Blogging 101

A way to increase your blog’s advertising and SEO is to join a bunch of site directories. It may seem useless, I mean, who reads these silly directories, but search engines are getting better at crawling them and using the incoming links to determine popularity. Here is a list of directories I’ve joined — they are all free! Give them a try.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Holding a contest on your blog is a great way to increase readership, increase pageviews and maybe even increase incoming links. Contests I’ve seen include:
1. Link Me!
To enter the contest, blog about the contest, the blog, or the author on your own blog and link back to them.
2. Comment Me!
To enter the contest, leave a comment! Easy!
3. Help Me!
To enter the contest, help me come up with a name, a slogan, a word, or anything else written. Get creative!
4. Show Me!
To enter the contest, find or create an image. It can be funny, imaginary, real, or serious. Popular ones include satire of real people, products, or events.
5. Review Me!
To enter the contest, review my site or my product on your own blog.

Of course, to get people interested, you’ll probably need to offer a good prize like cash via PayPal. But considering the positive effects a successful contest can have on your blog, it’s really money well spent.

Popularity: 84% [?]

At what point, if ever, should you put advertisements on your blog? And once you decide to put advertisements on it, how many and which type should you do? The answer is really up to you! The following is my personal opinion on the matter. You may have a totally different outlook and you are allowed to have it! I find nothing wrong with putting advertisements on your blog. I call this action “Monetization”. You are generating revenue (money) from something creative and original that you produce. Creating revenue is why books are authored, magazines are published, and TV shows are produced. Why should you miss out on all the action? At the least, you could be generating enough renvenue to cover the expenses of hosting and domain name registration. That means generating $10 a month from ads. Want to earn more? I’ll tell you how in another post!

Popularity: 100% [?]