With every man and his dog starting a blog in hope of becoming the next online phenomenon, the competition is getting seriously fierce.
If you are to get noticed as a blogger in this crowded world, you need to think smart, and act big.
Stop wasting time. Start getting results.
Here are 5 techniques every blogger should be using to transform their blog into a busy, money making machine.
Guest Blog Like you mean it
Every single successful blogger I know started off by guest blogging for blogs that were more popular than theirs. It's just how it works.
If your blog isn't very popular, use a blog that is. Write an exceptional post for a popular blog, capture their audience's attention, and convert them on your blog.
Here are some of the necessities of guest blogging if you want to drive insane amounts of traffic:
Only write for popular blogs- You are wasting your time if you guest post for a blog that has low levels of traffic, you might as well spend the time on writing for your own blog.
If you write for popular blogs, your links will be more powerful, and drive higher amounts of traffic to your blog.
Target a blog similar to yours- You need to guest blog for a blog whose target audience have similar interests to your blog's target audience. That way, you capture a collection of targeted visitors and send them to the content on your blog.
If you wrote for a blog whose target audience were completely unrelated to yours, they are unlikely to be interested in your blog's content.
Only produce the best- You need to write an exceptional post if you want to get noticed. Your readers might already be happy scanning through the content on that blog. You need to write something amazing in order to encourage them to visit your blog.
Develop a Powerful Social Presence
An established and popular social presence on social sites like Google+ and Twitter are capable of propelling your blog posts into viral masterpieces.
If you have an army of loyal fans, that know and trust you and your content, they will do all of the promotion for you.
Developing a social presence has become a necessity for all bloggers, because more people are active on them than ever before.
In order to succeed on these sites, you will need to be committed. A powerful social presence doesn't happen over night. It takes time, dedication, and intelligent promotion.
To get started, setup a Facebook fan page for your blog and start promoting your blog's content, setup a twitter account and start tweeting, and create a Google+ account and start sharing.
Treat your social presence like a long term asset. It will become more useful and more powerful the longer you spend to develop it.
Don't expect too much traffic when you start. It takes time to become an influential social media expert.
Write Compelling Headlines
Exceptional blog headlines. They are the make or break factor between writing popular posts and writing unpopular ones.
On Twitter, in the search results, on Facebook, on Google+, everywhere your blog post is seen, the first thing people are going to see is your headline.
Some people, me included, are even choosing to share content based on the headline alone, without even reading the content.
This is huge! Write compelling headlines and you will receive more click through and more shares as a result.
Double the time you are spending on writing headlines, get really creative, and I guarantee you will be amazed at the results.
Incorporate a Smart Blog Structure
A smart blog structure is fundamental to your success. It goes without saying that the design and feel of your blog is going to influence whether your visitors stay or not.
Aside from spending more money and recreating the design of your site, here are some more practical and cheaper ways of incorporating a smart blog structure:
Cornerstone Content
By default, blogs make it hard to show your old content. Sometimes, your older content is also your best content.
If you have this problem, you may want to create cornerstone content, which is a collection of your best content surrounding a certain topic.
Simply create a landing page and include links to all of your best content on that topic. Make sure you smartly guide your visitors throughout to help them find exactly what they are looking for.
It can also help you rank for competitive search terms. Use your primary keyword as the landing page, promote that page using guest blogging or other SEO tactics.
If you chose a good keyword, one that is not too competitive, you can drive insane amount of traffic to your blog by ranking for certain search terms by using this technique.
Interlinking Posts
On every single new blog post that you create, you should be referencing your older posts where appropriate.
It helps direct the flow of traffic to your older content. In turn, this will improve the time people spend on your site, which is obviously good news.
It is also a smart SEO tactic to also help you rank your other posts for certain keywords. Link to your previous post using the keyword you are targeting. The search engines will notice the anchor text and associate the post with that keyword, which increases the likelihood of you getting ranked for that term.
I hope you found this blog post useful. Head over to my Empower Network blog to hear more from me.
At my blog, you will find answers to questions like "what can I blog about to make money", you will also discover the online income system I use to make money through blogging.