Now I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+1 and the like, I’ve never been a big advocate of using them.

I’m just a ‘stuck in my roots’ SEO and organic traffic guy.

But saying that, I’m also not averse to making changes to help my business either. So I’ve been looking into various methods and have started implementing them on my sites. Like everything I do, I’ll track the results and if they work I’ll do more of it and if not I’ll dump it.

Using Social Media To Increase Your Rankings

The main reason I’m looking into them is because there is a lot of noise recently in the SEO communities that say apparently sites utilizing social media are getting better rankings. They appear more ‘real’ and have real people behind them, as compared to sites that don’t have any social aspects or interactivity at all.

The first thing I’ve been looking at are Facebook fan pages.

Facebook Fan Pages

I’m sure you are aware of what these are. Simple pages that you create on Facebook that advertise your business (and website).

I’ve created a few before but they were, well how can I say it….basic!

So it’s no wonder why I never had any results with them.

Last week I bought a WSO called FB Slider because I loved the look of the pages it created. In fact, they are like mini websites but all contained on the one Facebook fan page. This means I can now create great looking fan pages that aren’t boring anymore.

I’ve started adding these to some of my sites to see if it makes a difference in their rankings and also the traffic they get direct from Facebook. I love the software and it was well worth the money (although it’s not your normal $9.97 WSO it is very professional and you can make awesome looking fan pages in minutes without the hassle of trying to make them look appealing yourself. Plus there are some great bonuses too!).

—> Grab FB Slider here

Increasing Interactivity

Another thing I’m currently looking at is the comments I get on my niche blogs. Most of the time I turn them off as they can be a hassle to deal with.

But apparently Google sees sites that have regular comments as a big plus, so it’s something I need to test for myself.

So I’ve just picked up a copy of WP Comment Ninja to automate the whole process for me without having to approve anything myself.

I don’t buy many products from the Warrior Forum (WSO’s) as they can be very disappointing sometimes.

But I’m happy to say this one and FB Slider are 2 of the best buys I’ve made in a long time.

WP Comment Ninja automatically posts comments on my blogs that are drip fed to look natural. Not only does it come with 1000 comments built in but you can upload your own comments too.

Why would you do this?

Well as you know, Google loves fresh content and interaction on websites. WP Comment Ninja gives you both. Your site looks like it is getting unique comments from your readers and the content grows on each page automatically.

I’ve got to say, for less than $9 (currently) it’s an awesome WordPress plugin!

—> Grab WP Comment Ninja here

To Sum Up

Social media is something I KNOW I have to get more involved in. So I’m dipping my toe into the cold water to see if it’s something I need to dive into very quickly. I will of course post any results here.

Tony

Feel free to leave your comments and share on Facebook below:

There are, as I’m sure you know too well, dozens and dozens of ways to get traffic. Some will bring instant traffic (like PPC) and others will bring in traffic over a period of time (like SEO). The most popular methods are always free ones but even those can take your precious time to develop. So they’re not really free. But they can be done without any monetary expense.

Let’s look at 5 ways to get more traffic to your blog for free:

#1 – Write Quality Blog Posts

The pillar of all popular blogs is quality blog posts. You need to write posts that are compelling and interesting to your readers. That way they will bookmark your blog, link to your blog, your blog gets higher search engines rankings and the end result is you get more traffic for free.

#2 – Write Guest Articles

Still widely overlooked in my opinion is guest article posting. The concept is simple; contact another popular blog in your niche and ask the owner if you can write them a completely unique article just for them to publish. The only stipulation is that you place a link to your own blog at the end (or beginning) of the post.

If you’ve never tried this, you’ll be amazed at just how many bloggers will say yes. After all, it’s free, quality and unique content for them.

#3 – Participate in Forums

Join 1 or 2 forums in your niche and start helping people. Answer their questions and build up your trust and authority. Only when you have done this, add a link to your blog in the signature panel and you’ll get some very targeted and free traffic.

#4 – Recycle Your Traffic

It’s all good and well to get first time visitors to your blog but it’s far more effective to get people to return.

So how do you do this?

The two most popular ways are to get them to subscribe to your RSS feed and to give away a free gift and get them to subscribe to your list. For the first method, set your blog up with Feedburner and they will get emailed whenever you make a new post. The second method can be done by creating a free report and giving it away via an optin form from a company like Aweber. This then means you can email them extra content and get them to come back to your blog.

#5 – Tweet Your Posts

You can use TwitterFeed to send all your blog posts directly to your Twitter account. Your followers will see your posts and click through to your blog. You can of course make normal tweets about subjects in your niche too; this encourages more people to follow you.

And be sure to have your bio completed with your blog address in it, that way people can see who you are and where your blog is.

By using these 5 methods, you can get lots more free traffic to your blog and convert them into dedicated followers.

Enjoy Your Blogging!

Tony

To be successful, every blog needs to have targeted traffic interested in your information. This video shows 4 different ways you can use to start getting this traffic…fast:

Enjoy Your Blogging!

Tony

Don’t worry; I’m not turning my blog into some seedy hangout with too much flesh on display!

What I am referring to in this post is the use of images to drive more traffic to your blog. They don’t necessarily have to be sexy ones, they can be any images that are related to your niche.

There are 2 ways to get some great traffic to your blog by using them:

#1 – In Your Blog Post

Each blog post you make should ideally have some sort of image. Not only will your readers enjoy seeing them as they add more value to your posts but they are also indexed in the search engines.

Yes, people do still search for images!

So, when adding them to your blog post, be sure to tag them up correctly. Here’s what I mean by this:

You should always add a title when inserting an image into your post. This can be a short description of the image or a keyword you are targeting in your post.

By adding images into each post, you will start to see a small trickle of people finding your blog from image searches. Once you have lots of images, that trickle will change to a regular flow of visitors.

#2 – Flickr (and other image hosting sites)

The second way to get lots of visitors is to use an image hosting solution, such as Flickr.

All you need to do is regularly add images to your account on Flickr, name them with a good title and add a link back to your blog from each one.

Flickr images in particular get ranked highly in the search engines, so can be a great way to get lots of free traffic.

So that concludes this method of using sexy (not essential!) images to drive in hoards of extra readers to your blog.

Enjoy Your Blogging!

Tony