all day long.

When first setting up a blog, you need to focus on your niche. Who is your blog directed toward? What age group? What income? What need? Narrowing down your target audience will target your blog to those who will read it. By targeting your market, bloggers will find your blog and start reading it. Once there, it is up to you to keep them there.

To keep readers on your blog, you need to provide them with great content. What’s the one thing that people keep asking you? Do you have a product or service that is uncommon that people don’t know about? Do you have a common product that everyone sells but you have a unique angle about that product? You can let people know through your blog.

If you wander off and rant and rave about a topic, your readers will wander off, too, and might not come back. Keep great content on your blog and keep it focused. After all, great content will increase the numbers of readers. The more readers mean more traffic. More traffic means more sales. Focus on that. How do you increase traffic?