I have a confession to make, my secret voodoo blogging methods aren’t going to send you unstoppable floods of traffic and make you rich, but they will give you a better blog. If you are looking for a system that will help you earn cash from blogging the you have a limited time to grab Bloggers Payback before the price goes up; you may already be too late!

Right, now that’s out of the way let’s get back to my not so secret voodoo blogging methods. The reason for this post is to reveal some fundamentals to blogging. You see, people jump into blogging and in the progress of creating their blog often skip the basics.

The tips I’m going to share will add that little something extra that a lot of people overlook… keep reading and all will become clear.

1. Tell Your Readers Who You Are

Seriously, this is such a small thing but it can have a big impact on how your readers interact with your blog. I am still surprised how many blogs I come across where the blog posts were written by ‘Admin‘.

You may write a killer post that compels your readers to start commenting, but instead of being able to address you in a conversational way they will probably stick to more generic responses. Just compare the following:

Scenario A

Hey, I really like your Secret Voodoo Blogging Method; you’ve shared some great tips.

Michael

Scenario B

Hey Kelly, I really like your Secret Voodoo Blogging Method; you’ve shared some great tips

Michael

Okay, not drastically different but now let’s follow Michael as he leaves your blog and starts chatting to a friend on Twitter.

Friend: ‘What have you been doing today?’

Michael: ‘Just reading a few blog posts, one of the posts blew me away!’

Friend: ‘Really, what was it about?’

Michael: ‘It was about some secret voodoo blogging methods.’

Friend: ‘Sounds awesome, who wrote it!’

Now, if we return to scenario A for a minute, Michael will say something like ‘erm, not sure but here’s the link …’.

However, in scenario B Michael knows who the author is and he was so impressed he is just about ready to tell the world. His response will now more likely be, ‘Kelly wrote it, here’s the link … she knows her stuff!‘.

This small tip really helps with word-of-mouth and social media marketing where people like to talk about people!

Having your name displayed also makes it easier for people to contact you regarding joint ventures etc.

You can enhance this even further by adding some extra elements just like you will see on this blog.

Below this post you will see an author bio box that is being created using a free WordPress plugin.

If you would like a similar author bio box on your blog then you can get the plugin from the Devils Backyard and is called About The Author Box Plugin. The About The Author Box plugin also works for multi-author blogs making this a great plugin.

While you are at it you should head on over to Gravatar and sign-up for your free account. You will then be able to add a photo that will be used for your comments on other people’s blogs. Do that now, come back here and leave a comment (using the email you signed-up for your Gravatar) and your beautiful pic will be displayed next to your comment for all to see.

You can change your display name in WordPress under the Users tab where it says profile.

To enable Gravatar for your comments then you’ll need to enable Gravatar by going to the Discussions page under the WordPress Settings tab.

Let’s move on to the next tip…

2. Hide the date

Well, you may not want to hide the date of your blog posts but rather move it to below the content.

Why? Because people love fresh content!

Let’s say you have written the best ever post all about widgets but the post is now 3 years old.

When people do a search for widgets in Google they may come to your page see the date and hit the back button. You know it is the best ever timeless piece written about widgets but people love fresh and right now content.

Moving the date below the post will decrease the chances of this happening. People will no longer see the date until they scroll down the page and hopefully your content will have grabbed their attention by then.

You will have to play around with your blog theme to make this possible. We use Elegant Themes eBusiness Theme which allows us to hide the date with one click of a button in the theme admin area.

I’m glad you are still reading and have stuck with me this far, so let’s head on to the final tip.

3. Ask your readers to do something!

Do you want your readers to interact with your blog? Well, then you need to ask them to! When you write your next blog post be sure to end it with a call to action.

Conclude your blog post with a statement that is a good fit for your content.

Examples:

A blog post about social bookmarking:

Now you’ve discovered the power of social bookmarking why not test it out right now by clicking here and adding us to your bookmarks.

A blog post about RSS feeds:

Now you’ve walked through our tutorial for using RSS Readers to stay-up-to-date with the blogs you enjoy, click here to add ours.

A blog post about a product launch:

What I want you to do right now is click on the link and grab your copy of Blogging Payback before the price goes up!

You see, sometimes you really do need to tell people what to do to get the results you want.

I hope you have found this post useful, before you go, be sure to join me on Twitter as I’ve finally got myself an account!

Best wishes,

Kelly-Anne

2009-10-30  photo credit: revjim5000

One of the best blogging solutions is to attach a self-hosted WordPress blog to your existing website. In the past the only way to do this was to download the WordPress files to your desktop and then upload them using your FTP client followed by playing around with the configuration options; this was enough to prevent the non-techie-type from jumping into blogging with a self-hosted blog.

A real simple solution has come along that makes those manual upload days seem like something from the Internet dark ages, that solution being Simple Scripts. This guide will walk you through the installation process.

You will need a hosting account that gives you access to Simple Scripts. We use Host Monster to host the majority of our websites as they use cPanel in the user back-office. CPanel has revolutionised the ease of configuring your website, managing email clients and domains etc. The other reasons we use HostMonster is because the customer support is top notch, exactly what you need when something goes wrong with your site and you need to get back online quickly. Oh! Did I mention they are very affordable, with HostMonster you are not compromising on service either, making this a win win for you.

Head on over to HostMoster and register for an account here.

After you have signed up for an account simply follow the instructions to set up your domain etc. Assuming you have done this and have a website already with HostMonster then you’ll want to log into your cPanel area.

Now, how to easily install your self-hosted WordPress blog.

Scroll down until you find the Simple Scripts icon under the heading Software / Services.

For this example I am going to attach a blog to a squeeze-page of mine for a report about how to use Joint Ventures to generate targeted traffic to your websites and promotions.

Inside the Simple Scripts area scroll down to Blogs and click on WordPress.

Now click on Install.

Step 1 – select the latest stable install and where you would like your WordPress blog to be installed.

If you have an existing site that you want to attach a blog to then type ‘blog’ as the subdomain or whatever else you wish to call it (blog being the most logical).

In the image above you can see that I am installing WordPress to the subdomain ‘blog’ on the GuruTrafficSecret.com domain.

Now you’ll want to select your login details, password and blog name. You’ll also want to tick the check box where it says ‘automatically create a database’.

Lastly, accept the terms and conditions.

Now click ‘complete‘.

If your installation is successful you will see the above screen. Your login details will also be emailed to you.

To login to your new wordpress site just add /wp-admin to the end of your URL. The login for GuruTrafficSecret is now at

http://www.gurutrafficsercret.com/blog/wp-admin

Log in to your website to configure your blogs information.

To make your blog stand out from the crowd you should install a new theme at the first opportunity.

Visit the Guru Traffic Secret blog to see a live demo of a WordPress blog and the first and only post.

I hope you found this post informative and easy to follow.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. To get the most out of cPanel and your website I recommend you sign-up for Discover cPanel as soon as you can. You can visit the site now and get instant access to a free video packed with information that you can put to use straight-away.

If you are not sure what I am talking about then just take a look at the screenshot below of Google Images holding my site in a frame.

Not all sites that hold your site in a frame are bad, my objection is when the offending site has ads plastered everywhere.

Another objection of mine is the traffic I get from Google Images. You see, Google Images brings me a lot of visitors that wish to copy my images to use on their websites or projects, yes, I have tracked the clicks on my site and some of my images show a high click rate indicating the visitor’s intentions.

The simple solution to this is to install a small plugin known as the Frame Buster WordPress Plugin by Semiologic.

You can download the plugin directly from the site by visiting the Semiologic Frame Buster WordPress Plugin page or, alternatively, you can download the plugin from the WordPress Plugins Directory.

Below is a quick video showing the plugin in use. The video opens in a new window (sorry no sound)!

The video shows me clicking through to my site from Google Images, as the page loads, frame buster kicks and forces the site out of the frame.

I am yet to discover any negative effect to using this plugin or any penalties netted out by the search engines. I’ve been using the plugin for a few months now and I haven’t had any issues.

On a side note, Semiologic have a special WordPress package that will help you dominate any niche with their out of the box solution. Click on the graphic below and you’ll see the whole host of pro-member only special plugins that you will not find any where else!

I hope you found this post useful.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

For a live example of this site breaking free of a frame click here.

This post is about blogging as a way of generating targeted traffic to your business website and promotions as well as creating, growing and engaging with a community of readers.

What you will see below is a PDF document that is Day 5 of our Website Promotion Success Email Mini-Course.

I recommend you sign-up for the course and to our newsletter as you will get extra benefits that you will not get from reading the blog alone.

The report you are about to read covers the benefits of blogging for your business, how to get started and some useful resources you may find handy.

Blogging is a great way for small and medium (even large) companies to extend their reach across the major search engines.

Although there are many blogging platforms a standalone (self-hosted) blog is going to be one of the best introductions to your online business as it will allow you to continually create search engine friendly content in a intuitive way; you may like our post on WordPress SEO plugins.

The report is short but is packed with practical information that you can start implementing straight away.

If you find the text is too small then use the buttons on the top right side of the document to switch to full screen mode or toggle page size. Enjoy!

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. If you found the report useful why not leave a comment.

photo credit: Annie Mole

If you are unfamiliar with Sidewiki here is what Google say it is:

Google Sidewiki is a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page.

So the Sidewiki is a type of commenting system. Well, it’s a bit more than that, it is a way for experts to share their knowledge and skills across the web. People can leave comments to be displayed in the Sidewiki for a particular website / web-page for others to see and add further information to; making this a community tool.

I’ve got ahead of myself, let me quickly walk you through the installation process.

To be able to use Sidewiki you will need a compatible browser and and have the Google Toolbar installed.

Here is the link to Firefox, free to download and has many features you won’t find in other browsers, and here is the link to the Google Toolbar with Sidewiki.

Download Google's Toobar with Sidewiki

After you have successfully installed the toolbar you’ll need to restart your browser. If you’ve been successful you should see the following screen.

You've installed the Google Toolbar with Sidewiki

So why are people excited about the new Sidewiki feature? Well, below you will see a screen-shot taken from our homepage with the Sidewiki open.

The images below shows you what you are greeted with if you have Sidewiki open when you visit Foxley Marketing Solutions.

The next image is a close up of the Sidewiki message I wrote as a greeting to our homepage visitors.

As you can see I have created a custom message that quickly welcomes our visitors, tells them about the site and our search engine optimisation service, and finally, how to grab our RSS feed.

This is an exciting development because, as the site owner (you’ll need to verify your ownership of a website inside Google’s Webmaster Tools), my message stays at the top of the Sidewiki, as mentioned in Google’s documentation.

Returning to the fact that the Sidewiki is a community tool you may be wondering how Google will stop spammers and your competition from adding negative statements in the Sidewiki for your website.

Although I don’t have the answer to this what I do know is that Google say that they will be using multiple signals to score the relevancy and quality of the post plus using user-feedback as a quality score.

“Sidewiki uses a quality algorithm and user ratings to determine the order of the entries that appear in the sidebar for a given page. The entries that are scored as being the most helpful and pertinent are more likely to display.”

Will this stop abuse? I hope so but we will have to wait and see how this works out.

Another great feature of the Sidewiki is, if you leave a quality comment that provides value to the site owner and the community of readers then you increase the chances of your message being shared; that’s right, you will be able to send your favorite entries by email, post to Twitter and / or Facebook.

You will also be able to embed YouTube videos into your comments.

To read more about the features of the Sidewiki and watch a short video click here.

While you are at it, it’s time to grab your Google Profile like I have here.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

Polite SEO

This post is about polite SEO; don’t ask, all will become clear in a minute or two.

I have to laugh, someone left a comment on this blog for about the fifth time now, and their email address and website were for different domains so I decided to take a look.

The web link left was for a blogging package (installation of WordPress, blog optimisation and blog training video tutorials amongst other things) from a company that is pretty well known across the web.

However, the email address was for a different domain so I decided to pay the website a visit. I found a company website for ‘search engine optimisation and link building specialists‘.

I looked around and found their link building service and this includes blog commenting.

This is how they sell their service:

We find related blogs that match your service and then leave regular comments.

By leaving regular comments we add value to the community and earn you quality blog traffic and optimized links.

Here is my problem with this; they use different email addresses (but with the same domain), different Gravatars and leave various keywords for their names, this in my opinion makes them no different from a spammer.

It states that they add value but all they essentially leave is a quick sentence that is loosely related to the blog post, meaning that they either didn’t read it or they cannot provide anything of value.

The other issue I have is that I clearly state in my comment policy and in the comment snippet below that a ‘real name’ must be used. Leaving a comment with a name like ‘blog coaching’ will only have your message deleted or I will remove the name and put in a first name of my choosing (and the URL will certainly be removed).

They are billing their service as a relationship building service but all they have done is repeatedly annoyed me by ignoring the box below that states clearly that I love to receive comments but you must us a real name. Simple!

If you are using this sort of service to build ‘quality inbound links‘ to your website then I’d seriously consider a better use of your money because you may just be severing relationships with people without realising it.

Link building can be very fruitful when done properly, blog commenting can be a great source of getting optimized links. If you are looking to get a quality search engine optimised link from blog commenting then find blogs with Keyword Luv enabled, then you can drop a link with your keywords without annoying anyone (this is just polite SEO! )

If you are outsourcing your link building, at least give the company a detailed list of do’s and don’t's.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. If you are reading this and are from the link building company, please stop wasting your time here!

I’m sure by now you’ve trialed various ESPs and you would have no doubt experienced the frustration of having to change your blog opt in web forms, resize text, format fonts, etc.

Let’s say you are using Get Response and you decide to change to AWeber, imaging being able to simply cut and paste your new web form code and that’s it, your blog opt-in form stays exactly the same, just with a different ESP collecting your registrants information.

Well, this has been made amazingly simple with a plugin called Max Blog Press Optin Form Adder.

Download the plugin, use your FTP client to upload it to your plugins folder, activate the plugin and start styling your optin form, just the way you want it!

Visit the Optin Form Adder page for more details and follow the step-by-step instructions of how to set up the form.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see that I am using the Max Blog Press Optin Form Adder for my newsletter (why not sign-up while you are taking a look and get posts like this delivered to your inbox).

I’ve trialed the Optin Form Adder with Get Response and AWeber and both worked fine. I’m sure the form will work just as easily with the other major email service providers on the market.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

photo credit: Mzelle Biscotte

This is just a quick update to let you know that we have added the Top Commenters Widget to our sidebar. What this means for you as a blog commenter who makes it on the list is that your website like will get maximum exposure from our site as a thank you for leaving a comment.

The same rules still apply when leaving a comment so please read our comment policy. All we really ask is that you add value for our readers and your comment will be here for all to see!

If you are interested in adding the top commenters plugin to your blog you can find it over at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

That’s it, that’s all I have to say! If you want to feature in the top comments section then get posting.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. Be sure to include your websites URL in when you comment for maximum benefit.

photo credit: AYUMi [Esami in vista o_ò]

We are sharing the LOVE! This is just a quick update to say that we have taken the decision to reward all commentators by installing the NoFollow Free WordPress plugin. The NoFollow attribute is built into WordPress comments by default but can be overridden using certain plugins.

For a detailed explanation of the ‘nofollow’ attritube then read this post by the Blog Bloke.

We were originally using Lucia’s Link Love plugin that allowed us to stipulate a particular number of comments someone would have to leave before their links had the nofollow attribute removed.

We’ll, we’ve gone one step further and are now rewarding anyone who leaves a comment with a search engine friendly link.

So what do you have to do to get some love from us?

Simply leave a comment and remember to include your URL where it says ‘website’.

That’s it! Be sure to read our comment policy before posting. All we do ask is that you provide value and that you use your real name (and not ‘viagra pills’ or ‘free adult movies’ – you know who you are )

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. If you are interested in starting your own self-hosted WordPress Blog and was wondering how to get started then I highly recommend you check out Dave’s Online Videos. The monthly membership fee is incredibly low for the information that you gain access to and you can cancel at anytime, no questions asked! You can find out more here.

photo credit: Sabrina Campagna

The answer to this is a resounding yes! STOP… before you rush away and start leaving comments on as many blogs as you can I would like to say that there is a RIGHT way and a WRONG way to do it. The right way will earn you a nice bit of traffic while the wrong way will make you look like a spammer. Are you ready to learn the right way?

Adding Value

This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many times you will come across the following:

“Great post”

and

“Thanks for the information”

and so on.

Although it is nice to show your appreciation for a ‘great article’ it is better to try and write something to it that extends upon the post.

Do you agree with the post?

Do you disagree with the post?

Have you had a similar experience that worked for you?

Have you had a similar experience that didn’t work for you?

Is the post about something you would try?

The benefits to adding a comment that moves beyond the typical ‘great post’, is that it allows you to share your expertise. This is the important part to blog commenting, sharing informative tips and experiences that extend upon the blog post will show you to be an authority in that area and encourage people (those that would like to find out more about you) to click through to your website.

Looking at the image above you will be see that my name (in blue) is hyperlinked to this website. You see, if people like your comment or are just curious about who you are they will click on your name and visit your link.

Wise Hyperlinking

When Hyperlinking out from a blog I recommend you use your name. This is because you want the readers to know who you are and if they want to find out more they will click on the link. You’ll often see names that look like this:

Derby SEO Company

or

Website Submission Software

Personally I think this looks spammy and I only recommend hyperlinking like this when the blog you are leaving the comment on has KeywordLuv installed. To find out more about this plugin and how to find blogs with KeywordLuv installed then you can read my previous post here.

If you contribute value to a blog over-and-over again through regular commenting the blog author will be much more accepting of you linking out to an external post. Let’s say I was commenting on this blog post my comment could look like this:

I agree with you that blog commenting is a great way of generating traffic and establishing yourself as an authority within your niche, especially when you are focusing on finding related blogs in your target market. I recently wrote an article about The Fundamentals of Traffic Generation that I think covers the core of getting more visitors to our websites and I believe it resonates with the message of adding value.

Regards,

Karl

Be sure to not just write blog comments that have the sole intention of getting you a deep link back to your website, this will be the fastest way of having your links removed before your comment is published or, worse, having your comment marked as spam. I’d mix it up and leave more comments without links than I do with links.

Multi-Author Blogs and Guess Bloggers

When you start finding blogs that you like in your niche you may notice that some are run by a group of authors while other blogs have guess bloggers that write the occassional post. Please be sure to credit the blog post author and not the blog owner when leaving a comment, this makes it look like you haven’t really read the post. It only takes a second to double check.

If you own a blog yourself, make it easier for your readers to engage with you by having your name as the author and not ‘admin’; you’d be surprised how many blogs I come across where it is like that.

WordPress Plugins That Reward Users for Commenting

The great think about WordPress is the many plugins that a site owner can use to increase the user experience. When you start incorporating blog commenting into your traffic generation strategy you’ll want to focus on blogs that will give you additional rewards.

The first plugin to note is the Top Commentators plugin that rewards the top commentators with a sidebar link back to their website. You can view this in action by visiting John Chow’s Blog and taking a look to the right of the page (you will have to scroll down a short way).

I recently wrote about the KeywordLuv WordPress Plugin and I recommend you read the post and even use the neat KeywordLuv search engine that will help you find KeywordLuv enabled blogs.

Additionally, you can also read my post on another great plugin, the CommentLuv WordPress Plugin, and you can also find the CommentLuv search engine that will help you find CommentLuv enabled blogs.

To find blogs in your niche in general you can perform a google search as illustrated below:

your keyword “blog”

Now, to stand out from the crowd.

Gravatar

When you start visiting blogs on a regular basis you will see that many commentators will have a pic accompanying their comment. Gravatar allows you to register with their website and upload a photo. Now when you leave a comment, using the same email you registered with, your pic will appear next to your comment for the world to see.

This is a great way to add a touch of personalisation and help you stand out from the crowd.  This site uses Gravatar so if you wish to leave a comment and show the world your beautiful face then feel free.

Making It Real Easy

Okay, you’ve probably started to think that this is really hard work. Well, you can make it very easy by using iGoogle as your dedicated homepage (control panel in my case). Now, for every blog you visit and like simply grab the RSS feed and add it to your Google Reader and then add your Google Reader to your iGoogle homepage so you’ll now when a new blog post is live (I’ll create more detailed post in the near future walking you through the steps of how to create an iGoogle homepae and make it a killer resource).

One of the reasons you’ll want to know when a new blog post goes live is so you’ll be able to head straight over to the blog and be the first to comment. If the post is on a high-traffic blog you will receive a decent number of visitors to your blog.

Final Thoughts

Blog commenting is a great way of spreading your links across the web but your success of finding targeted visitors will greatly improve when you focus on finding blogs that are related to your niche and when you provide value to other blog readers.

This is also a great way of gaining additional exposure from blog owners who may invite you to become a quest blogger on their blogs.

Please never spam anyone and leave intelligent links for all to enjoy.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. For more information about makeing money from blogging then take a look at Atomic Blogging.

photo credit: bradleygee