7 Tips to Building Your Blog's Readership
Attracting traffic to a blog or a web site is challenging enough. So from the very beginning, when you start to see visitors coming to read your blog, be sure that they feel comfortable to stick around. And there are a number of ways you can help them to do just that.
Here are seven vital ingredients for building a successful blog with a loyal following.
1. Publish Regularly.
As your readers become familiar with the frequency of your posts, it will influence their visiting behavior. If your readers know that you post fresh content every day, they will probably come every day to read it. If they know you post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, that's when they will come.

2. Stay on Topic.
Stick to your niche. If your blog doesn't have a niche, give it one. Readers like blog's that are focused on a particular theme or topic. If you have no theme and just post about anything, then readers are less likely to become passionate about your blog and will probably move on to somewhere else.

3. Use Meaningful Titles in Posts.
This not only announces clearly what the post is about, but it will help people navigate your blog and also influence your ranking with search engines.

4. Interact With Your Readers.
Think of your blog like a conversation. You post. Readers comment. Be active and be positive as you interact and converse with your readers.

5. Highlight Your Best Posts.
Don't let your best posts get lost in your archives. It's always a good idea to link to your best posts from a 'best posts' category on the main page.

6. Provide Good Navigation to Popular Pages
If you help people find the key pages within your blog, their visit will be a much more enjoyable experience.

7. Avoid Not Posting for Extended Periods.
If someone visits your blog and discovers that the last post was three weeks ago, they will probably be disappointed. If you don't post, people may give you the benefit of the doubt and come back on a few days to check, but you better believe they will lose interest quickly if you fall out of your regular schedule and stop posting.
There you have it. Seven little tips that will make a big difference to your blog's readership. It's not rocket science. It's just using some common sense when posting and interacting with your readers.
Mike Seddon is a writer, entrepreneur, and webmaster. He is the author of the popular e-book, 'How to Build a Money Making Blog', available from http://www.MoneyForBlogging.com


Do You Really Understand the Blog Animal And How He Can Help You?
The growth and popularity of blogs in general has been phenomenal within a very short period of time. Blogs or web logs as they were previously called is where all the action on the World Wide Web is, right now.
It is amazing how quickly web sites have been relegated to the back seat. Actually the role of web sites is rapidly being re-defined but it is clear blogs will be the place where all the traffic will be congregating for a long time to come. What some thought was a passing fad is clearly here to stay and is a permanent development that has already had far reaching effects on communications and the way we transmit and receive information.
Yet most entrepreneurs who have quickly jumped onto the blog bandwagon do not seem to fully understand and appreciate what blogs are really all about. Worse still, many of those who have remained away have no idea what all the fuss is about.
A clearer understanding of blogs is bound to benefit any e-commerce business owner or online entrepreneur.

Everybody can be a publisher or media owner
Probably the most significant impact of blogs is the fact that it is rapidly changing mass media, as we have known it since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century. Powerful media companies have been in the hands of a few people who have carefully controlled what we see in our media. Sometimes deliberately to achieve their corporate goals and objectives. Blogs are effectively transferring that power back to the people and away from the hands of a few.
This era of blogs means that anybody can be a publisher or media owner and effectively transmit whatever information they want and push whatever cause is dear to their hearts. The impact of blogs in politics for example has been a clear demonstration of the power of blogging. We have some blogs covering politics that have a couple hundred thousand visitors on a daily basis.
This may be a scary development to many folks including media owners but it presents a number of excellent opportunities for entrepreneurs to reach huge audiences with their messages at a tiny fraction of what their budgets used to be in the days when blogs did not exist.
Breaking news, courtesy of the blog community
Further power of blogs to handle breaking news in real time, complete with photographs and video clips, has clearly been evident in retimes. For example during the Tsunami tragedy last December. Footage of the damage being caused by the giant waves was seen in blogs long before the traditional media channels got wind of what was going on.
This opens up a whole range of new opportunities that can be tried out in the years to come. Not many entrepreneurs have realized this yet.
Anybody who didn't have a site can own a successful blog
Blogs are so easy to set up, maintain and run that a new breed of online entrepreneurs is on the rise. It consists of many individuals who for one reason or another were unable to set up and maintain heir web sites.
We are now in an era where an online entrepreneur needs little else other than lots of creativity, there is actually so much that he or she can do without a single cent in capital.
Distinct advantages of having a blog
Blogs tend to get lots of traffic. Lots more than websites do. Besides search engines seem to love them. Blogs are also able to build up links much more easily than web sites. Thus it is no longer surprising for a nobody-novice to suddenly shoot up in stardom and recognition.
No entrepreneur can afford to be left behind
The benefits of a business having in it's stable a blog or two that is capable of attracting huge traffic, is very important and can be extremely useful in helping a business to achieve its' marketing goals and objectives.
Any entrepreneur whether online or offline who does not have a blog to help promote their business is making a very serious mistake that they will definitely live to deeply regret. In fact even playing catch-up with a blog that already exists will continue to be more and more difficult.
There are a number of advantages that blogs have which will continue to be extremely useful to entrepreneurs and webmasters. One of them is the fact that they easily allow for customer comment and anybody can be able to post a comment at your site. In a way this is a form of research and sampling because it enables the business to get feedback and thus be able to gauge the sort of response they will receive when they finally roll out their product or service into the market.
Start using your blog more carefully and watch your traffic and revenues steadily climb as a result.

About The Author:
Article by David Callan. David is the leading search engine consultant with AKA Marketing.com's SEO Ireland team. AKA Marketing.com provide full SEO services as well as telephone based consulting for those preferring the DIY approach.


Fighting Blog Burnout
Fighting Blog Burnout
By Brad Schneider
www.blog-hints.com
Every day, so many people start up a new blog and most have hopes of it becoming a masterpiece. They plan on having massive amounts of traffic, and maybe even making a bit of money doing it becoming big.
The truth is that most blogs don't last.
Many times, the blogger just gets bored with the whole idea. Others get frustrated, putting countless hours into the blog, then the fact that they do not draw visitors wears on them over time. The reason I will discuss today is what I call "Blog Burnout".
You set goals, knowing that you want to you want to post to it daily, or twice a day, or more. Keeping up a steady post rate can also drain on you after time. I will point out a few suggestions to help prevent blog burnout.
Make your goals realistic- If you live a very busy lifestyle, it might not be practical to maintain a high post count.
Don't stress the blog- It is something that is yours. Don't let anyone else tell you how many posts you have to have, or what to post about.
Realize why you are blogging- If you trying to make money on your blog, do a little research before getting started. Making money on a blog can take a very long time, if it ever happens. Most bloggers barely make enough to keep the site up and running? If you are just blogging for the fun of it, then you can rest assured that there isn't as much pressure.
Stockpile Posts- I might have a surplus of 10-20 posts prepared, so that all I have to do is upload and be done with it. Set aside a certain amount of time and crank out post after post. That way, you really don't have to worry about it every day. If a couple of days off are needed, no problem.
This really depends on you niche. With my blog, which features a variety of discussion points, I don't often publish time sensitive posts, but this is something that needs to be considered when stockpiling posts. For instance-This particular post may have been written months ago, and stashed away for a time when I really don't feel up to writing anything.
I would recommend using a text editor program such as Microsoft Word to compose your posts. This will help you with spelling and grammar mistakes. I use a single document with a shortcut on my desktop to draft all of my writings. It's also helpful to add notes.
For example, a draft post in my document may compose a nearly completed post with notes such as "need link for mentioned article" or "need pic". That way, when you decide to publish, you don't need to relearn what the post needs. Simply finish it, give it a quick look-over, then publish it. Done.
Hopefully, using some of the steps I outlined will help head off any cases of blog burnout. I welcome any other suggestions you might have!
This article is copyright © 2005 www.bradsblog.net and is free to distribute as long as this copyright statement and all links and text are included.