Want blog traffic? Of course you do. However, before you spend thousands of dollars on getting traffic, do some preparation, to ensure that your money isn’t wasted. Your blog needs to be ready to perform, and few blogs are.

I’ve been blogging for a decade, and over the years I’ve learned that my blogs are just tools. The more thinking and preparation I do, the less I need to focus on traffic. The traffic I need just arrives, and because I’ve prepared, my traffic is targeted, and I achieve excellent conversion rates.

Let’s look at a couple of simple ways in which you can get your blog to perform, so that it’s ready for traffic.

Maximize Conversions: Your About Page Can Increase Conversions by 30 Per Cent

What do you want your traffic to do, once it arrives? Make a list.

Is your blog achieving the results you want now? If it isn’t more traffic isn’t the answer.

One of the simplest, and yet most powerful ways you can increase conversions (sales) on your blog is by creating an About page.

When I’m visiting any site, if I’m interested in what they’re saying, I check the About page. If there’s no About page, it raises an immediate red flag.

My theory on About pages, and why so few sites pay attention to them, is that they’re not thinking from the point of view of their customers.

Your prospects have no idea who you are. Create an About page. Tell them who you are, what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.

A few years ago, a marketing site published a case study which showed that a site had increased conversion rates just by creating an About page.

I believe it, because it makes sense. People do business with people they know, not with strangers, so introduce yourself.

A Traffic Funnel Is More Than a Squeeze Page

Once your About page is set up, think about your traffic funnel. For many marketers, a traffic funnel is: traffic source (paid or organic) to squeeze page. (A squeeze page is a short page which is set up just to get sign ups to a mailing list; most offer an inducement.)

That’s it. That’s their entire funnel. Years ago, that worked. Today, it doesn’t work.

Everyone’s wary about handing out their email address, and rightly so.

These days, you need to be a little more creative, if you want subscribers. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, and design a more effective funnel.

Get your blog ready to perform today. Not only will your achieve better results from your current traffic, you’ll also be well prepared for more traffic.

You can make make blogging both FUN and profitable. Angela Booth’s been blogging since 2000, so she knows what works. She’s developed many blogs, as well as a method, which she teaches in her Lazy Rich Blogger blogging guide. This method works. To learn more, join Angela at her popular blog, the Blogging for Dollars Blog at http://www.dollars2blog.com/blog/ — join thousands of successful bloggers today.

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Everyone is always speaking about their blog. It is a well-established fact that blogs are an effective and fresh way to share content with others as a vehicle to build relationships. But, what about your blog’s sidebar?

A blog sidebar is a section on the side of the blog that contains widgets. A widget is a small application that often takes the form of on-screen tools (clocks, event countdowns, auction-tickers, stock market tickers, flight arrival information, daily weather etc.). You can populate your blog sidebar with whichever widgets you feel will be valuable in your blog.

There are several interesting and important elements that can help your business if you place them on the sidebar of your blog. Remember that it is very important to be discriminating and choose which elements you want for your sidebar so that you get the maximum benefit from those elements. If you have any elements in your sidebar that don’t help your business, you should delete them and fill the space with meaningful elements. The following are some suggestions about what you might want to use:

A list of categories: The category list is also called “categories” or “topics.” The list makes it easy for your readers to find the content that they are interested in reading. The majority of blogging platforms automatically generate this list for the categories that you designate when you configure each of your blog posts. If possible, you should not assign more than three categories to each of your blog posts. Any more than that and you will be detracting from the value of categorizing your content.An option to subscribe to your blog: Your readers will want to keep returning to you to read subsequent blog posts. You may as well make it as simple as possible for them to do just that. You should add a “subscribe” button to your blog that links to your RSS feed URL. A simple way to do this is to use Google Feedburner to create this URL from your initial RSS feed URL. Remember to include an Email form field so that your readers can subscribe through Email. Your posts will then go straight to their inbox. Additionally, make sure that you include a Privacy Policy notice on your blog.Most popular blog posts: Your sidebar is a great place to display some of your blog posts that did especially well with your readers. If you do this, you will be making it very simple for your readers to go immediately to the blog posts that they want to read most. It may also get your readers to want to find out why those particular blog posts were so popular.Recent blog posts: If you include links to your most popular blog posts on your sidebar, you will be helping your readers to get exposure to more of your content even if they entered your website through a single blog posting. This is an excellent method for compelling your readers to remain on your website and look around at all that you and your business have to offer.Social media options for connecting: There are many different ways nowadays for your readers to connect with you. One very effective way to help your readers is by including links to your various social media profiles.Search box: You should have a search box that will enable your readers to find content that is of interest to them by typing in keywords or key phrases. You can put this on your sidebar and your readers will see it easily and be able to take advantage of it.Calls-to-Action: You now have all of this wonderful stuff on your blog’s sidebar. Another very important thing to put on your blog’s sidebar is the call-to-action so that you can give your readers a way to connect with your website

Conclusion

It is very clear that having a blog in addition to having a website is critical to the success of your business. Now you are taking it one step further by adding important and valuable elements to your blog. You can think of the blog as the empty house that you just purchased and into which you just moved. The elements on your sidebar are the decorations in the house.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team and don’t forget to ” like ” our Facebook page.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Mr. Cohn earned a Master’s degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master’s degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

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“Free Videos Reveals The Little Known Secrets of Driving Explosive Amounts of Traffic The Gurus Don’t Want you To Know!”

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is a smart move, if you are thinking of setting up your own website or having your own blog. Hosting the website yourself gives you more control, freeing you from being at the mercy of a company that is providing free hosting. You will not have to put up with free ads or suffer the consequences if the company changes their rules or does not approve of your site for whatever reason. Setting up your own hosting can give you more flexibility as well, if you desire to make money blogging. Are you worried about the process of setting up your own website? Thankfully setting up your own site is much easier than it used to be. The purpose of this article is to give you an idea of how simple it actually is.

Choosing a domain name is the first thing you will need to do after choosing a hosting company where you will be . It is best if you choose a domain name that is relevant to what your blog is about, rather than choosing a name at random. By having a keyword rich name, people will be able to find your site easier when they use the search engines to enter the keywords they are looking for.

After you apply for hosting, the hosting company provides you with a control panel from which you can launch various operations. Installing a WordPress blog using “Simple Scripts” is indeed simple. Make sure your hosting company provides the option of using “Simple Scripts”. You will need a database, which you can set up manually or it could be included in the running of “Simple Scripts”. You will be prompted to choose a username and password for your blog. Moments after running the script, you will receive the information needed to log in to your new WordPress blog dashboard.

Once inside the dashboard of your new WP site, you have several options on how to configure your site. There are free themes to choose from or you can leave the default theme as your theme for now. There is also a choice of plug-ins that will help the functionality of your blog. As you play around with your new site and read up on how to set it up, you will discover which plug-ins will be best for your purposes.

Setting up your own website need not be difficult. Now that you have some tips on how to set up your own website, why not get started with ?

Can the Socrates WP Theme benefit you? If you want to save time and appreciate an easy set up with integration of AdSense, ClickBank, and social media, explore the features and access the download link at http://www.wpsocratestheme.com

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So, you’ve finally done it. You’ve started your very own blog. Registered the domain name, installed WordPress and written a few insightful posts.

And not one single person has stopped by to read them. Not a single visitor. All that hard work for nothing.

So just how do you start funneling traffic towards your blog? The quickest and easiest way is to use other popular websites. So read on to find out which sites are best for promoting your new bloggging project.

Facebook

The chances are that you’re one of the half a billion people that currently has a Facebook account. And you many well have a few hundred friends hanging on your every word. So start to leverage them! Status updates promoting your blog posts are the quickest and easiest way to start driving traffic, but once you’ve built up enough of a fanbase, you can launch your very own Facebook fan page.

Quick, simple and with a huge potential audience, Facebook is the perfect place to start promoting your site.

Twitter

Next, you should register a Twitter account. Start following the movers and shakers in your niche, and build up some real relationships with them. Then, start to promote your new posts. If you’ve been successful in your efforts to build relationships, you should see your posts retweeted by your new friends.

Congratulations, you’ve just taken your first steps to sending your content viral.

Digg/Reddit/StumbleUpon

Next up are the social sharing sites. You’ll need real luck to start driving significant traffic through these sites, but it’s well worth setting up accounts and submitting your posts. Just take care not to get disheartened by any negative feedback that you receive. Social sharing sites can be safe havens for all manner of trolls.

But don’t worry – some reasonable people will find your new blog through these sites!

Technorati

The final site on our list is the undisputed daddy of Blog Promotion sites. Technorati. If your site isn’t on Technorati’s list, you may as well give up.

So go on, what are you waiting for? Go register your site now!

Andrew Nattan is Communications manager at FirstFound, the UK’s leading Search Engine Consultancy. He’s also involved with FirstFound’s Optimise Magazine.

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