As we wrap up the end of the year I wanted to take a short look back. I have been blogging for over 4 years now but always for fun and never for success ( I really don’t think people wanted to read my blog about my holiday parties and what I thought about people I knew ) that blog was mostly for my friends, and can be found on my myspace page http://www.myspace.com/rapsmear.

Over the past two years however I have started 2 websites and 3 blogs.
My Websites are:
SwimUniversity.com
PoolPuppy.com

My Blogs are:
DIYPoolCare.com (which is the old SwimUniversity.com Blog I just changed over)
ArrestedDevelopmentblog.com
TheOvernightSite.com (which you’re reading)

These sites are all currently unsuccessful but I’m working on it. It’s a slow process, which brings me to my main focus, the biggest and best traffic tips I’ve learned this year:

It’s a Slow Process

Extremely slow! Which sucks cause I’m one of those folks who needs instant gratification. I have actually recorded a full length album overnight because I wanted it done. But my advice is to stick to it as best you can, it will pay off.

Write Good Content

Really? I didn’t know that? I thought I should write really crappy content that no one will want to read.
I know that’s what you’re thinking because every time I read that tip it’s the same explanation. Well I say “No Shit”, pardon my french.

Get Links!

If there is any tip that is worth mentioning over and over and over again until your brain can think of nothing but link building then so be it. I want you to eat, sleep and dream about building links to your site. You want to be #1, you want to have a successful website, then build links. Think of it as an obsessive collection. The more you have the better you are, the richer you are. Here are some ways to get thinks:

1. Submit to directories (easy and it still works but who knows for how long)

2. Comment on related blogs to your website or blog (comment more on the ones where you can leave your URL)

3. User Twitter, it’s the easiest way to ask for link exchanges. Just say “Hey would anyone like to exchange links.” I usually get at least one every time I do it. Actually I’m going to do it right now as I’m thinking about it.

4. Actually just Tweeting your link gets you links

5. Take the articles or blog posts from your site, re-word them and change the title and send them to ezinearticles.com and add your link at the bottom. This works like gangbusters!

Get on Twitter

If it wasn’t for Twitter this year, I would have no readers. The sole reason my blogs have any following is because I have a following on Twitter.
For example I have a blog about the show Arrested Development. I started a Twitter account called TheBluths and I signed up for TweetBeep.com. Now every time somebody on Twitter mentions “Arrested Development” I get an email and then I follow that person. Then that person sees me as TheBluths and naturally wants to follow me back. Then that person sees that I provide information on the show and joins my blog. Awesome.

So these are the biggest tips I have learned this year. Seriously this is all I do to get traffic to my websites. Please share your biggest web traffic tips that you learned in the following comments. Happy Holidays!

If you look at my traffic you’ll see that Entrecard is responsible for the majority of the visits my blog gets, so naturally you’d think that I am a huge fan of the service… well you’d be half right.

Entrecard has seen it’s fair share of praises and criticism but as time goes on the arguments seem to be piling up on the negative side. For those who are new to Entrecard, this post aims to introduce you to the service and explain some of the advantages and pitfalls you should be aware of.

What is Entrecard?

The basic premise of the system is this; you install the Entrecard widget on your blog, usually in the sidebar and the widget will display a 125 x 125 ad. Other Entrecard users can ‘drop’ on your widget which will give both you and the dropper 1 Entrecard credit (or EC). You can also go around ‘dropping’ on other blog’s widgets (earning up to 300 EC per day). Once you have accumulated enough credits, you can spend them to have your 125 x 125 image appear on another blog’s widget for a day at a time. The whole thing is simple to set up and easy to use, you’ll be up and running in no time.

The idea is that traffic is generated not only from other blogger’s coming to your site to drop on your widget but also from the readers of other blogs clicking on your 125 x 125 ads. This idea is great in theory but in practice it’s not without it’s problems, when it comes to Entrecard there is both good and bad news.

You Will Get Traffic

This is the good news. Just having the widget present is going to get you some hits, maybe not thousands but traffic you didn’t have before. If you actively drop and advertise then the amount of traffic you’ll get will increase, you can count on that. Still we’re not talking about thousands here (for most blogs) but if you use the service right, getting 100+ visitors a day from Entrecard is possible.

So what about the bad news? Much of the criticism aimed at Entrecard revolves around the actual quality of the traffic rather than the quantity. The fact is that a lot of the traffic you get through Entrecard only come to your site for one reason, to drop & run. This leads to high bounce rates and low conversions, hit & run droppers don’t stick around to read your posts, let alone comment or subscribe.

Is It All Bad?

No, some of the traffic is genuine. If your content is at all interesting then you should get at least some passing comments, maybe even some subscribers. It’s really up to you if the effort in earning credits is worth the results you get but there are some things you can do to improve the situation.

The thing about droppers is that you already know what they want and where their attention will be. I’ve had some success gaining subscribers by giving away EC because it’s much more tempting to win a few thousand EC than dropping for them. Also, by placing things around the widget that you want to draw attention to, you can increase the probability that droppers will be enticed by them.

Is It Worth It?

For new and developing blogs, I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. The amount of effort you put into it is up to you and while you do get more out of Entrecard the more you put in, the return may not be worth the investment. Personally I still display the widget on my blog but I don’t spend much time dropping to earn EC anymore.

However, once your blog is gaining enough traffic from other sources then Entercard might be not worth the effort and eventually it isn’t going to be worth the space it occupies either. These are things you’ll need to address once you’re blog reaches a decent level of traffic though, so you can cross that bridge when you get to it.

To Conclude…

Yes Entrecard will bring you traffic and some of it will be genuine. The rest of it is largely hit & run traffic which you’ll need to get creative with if you want to make them stick around. If you’ve got the space for it out then it’s worth trying out.

1. Redirect 404 Page
2. Use Header Tags <h1>, <h2>, <h3>
3. Make your links the color blue, so that visitors know that it’s a link
4. Use CSS, for site wide customization and website speed
5. Use short meta data. Every page has to have a title, about 5 Keywords and a brief description
6. Use Google Analytics to track visitors on your website. It’s free.
7. Start a blog using wordpress (it’s the most SEO-Friendly)
8. Use a robot.txt to blog google from going into useless folders on your server.
9. Create an xml sitemap and submit it to Google’s Webmaster Tools.
10. Use large text.
11. Create great content. Content is King!
12. Twitter!!!!
13. Sign up for Stumble Upon
14. Sign Up for Delcious
15. Use flash animation sparingly. Google doesn’t read flash…yet.
16.Choose an easy to spell domain name
17. Get a .com screen name. All the others in my opiniion are worthless.
18. Be consistent in your design across all your pages.
19. Use alt tags on all your images.
20. Check your spelling
21. Create an about us page
22. make sure your webpage works on every browser.
23. Do not play music on your site. If you do make sure it’s the users choice to play it
24. Stay away from intro pages.
25. Add Search function to your website
26. Animated Gifs are tacky, don’t use them
27. Intralink within your website. If there is relevant content related to a page, link it
28. Less images = Faster load times
29. make sure every page has a different page title, keywords and description to match the content
30. Have someone else proofread your work
31. Do not submit to crappy directories that mean nothing
32. Review your website every week and make changes

That also brings me to my other site which is called SwimUniversity.com. I think with this site I am going to have to get rid of all my meta tags and alt tags that have to do with a University. I do not run a college, I run a swimming pool care website, but I can see where Google can get confused and not give me the ranking my websites deserved. So again thank you for the tip @yuyudin. What a big help she was today. See this is how Twitter can impact your life.

“I just cannot get my page rank up, what’s with me. It’s taking forever.”

@yuyudin responded to me with some really helpful tips on trying to get my page rank up. She mentioned at one point that page rank was overrated but still helped me out anyway. Here are some of the tips she gave me about this site.

Increasing Your Google Page rank Tips
- If you are using WordPress to host your blog make sure you create different more specific link categories. Which I implemented. She mentioned to split it into categories like SEO Tips and so forth. You can see how I did it on the right hand side of this site.

- If you have articles on your website or blog posts, you should like to other posts in your blog or website that are relevant. So for instance on SwimUniversity.com I have a blog post about Killing Swimming Pool Algae. In that post I mention that one way of killing algae is by using pool shock. I have another article called The Right Way To Shock Your Pool. So anytime I see pool shock in the Algae Article, I like that Pool Shock word in the Algae Article to the Shock Article. Because when Google scans your website it picks up links faster than all other text.

- The quickest way to get inbound links to your website is by signing up for Social Media sites and using links to that site to your site.

I currently operate two Twitter accounts, one for this site (and for me) and one for Swim University. If you use Twitter feel free to follow me (@swimuniversity.com – @overnightsite)

What is Twitter?

The way I explain Twitter to folks is, it’s like microblogging mixed with AIM. It’s an instant messaging system that you can talk directly to people or just say anything you want, like a blog. But instead of writing really long post, you write mini ones. Twitter only allows you to type 140 characters at a time. Sometimes I post a link to a website I’m looking at or what I’m doing or writing about. Sometimes I just post jokes or say dumb things to get a rise out of people, but mostly I use it for promotion.

Auto Tweet

There are two websites that I currently use to post Tweets with. I use TwitterFeed.com and TweetLater.com.
What TwitterFeed.com does is allow me to submit my RSS feeds so that every time I update my blog it sends out a tweet on my Twitter account with a link to my new post AUTOMATICALLY!

With Tweetlater.com I can type a bunch of tweets and time them to go out at different times of the day. I can also automatically follow anyone who decides to follow me and send all my new followers a welcome message.

These are great tools but it doesn’t mean that’s all you should do. Some people hate broadcasters, you know people who just self promote on twitter. You need to engage in conversations with others, be personal. So I mix the two together. I auto-tweet and manual-tweet all damn day. And now it’s my 3 highest referer site to TheOvernightSite.com and SwimUniversity.com’s Blog.

Problogger

This is a blog run by Darren Rowse and I consider him the authority of bloggers around the world. He is a full time blogger that writes about how to blog and how to drive traffic to your blog and more.

CopyBlogger

Brian Clark is a blogger who writes about writing. I have been reading this blog for about a year and before that anytime I would search Google on how to write a blog post, Copyblogger would come up.

Seth’s Blog

If you think Online Marketing, you must know Seth Godin. He has written books and has one of the most popular blogs about internet marketing. This blog is a must read, I highly recommend it.

Smashing Magazine

This is a great blog that is dedicated to website design and development. They will often post freebies like, fonts, wordpress themes and icons. Infact I got the wordpress theme I used to make this site from Smashing Magazine. They have only been around for about two years but are in the top 100 blogs on Technorati.

SEO Book

The SEO Master himself Aaron Wall runs this blog. The great thing about this blog is that it is updated everyday with about 3 long posts which is a lot of content. He also has plenty of SEO tools on his site as well as free informative videos.

SEO Hosting Blog

This is a blog that is run by Hostgater which provides hosting but their blog is awesome. It’s updated about twice a day will quick relevant content. It’s fast becoming my new favorite blog.

Website Magazine

There is a free magazine I get in the mail every month that is full of rich content. Well this is blog of the website of the magazine I receive. So basically its a blog about websites in general and it’s mostly breaking news about internet sites and for web designers and developers.

HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog

Hubspot is a company that specializing in providing internet marketing. They also have a fantastic blog about inbound marketing. You should also use thier Website Grader Tool, which I use to try and make my websites better. Oh and I almost forgot, they a great video podcast too you should check out.

Shoemoney

This dude has been around for a while now. He is an internet celeb. Jeremy Shoemaker has been helping bloggers and webmaster with internet marketing for years. He has that famous picture where he holds that Adsense check up. See below

Knowtebook

I’m not really sure how I feel about this one yet. Not to say it isn’t a good site but I haven’t been reading it too often. It’s fairly new to me, but check it out anyway and let me know what you think.

Bonus Blog – Gary Vaynerchuk

This dude is nuts but you gotta love him. I have always said, if you have ever seen “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” he sounds just like Charlie. He is an internet celeb with lots of funny and smart videos about making money online. This blog is really well designed. I suggest you check it out just for some inspariation if not anything else.