Great way to get f r ee traffic to your site

[Andy]

Harness the power of Google via Blogger.com which Google bought out. They even give you free advice on how to build traffic. What better way to learn what works than via Google employees 

First of all you actually have to set up a Blog ( http://www.blogger.com), I did it within minutes today. The most important decision to make initially is what your blog will be called since this will be a sub-domain of blogspot.com Ideally it will be a keyword but I decided to use my domain name since I want it to have a strong association to my site, I can use keywords in my topic titles. The blog I set up is: Webmaster Tips - UrgentClick.com Blog I used my domain name and some keywords.

For maximum keyword relevance I suggest you register a blog like keyword1-kerword2.blogspot.com and add the keywords in your site title.

I tried my own blog once but got spammed to death, that's why I went for Blogger.com plus you get the advantages of being integrated into their system for the traffic.

Once you set up a blog, make sure you post your own original content (no matter how bad) otherwise your blog is another source of spam on the web. Remember the search engines will find it even if it is misspelt rubbish 

OK, that will do for now, go set up your blog and practise linking to my site  I will probably link back to you in my blog in a post. Later, I will post how to optimize your blog for maximum traffic to your Blog and web site via your blog.

Go... Harness the free traffic gifted to you by Google blogs.

[Queen Bee]

Interesting...

Sometimes I think I should post my nasty movie reviews on Blogger.com and link it back to my site. I'm not sure if movie reviews would bring in much traffic, but I guess it wouldn't hurt. At least I'd be doing something I enjoy doing any way (Which is ratting on bad movies, obviously!)

At this point, traffic is purposeless for me because I'm not generating any revenue... I need to set up Adsense.

[SensoVision]

I'm reluctant trying to open my own blog yet(mainly because lack of time and that if I wish something to tell I can do it on forums) but I would be curious to see how it would work for you, let us know if you got some nice traffic from it.
Good luck!

[headnucleon]

I have to try it myself to believe this.

[Andy]

Shortly after setting up a blogspot blog I read some negative views saying Google doesn't bother indexing them. Rather than waiting to find out if this is true or not I decided to switch to a Wordpress blog hosted on my own sub domain. I left the original blog spot blog up with a link to my own blog though.

So far this month I got 158 unique visitors to the blog http://blog.urgentclick.com/ and regular spidering. Not great, but shows it gets traffic from the search engines. Only 1 visitor seemed to come from blogspot and 3 from weblamp if I am reading my AWStats correctly.

I only have 12 posts at the moment so in a year's time with many more posts I would expect much more traffic. Another plus point of Wordpress is that it has a very good spam filter http://akismet.com/, in fact it is so good that I may be able to allow direct posting of comments without me approving each one before it is published.

p.s. I recently read of one guy getting 50 of his blogspot blogs wiped with no explanation and no way to get his content back. So this is another reason to host your own blog. When signing up for blogspot, you can specify your own hosting so this may combine the advantages of both methods. But I didn't try this.

[SensoVision]

Andy, what about your blog, is there a way to keep it open for comments to unregistered members and in the same time send notifications to the comments you answered or subscribed? The reason I'm asking is that I forget to check things but e-mail notification would solve the problem.
As for hosting blog yourself is always wise idea, actually as hosting any site you're making on the paid hosting instead of something free, as at least you know what you're stand on and to whom you can address questions if any problems arise...

[Andy]

what about your blog, is there a way to keep it open for comments to unregistered members

I'm using a standard installation of the Wordpress script. I selected the option where anyone can register and post.
Maybe it doesn't have a facility to email about updates. If you subscribe to the RSS feed at the footer of pages, this would take over that task I guess via pull rather than push  At some stage I would like to change the template I'm using to make this sort of thing clearer.

[wannabee]

Hi all .. Here's a good input to this subject

enjoy

How You Can Instantly Tap Into an Unlimited Source of Content, for Free!
By Brad Callen (c) 2005

Are you looking for dynamic, automatically refreshing, sticky
content to spice up your website?

If you are a webmaster, you'll know how difficult it is to
create fresh content to attract your subscribers and new
visitors to your website. Paying freelance writers can cost you
a fortune when you are just starting out and don't have site
revenues to fund expenses, and writing the articles yourself
takes way too much time and takes you away from other important
tasks (like actually running the site and making sales happen).

Luckily, there's a little-known but extremely easy tool that
you can use to instantly jazz up your website and provide your
traffic with valuable information. In fact, you might have heard
of this tool before. Headline syndication, aggregators, XML
format?

Sound familiar? 

Yup, I'm talking about RSS Feeds.

If you haven't heard about RSS Feeds, or what they are, I
strongly urge you to print out this article, go to a quiet
corner where you won't be disturbed and literally devour every
word of the rest of this article. Not only will it probably save
your business, but it will revolutionize the way you think about
the Internet.

And if you've come across RSS feeds before or used them, then
skim through the next section to refresh your memory (seriously,
there is a lot of useful information that you might be missing
out on) and then dive into the meat of this article, which will
show you how to set up RSS feeds on your website to display
dynamic, self-updating content with very little effort.

What Is RSS?

RSS stands for "Rich Site Summary, although other terms such
as "RDF Site Summary" (which emphasizes the file format) and
"Really Simple Syndication" (which highlights the main selling
point of RSS) are also useful in defining RSS by the book.
However, bookish definitions don't always explain things very
well. What really is RSS?

RSS is a platform over which a webmaster can instantly deliver
summarized information about the latest / most important content
on his website. This summary is usually a list of headlines and
snippets – the headline will instantly inform the reader of what
this new article or page contains and the snippet (usually the
first few lines of the article) is to further entice the reader
into visiting the website, or to simply give the reader more
information. RSS has evolved into a commonly accepted XML
standard, and many websites now use RSS Feeds (XML files
containing the summaries) to publish "updates" about themselves.

From the webmaster's point of view, an RSS feed is meant to
allow visitors and subscribers an easy way to keep themselves
abreast of fresh content on their website (without having them
visit the website first). Additionally, an RSS Feed also allows
the reader to "preview" this fresh content, thus letting them
decide immediately if the new article / content is interesting
to them or not. All in all, RSS Feeds have the main purpose of
enhancing user experience.

Keep that last point as we go through the rest of this
article – it is an underlying mindset to making RSS Feeds work
effectively.

Using An RSS Feed

As an Internet entrepreneur, one of your most valuable tools
can be an RSS Reader. This is essentially an aggregator – a
collection of RSS Feeds (that you can add or remove) from
different websites that you are interested in. A typical RSS
Reader would include RSS Feeds from news sites, sports sites,
and perhaps a few niche sites (such as SEO forums, blogs on SEO,
etc.). The main purpose of this software is to keep you informed
of the latest news and content on websites that you are
interested in.

If you have used My Yahoo!(my.yahoo.com) or Bloglines
(www.bloglines.com), you've probably used RSS Feeds already.
These are online RSS aggregators – you get to choose from
numerous websites and within minutes you can have your own
launch-pad for knowing everything that's happening in your
niche, in the world, or in sports.

As a first step to understanding how RSS Feeds work, I'd suggest
that you use at least one RSS Aggregator – either an online RSS
tool or RSS reading software like SharpReader
(www.SharpReader.net) – and subscribe to a few RSS Feeds to
learn how it works from a user's perspective.

Marketing and RSS

Using RSS Feeds, websites can:

• Attract more customers/ visitors.
• Keep subscribers informed of new developments
• Allow subscribers to instantly learn of new articles, content
and products on their website.
• Reduce the load on the subscriber's inbox by reserving
newsletters for important news, special product offers, etc.

As a webmaster, you can use RSS Feeds to your advantage. Since
blogging became insanely popular over two years ago, RSS Feeds
have become mainstream. In other words, no matter what your
niche, there's a good chance that you'll be able to find a few
authority sites that publish RSS Feeds, thus syndicating their
latest headlines.

How can you use this?

By providing your visitors relevant, self-refreshing content
in the shape of the "latest news" by using RSS feeds from
niche-relevant websites.

Now I'm not saying that you should cover your whole website (or
even one whole page) with RSS Feeds. Such practice is frowned
upon by search engines and will actually get your website banned
from every single search engine index! RSS Feeds are meant for
headline syndication, not for content scraping.

Instead, you could use headlines from the top 3 forums in the
weight loss niche to show the latest discussion threads on one
side of the "News" page of your own weight loss website. The
rest of the page would, of course, be covered with information
(i.e. latest news) about your own website.

Or you could put a news ticker on your politics blog to not only
give your blog a look of "being updated" but to also provide your
readers with relevant, useful information.

If you sell sports goods and own an online store, you could run
a "sports news" feed on your main page to attract the attention
of your visitors and give your website a more authentic look and
feel.

There are many different ways you can use RSS Feeds to add value
to your website. Make sure though, that you are merely using
these Feeds as "icing on the cake", and not as the whole cake
itself.


Finding RSS Feeds 

Finding RSS Feeds is easy; there are several RSS-specific
directories and niche search engines for you to browse through.
However, the surge of blogging in the last two years has meant
that any RSS search tool is inundated with blog spam. This makes
it a bit harder to find RSS Feeds that you can actually use.

I've listed a few resources below that can help you get started
in your search for finding relevant RSS Feeds.

• Bloglines (www.bloglines.com)
• BlogPulse (www.blogpulse.com)
• Daypop (www.daypop.com)
• Feedster (www.feedster.com)
• Findory Blogory (findory.com/blogs)
• Gigablast Blog Search (blogs.gigablast.com)
• IceRocket Blog Search (www.icerocket.com/?tab=blog)
• PubSub (www.pubsub.com)
• Technorati (www.technorati.com)

Once you've found the RSS Feeds of your choice, it's time to
find out how to set them up on your website.

Setting up an RSS Feed to Display on your Website

Internet Marketers are a particular breed; we're always looking
for an 'easier" or "quicker" way of doing things; not necessarily
shortcuts, but just ways to work smarter. It's the same with RSS.
When I first came across it, I immediately went to Google and
not only picked out a tool that could help me syndicate my own
website (so I wouldn't have to spend time learning XML), but I
also found several tools that I could use to display RSS Feeds
from other websites onto mine! These tools are ridiculously
simple, and I'd fully suggest that you try them before venturing
into learning how to display RSS Feeds on your webpages through
code.

If your website is in PHP, you can use the following software:

CaRP (www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/)

This software also has a free version, which displays a simple
ad in the middle of the news display saying something like
"these news headlines brought to you by CaRP". Try it out; it's
easy to use, and will teach a lot about managing RSS Feeds.

There are JavaScript alternatives available as well (in case
your website uses plain HTML).

Jawfish (www.geckotribe.com/rss/jawfish/)

Like CaRP, Jawfish also has a free trial, which is once again
easy to setup if you can follow step-by-step instructions.

FeedRoll (www.feedroll.com/rssviewer/)

Another JavaScript alternative is FeedRoll – this is perhaps the
easiest to use of the three mentioned here, but it offers less
flexibility and choice of feeds compared to the others.

Of course, if you want more options (or have ASP or something on
your website), go to your search engine of choice and type in
"How to display RSS Feeds on my website" to get a quick listing
of articles, tutorials and more tools to help you out.

More RSS

RSS is an amazingly versatile platform that can be used from
anything as simple as running a news ticker to something as
topical and time-sensitive as providing weather alerts to
affected areas. In fact, any information that is: 

• regularly updated
• time sensitive
• new

can be a good candidate for an RSS Feed. The key here is to
remember that there are always new uses for information and
technology... it's just a matter of pinning them down.

If you liked the lesson and want to learn more about SEO, visit
http://www.seoelite.com/7DaysToMassiveWebsiteTraffic.htm and get
your free copy of "7 Days To Massive Website Traffic!" right
now!

Brad Callen
SEO Elite
http://www.seoelite.com

===================>
Brad Callen has been working online as a professional SEO and
Internet Marketer for several years. He began online in the
weight loss/fitness industry and achieved great success using
advanced SEO techniques that he had taught himself. However, SEO
was too time-consuming for Brad's expanding business, so he took
what he had learned about SEO and created SEO Elite, a software
tool that automates and manages the SEO process (www.seoelite.com)
===========================>

[Andy]

From the article:

There are many different ways you can use RSS Feeds to add value
to your website. Make sure though, that you are merely using
these Feeds as "icing on the cake", and not as the whole cake
itself.

This is a key point!  RSS feeds are a way to insert snippets of content into your site with links to full articles. So if your page consists mainly of an RSS feed, then most people will click away from your site.

This topic was the about doing the opposite, i.e. building the content that may power an RSS feed.

Check out a previous thread on RSS feeds:
http://forum.weblamp.net/index.php/topic,3732.msg18838.html#msg18838

[wannabee]

  Hi all ... strange in-it for a while now I realised I needed to get into
blogs and this rss stuff so that's mainly what I was combing this forum and
a couple of others for that kind of insight ... then with interacting with this
thread one thing has lead to another Now that journey has led me to this
blog google search engine ( which I never even thought of before ) only to
have a better valuable source of easy understandable RE- Searched inside
information a really C L  idea I want to share with this thread!! .. so now
not only will I stick to using only google search I will also check with google blog
blogs search for more user friendly written by likeminded individuals
 ...  oh the power of a good forum ....   

http://blogsearch.google.com/

http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html

Demo result below .... till next time  think about your winning blog

Phillip Skinner

 Sorted by relevance    Sort by date
Get your RSS feeds delivered via e-mail15 hours ago by BobR 
But this is also an interesting idea for those who don't have too many RSS
feeds, and need a way to keep from spending the whole day checking their feeds.
It's pretty addictive and fun to do that, but we all need to put limits on ...
mobileread Networks - http://www.mobileread.com


11 Practical Uses for RSS in Business8 hours ago by billenross 
Almost ANY web based content can be transformed into an RSS feed. ... Set up
a page where you regularly add your thoughts on all sorts of issues - or ...
Set up several topics and you've got several new RSS feeds to attract even more ...
Business Internet - Internet Marketing... - http://WWW.BILLENROSS.COM/


The Best Free RSS Reader(s)11 hours ago by méprisant 
There are a lot of RSS (Really Simple Syndication, for the uninitated) readers
available, most free, ... This post is not an all encompassing review of every
news aggregator. ... It crashed once while updating all the feeds (72 feeds). ...
méprisant - http://meprisant2.blogspot.com


The Problem With Feed Readers10 hours ago by Raj 
During a regular maintenance check of some of my feeds, I noticed something that
surprised me. ... Since all feeds are built from the content of your articles,
... Technorati Tags: rsscases, rss cases, rss feeds, feed promotion, ...
RSS Cases - From Technology to Praxis - http://rsscases.marketingstudies.net/


Review of Goowy, a Flash and Ajax desktop suite12 hours ago
The mail tree, auto complete features and all the navigation is pure Flash. ...
You can track your favorite RSS feeds using the newsreader or keep track of ...
to perfect the user experience, which is what Flash is really all about. ...
Read/writeweb - http://www.readwriteweb.com/


Movie Marketing Madness: V For Vendetta13 hours ago by Chris Thilk 
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, DC's Crisis - all of them passed me by. ...
I want to go back the RSS issue once more before I finish up. ... been turned
into podcasts and their video equivalent by publishing them through RSS feeds. ...
Movie Marketing Madness - http://moviemarketingmadness.blogspot.com


Blogs and the Readers who Love Them* Part One10 hours ago by Jennette 
RSS Feeds (or Atom feeds). I use Bloglines to keep track of my blogs. I follow
several dozen, so going to each one individually just isn’t practical. Bloglines sees
which blogs have been updated since my last visit and collects them all ...
Jennette-ic Musings - http://jenmariepowell.blogspot.com


Combining Ajax and XSLT in Skinnerbox14 hours ago by Chris Cornutt 
... XSLT with Ajax to create a “skinning” site for prettying-up blog RSS feeds.
... project to generate XSLT templates for RSS feeds, called “Skinnerbox“. ...
You can get all of the details on this sample application from it’s Wiki page.
Ajaxian - http://ajaxian.com


Bitty Browser adds that little something to web sites15 hours ago
... your site from remote web sites/services, RSS feeds, podcasts, and OPML files.
... virtually all web browsers and has some nice shortcuts to view feeds, ...
Bitty can open just about anything, from regular Web sites to RSS feeds and ...
iampowered - http://www.iampowered.com/


PR, blogging: new new thing, changing the world forever, new ...15 hours ago by renaissance chambara 
These are all areas that a PR consultant can provide valuable input on ...
Whilst journalists like Charles Arthur talk about wanting to migrate to RSS feeds,
... of interest from a company whose RSS feeds they hadn't subscribed to yet? ...
renaissance chambara - http://renaissancechambara.blogspot.com

[Andy]

Hi Wannabee,

it seems like you are getting turned on by the idea of starting a Blog 

Get results like this:



Using a free tool like Wordpress you get people syndicating your rss feeds and all the content-hungry sites on the planet scrambling for your content 

Content is king, especially when it's your own unique content  Feed the hungry 

[wannabee]

So ... up to this point we have all the info on Blogs and RSS Feeds.
then all we need is content rich articles ... well no need to pick up a pen
 if you don't feel like it ... guess what ... already done and that's free to

http://submityourarticle.com/articles/

Hi Phillip

Please accept the following article for possible
publication in 'money24seven',
or wherever you feel may be appropriate.

Title: How to repair computer errors
Word Count: 582
Author: Michael Cottier
EasyPublish: http://submityourarticle.com/articles/easypublish.php?art_id=5275

It is preformatted to 60 CPL.

You have permission to publish this article electronically
or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated - send to michaelcottier@insightbb.com.


Best regards

Michael Cottier
http://www.computer-customizing-guide.com/

All in one Forum ....
Enjoy your research ... I did ...
Phillip Wannabee a Willbee 

[Andy]

Phillip,

here on Webmaster Key forums we like to build relationships.

So why don't you loosen up a little and tell us what your strategy is?

Seems like you are trying to force things.

Are you running an article submission site?

[wannabee]

Hi All .. It's ok Andy I'm not trying to steal your thunder only adding
a little noise in the way of some researched knowledge  ... Just by following
and interacting within  this thread has given me an inspirational flash I'm
going to start a new thread off with these thoughts  ... Hope all goes well for you

Have a Winners Day m8
Phillip