blogging backlinkingIn the 10 years I have been marketing online I have seen many would be blogging for profit marketers come and go. Most just come and go as they don’t take the time to learn how to blog when you’re goal is extra income.

My first blogs were on free blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress but I didn’t have a good experience and didn’t have the control I wanted and soon stopped blogging there. They may have improved since way back then but today I only blog on blogs I host myself.

Try Hosting Your Own Blogs

By hosting your own blog I don’t mean investing thousands to have your own server, not at all. I wouldn’t have lasted the first day if that was the case. No, what I mean is that you should purchase your own domain and have it hosted at an affordable place like HostGator.com.

Blogging Success Takes Visitors

The thing about websites and blogs is that they don’t make a lot of income for their owners when they receive no traffic. This means you need to learn how to get traffic, preferably traffic that’s targeted to your nice. There sooner the better.

I’m sure you’ve heard that if you build it they will come. Well that may happen in the movies but it’s unlikely to work in the real world without taking some action to get those visitors.

If it makes you feel any better you are not alone. At any time there are thousands of others trying to make a little extra income. The economy is sucking in most places today making it tough to make ends meet. Blogging is a great way to pick up the slack.

An example would be my gardening site which now gets more than 1000 unique visitors every single day. Until I learned how to get traffic I was not found but once I learned how to get targeted traffic I moved from being hundreds of pages deep in the search engines all the way to the first page and passed millions of others on the way, because most haven’t learned what it takes to get traffic and start ranking in the search engines.

Start With Gaining Relevant Backlinks

As I write articles aka write blog posts I immediately start a backlinking campaign to get attention to that page. The goal is to get as many backlinks pointing to each of my blog pages as I can.

The results of a good backlink campaign can be increased traffic and ranking for your pages which when done right magically turns into money.

How I Gain Backlinks

  1. First I write quality content for my blog so my visitors will stay. That’s important as a first step. Why bother getting traffic if they leave immediately.
  2. Your blog content must be keyword focused before starting an article marketing campaign for best results.
  3. Write articles that match the keywords of your blog post and publish to article directories.
  4. Make each article you publish unique. Don’t publish duplicate content.
  5. Keyword the links pointing to your blog post with similar phrases but make sure you vary the link text for each article so it looks natural to search engines.
  6. Guest blogging is another awesome way to gain backlinks that are powerful. Never spam or use duplicate content.
  7. Blog commenting can be very powerful if you keep to relevant sites and leave value added comments. Try to be the first to comment works wonders as well.

Getting your backlinking campaign going properly will put your blog in the virtual map and you should start seeing positive results.

Note: Backlink building is not something you do and then forget it. It’s an ongoing process and needs to be continued over time.

Deep Linking To Your Internal Pages

For the longest time I only linked to my main page. That was before I understood the power of link juice. It’s like taking vitamins, they don’t do much good until you consume them. Rubbing them on the outside doesn’t usually work.

When I am including links in my articles I link to the page that a relevant blog post is on. It will have a specific page name you can link to but I also link to the main page with a phrase that matches my niche of course. So my internal page has a specific keyworded file name and I use that same keyword phrase as the link text in my article.

I really only started this six years after I started my web business and the difference it made to my sites completely blew me away, to say the least. Traffic started to increase, links were getting more clicks and my Paypal account started growing.

Using Relevant Forums To Gain Blog Traffic

Today I am far more careful when I go to a forum as I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time on forums and didn’t get nearly as much done for my business as I should have. Now I pay close attention and have goals now.

Forums are a good place to visit, make new friends and share what you know to help others or ask questions that will get other helping you. Stay focused and never spam a forum, or anything else for that matter.

Invest Your Time And Money

When I say invest your time and money I am quite serious. You likely won’t do well if you only plan to blog once a week. If you want to make money you need to invest more time than once a week. Personally I like to have blog posts every day or at least every couple of days.

This does not mean I spend all my time on the computer. Nope, instead I write a number of articles at one time, while I’m in the writing mood. Then I can schedule each post to be published at a specified time and day. Even while I’m out fishing with my buddies.

As for investing your money, well I suggested you don’t go with free hosting or even a free blog, although that’s your choice. The key to success in blogging is to keep the content coming so your visitors will become regulars. So I invest in a different domain for each niche I work.

In conclusion I would like to say that blogging is powerful when some thought is put into it before hand. It takes a lot longer to fix a problem sometimes than it is to learn how to do it correctly before you start.

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Filed under: article marketing • blogging • keywords • SEO • traffic building

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