This week on the Affiliate Thing show at WebmasterRadio.FM, we welcomed President and General Counsel of Media Breakaway Steven Richter, and discussed the ringtone issues recently experienced by CPA Empire (a division of Media Breakaway), how they dealt with the offending affiliate, their future with ringtones, and more.
Lisa Picarille and I also discussed whether [...]
It looks like the basic blog page has replaced the basic web page. This seems logical because a blog is much easier to set up than an entire web-site, and if you use WordPress almost everything is done for you - except the writing.
The reason I say “almost” is that you can’t just choose a template, start writing, and magically start increasing traffic. The good news is, that with just a few additional add-ons (called Plugins and Widgets) it can start to happen a lot faster.
Here are a few things to consider adding to your blog to increase your chances of success.
A MyBlogLog widget will help you keep track of who is visiting your blog, so you can go back to their blog and leave comments.
Always give excellent value in blog posts, and try to link to a resource (or two). People are more likely to bookmark your page when they need to know where to find a particular resource. Many people now bookmark on del.icio.us, which is a GREAT back link to acquire.
Speaking of del.icio.us, there is a plugin called del.icio.us-Bookmark this! This one allows you to add a “Bookmark this page on del.icio.us” link on your sidebar/ posts/ or wherever.
Another great plugin is “Sociable.” This allows you automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites. There are a lot of sites to choose from (digg, furl, reddit, etc). You can add all of them, or just the ones you want displayed.
Always “ping” after you post to your blog, and be sure to ping Technorati (http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping).
You can add a ping address to Wordpress by going to “Options,” then “Writing Options.”
You can also ping a lot of sites without having to enter them into your WordPress template by going to www.pingoat.com. The reason you want to do this is because pinging a lot of sites from within WordPress can make saving your posts take a long time.
All of these things will help, but you must also do your part. Remain active in the blogging community by posting comments on other blogs, newsgroups, forums, etc. Write articles and submit them to Article Directories (like Ezine Articles and blog carnivals).
Find Widgets Here - The site for plugins is Codex.
Posting at least two times a week, with these additions will help you get your posts out to the world! It’s always nice to know that other people are reading what you’re taking the time to write.