Blogs, the Center of the Universe: Ultimate Free Traffic Network, Part 3

Last time we looked at the core components of an Ultimate Free Traffic Network, content and links.

Now we are going to start looking at the individual parts to the network, the various Web properties that will make up the network; remember what it looks like…

The center of an Ultimate Free Traffic Network is to your blogs. This is where, ultimately, all your links lead; some directly and some indirectly.

There are two types of blogs: personal blogs that are hosted by the blog owner; and hosted blogs that are hosted by specific services like Blogger and WordPress.

Each has a place and importance in a traffic network and both should be used to maximize the value of network.

The purpose of all the blogs used in a traffic network is to attract visitors and help generate traffic, either for the network or to a money site.

To attract and retain visitors, the steady stream of great content posted to the blog needs to remain focused on the specific topic on the blog both because this helps attract and retain but it also improve search engine rankings and builds authority.

Now let’s start looking at specifics of what and how to use blog to build your Ultimate Free Traffic Network.

Hosted

Many people blogging start with hosted blogs because they are quick and easy to get going it they don’t cost anything; they are a great places to start to learn about blogging and to build the habit of blogging.

Hosted blogs are very similar to personal blogs except you have less control of the blog but you don’t have to worry about or pay for hosting and the major blog hosts are considered authority sites and add some weight to your search engine and traffic generation.

While hosted blogs should be a part of your traffic network in many ways they are dead.

Using places like WordPress.com and Blogger.com won’t make you much money and it will be harder to come by, that why you don’t see serious bloggers using it.

But they are very useful as part of a traffic network particularly because they are authority sites.

Blogger

Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs. It can be found on the web at http://www.blogger.com.

There are fancier hosted blogs but the free cost and some of the additional flexibility makes Blogger attractive.

Of course, since it is owned by Google, they index it regularly and get a lot of traffic. This makes it valuable for adding to a traffic network.

You can set up a Blogger account very quickly, all you have to do is: sign up for an account, choose a name for your blog and choose a template for your blog. You can then host any number of multiple blogs under that account

Remember, the value of a Blogger blog isn’t to make money with it or even to use it as a primary blogging platform; the value is the power of it being an authority site and getting content, even just an RSS feed, on there that points to your other Web properties will help increase your traffic.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is free blog hosting from the people who created the WordPress blogging software.

The search engines value it highly and index the pages there very frequently and give it a lot of traffic. This makes it valuable for adding to a traffic network as you can get traffic to WordPress which you funnel to your other Web properties.

It is a quick and easy way to get a blog up and running; it literally only takes a few minutes. You don’t get to take advantage of all the great features of the non-hosted version but the fact that it is an authority site still means you should spend the few minutes to set one up.

Like Blogger, WordPress.com isn’t about making money directly or even about being your primary blogging platform; use it to point to your other Web properties so you get some good back links.

Personal

Personal blogs are blogs are the true core of an Ultimate Free Traffic Network.

They are blogs that the blog owner hosts themselves. You have to pay for space on a computer that is connected to the Internet and install the blog on that computer. It’s crucial that you actually own your blog including the domain name.

The value of a personal blog is having complete control over the blog and that you can monetize it is many more ways than a hosted blog.

It can be a direct link to your money site and, in fact, a personal blog can protect your money sites from the whims of the search engines, social networking sites and other components of your traffic network.

There are a number of ways to get traffic to blogs, Seth Godin has a list and here is my top 23 that I find work best for getting traffic and getting that traffic further in your traffic funnel:

1. Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now
2. Learn enough to become the expert in your field
3. Break news
4. Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year
5. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic
6. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you
7. Announce news
8. Write long, definitive posts
9. Be sycophantic. Share link love and expect some back
10. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us
11. Encourage your readers to Digg (and to use furl and reddit) your posts; do it with every post
12. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS
13. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education
14. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lenses
15. Point to useful but little-known resources
16. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle
17. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don’t bore your readers
18. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger
19. Don’t promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader’s attention
20. Be patient
21. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive
22. Don’t be boring
23. Write stuff that people want to read and share

Conclusion

We’ve started looking at the center of your Ultimate Free Traffic Network, blogs.

We looked at hosted blogs and how to use them in your traffic network.

Your personal blogs are the true center of your network and we looked at the purpose of personal blogs and 23 great ways to get traffic to your blogs.

But there is more to personal blogs than that and next time we’ll look at some other things that you need to be doing to with your blogs as you create your Ultimate Free Traffic Network.

Leave me a comment about your thoughts.

Talk soon,

The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
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