Pinterest Tips To Drive More Traffic To Your Blog

The basic principle of gaining control over anything is to understand it completely. And, this is the reason why we seek advice from experienced people. In our previous posts, we have introduced pinterest - the visual pin board .We also had a quick overview of its progress and the features offered. We have also provided you with a step by step guidance to create pin boards for your blogs. Now, when we are looking at Pinterest as our potential advertiser, it is important to have a detailed study on how it works before direct jumping and using it right away. Todays tutorial will share some basics that will help you drive more traffic to your websites and blogs through correct pins.

1-Pinterest is different:

This platform is different from the one we used previously .i.e. facebook fan pages or Google plus, so we can’t rely on the tips to gain traffic for facebook fanpage. This time targeted audience is approached in a different manner. The way you present your content is different and the options available are also new. But due to rapid increase in its popularity we are required to update ourselves with the change and redesign our blog promotion techniques. You may find it a little difficult if you are not good at colors, but do not drop the idea. Follow our tips and gradually you will be doing well at it. It will require some time to attune you with it.

2-Careful Addition of images:

Use images in each and every post of your blog. It should fully reflect the post theme or at least 75% of it. Think of an appropriate eye-catching line with the image. We won’t recommend use of too many images because it will affect the blog load time but you should be careful about image dimensions. Select those which can fit properly in your pin, usually 400*319 is acceptable. Add proper descriptions to your images and comment on them as well.

3-Repin from your blog:

When you pin anything from your blog, it is displayed in your profile. Add pin it button on our blog, so that you can pin your content directly. Pin every post of you so as to direct followers from pinterest to your blog. This activity is also shown on your Facebook and twitter accounts. Pinterest is not meant to be an advertising platform but it is a social networking site and you are supposed to like, comment and re-pin other people’s content. Be kind with others and others will be kind to you.

4-Sensible Categorization:

In this pin world, you need to be precise when you are pinning your images. Do not use a single “Miscellaneous” to represent everything but use abstract, architecture, nature, wild life etc. to represent your content (if you have a photography blog, for example).
If you are not satisfied with the options already available, you can create your own boards and specify your categories. Add a description and this description should be keyword-rich.

5-Graphics Campaign:

This may be a new experience for you. Sketch a layout for your blog. You will then arrange pin boards. Take it as a graphics campaign of yours and be careful that your board should look stunning not shocking…yes, absurd combination of colors has a terrible effect. What do I mean by absurd combination? I am trying to say that there should not be a single dominant color. Also, do not use dark colored images too much; add some light colors as well to maintain balance. So, here I got it… your board should be a balanced one with all relevant tastes provided there.

6- Free Traffic From Pinterest?

Yes it's the new engine to drive some massive traffic to your blog with much more potential than facebook and twitter. Here is an interesting video form lisa:

7- Optimize Pinterest and Pins!

There is again Search Engine Optimization involved in Pinterest because we are making use of images at large. We will keep SEO simple for pinterest. You will need to create a 150 characters of description for your pinterest profile, make sure to keep it rich with keywords and precise. Also give proper description to every image you pin or repin. Add good keywords to your pin boards. So lets summarize the seo tips for pinterest. You need to:

1. Create an optimized description (150 Characters) for your site at pinterest profile
2. Create board titles that may contain your blog keywords
3. Add description to every image you pin

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2012 Top Tips For Increasing Blog Traffic

Increasing blog's traffic is every blogger's aim. Whether for reaching out to a larger audience, or generating more income through a blog, or to create awareness about a particular topic, he needs more traffic on his blog for his efforts to be of any worth. You might spend all the time and hard work you want on your blog. But unless you don't have a decent traffic, all your struggles will be in vain. Hence, the more traffic, the better.

Are you waking up daily, eager to check out your blog's traffic, only to find out that there has been little or no improvement in your stats whatsoever? There must be something you are doing wrong, or not doing at all! Here is a list of things you can do to increase your blog's traffic. Or rather, here is a checklist to help you ensure that you are doing all the necessary things correctly.

Post frequency and Timings

Post frequency and timings are extremely important for your blog's rankings. First of all, search engines such as Google like to see fresh content on websites. If your blog is struggling for traffic, then you must publish at least one post daily. The more frequently you publish posts, the more quickly your rankings and traffic grows. For example, our other blog SEM had a million+ Alexa ranking when it started! We have been publishing two posts daily for the first two months. And in those two months, the Alexa improved dramatically and it now stands at around 50,000!

Post timings are important as well. Not only do you need to be consistent in your timings, you should also choose a time that's globally significant. Choose a time windows that best suits your majority audience. Our publish timings are 12 01 am each day! Not only does this suits our audience, it also is consistent timing. Once you choose a time, stick to it! Not publishing posts on your fixed time can drop your Alexa! This is what happened to me at SEM once or twice. I made a mistake in scheduling my post, and it didn't publish at the set time. As a result, the Alexa didn't improve, despite the two brand new posts published that day!

Build Backlinks

Backlinks are very important for a blog, but only the quality ones. Backlinks refer to in-bound links to your blog from other sites. Backlinks give you instant traffic from other sites. But be careful about them. Trust me, you don't want cheap backlinks to your blog. They will hurt your rank instead of improving it. Never buy a backlink package such as "1,000 backlinks for $9.99" etc. Try to build genuine backlinks on sites with a decent rank.

How to build backlinks? Well there are many ways. Participate in forum discussions, and recommend some content on your blog to others. Also add your blog's URL to your signatures. This will leave a link to your blog each time you post a comment on a forum. Another way of increasing backlinks is by guest posting on other blogs. Write for other blogs in return for backlinks.

Advertise!

If you've got some money on hand, then why not advertise your website? Advertising your blog is one of the best ways of increasing traffic, since it gives you instant exposure. Ads on sites relating to your niche can give you much more benefits as compared to other sites, since the traffic on similar niche sites is interested in exactly the kind of stuff you, or other similar sites have.

Interact!

Interacting with your audience is the key to retaining and increasing your traffic. Adding stuff like polls, questions, surveys and forums can increase your interactivity. Also, use such a writing style that addresses the readers directly. Be casual and friendly, and don't be (too) formal.

Write Articles

This method is highly effective. Not only does it give you immediate traffic, it also gives you  quality backlinks that improve your traffic in the long run. Write an article on a topic relating to your website, and submit it to popular article directories, such as Squidoo, Hubpages, Ezine Articles etc. For example, say you have a blog about affiliate marketing. You can write an article on affiliate marketing tips, and then mention your own blog in that article. Then submit that article to popular directories for traffic and backlinks.

One thing though. Try not to write on sites that give no-follow links. Such sites include eHow, articlesbase, examiner etc. Sites like Squidoo and Ezine Articles don't give no-follow links, which is preferable.

Discuss Recent Trends

Discussing hot topics can get you in search engines' good favour. Google likes to see the latest content. Not only that, people also want to see latest content. Discussing latest topics gives a good impression of your blog being up to date. Not only that, it draws a lot of traffic, and indeed contributes a lot towards this very blog's traffic.

Guest Blogging

Encourage guest posting on your blog. There are many advantages of doing that. First of all, it will increase your post frequency, which, as we already discussed is a good thing. It will also reduce your workload and effort. Secondly, it will increase your traffic slightly, since fans from the guest's blog will want to read what their writer has written on another blog. Be careful about this though. You have to give out backlinks to the guests' blogs. Too many out going links without a nofollow attribute and your rank will start to drop!

Apart from inviting people to write for you, you can write for others as well. This will get you a backlink. Write multiple posts on quality blogs, and you will see your backlinks increase and your rankings soar! This is one of the best way of building genuine backlinks

Apply SEO techniques

Search Engine Optimization is so vast a topic that entire books have been written on it. But you don't need to read books. All you need do is learn some basic SEO techniques, and apply them to your blog. SEO is extremely important if you want search engines to find your blog easily.

You should be familiar with the most basic SEO methods. Keep keywords in mind while writing titles and introductory paragraphs. Also write two or three line meta descriptions for your posts. If you are using WordPress, then you'll need to add meta keywords as well. Complete these basic steps and you're done with the basic SEO, although this is, by no means, the end of it.

Also, learn how to generate and submit a sitemap for your blog to major search engines. This is an important SEO step that every blogger needs to take to ensure that all of his posts and pages are indexed properly.

Use Social Media

You'll be surprised at how useful social media can be. Make public profiles on popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ etc. These will help you build a fan base of your blog. Social Media is also great in the sense that it provides you a much greater exposure through your fans than you could get on your own. So share your new blog posts on social media not only to gain extra traffic, but also to retain your existing traffic.

Use Q&A Websites

Q&A websites can be a great source of traffic for blogs. Get active on popular Q&A sites, such as Yahoo! Answers, Wiki Answers etc. Search for questions related to your area of expertise, and answer them. Then provide your website link as a source. For example, if you are an affiliate marketer, answer some questions regarding the field, and answer them well. Then give the link to your blog. You can also do this on popular forums such as Blogger Forum etc.

These were some of the tips for increasing blog traffic. These are, by no means, the only ways. There are literally thousands of ways you can increase your blog traffic. But hopefully, these basic tips will guide you in building your basic audience. Thank you for reading. Cheers :)

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Google Penguin and Google Panda Penalty - What's That

As we all know, Google is a pioneer, and the world leader in internet search. It owns around 2/3rd (66%) of the shares in the industry at the time of this writing, making it bigger than any other internet company. It has been around for quite some time now, and has been updating its search functionality regularly. Since the past few years though, we have seen some radical changes in its search model. For example, it was only  last year that the dreaded Panda update was unleashed onto the world! And these days, everyone is talking about the new Penguin update that rolled out just a few days back. Head of Google's web-spam team, Matt Cutts tweeted a picture of a stuffed penguin along with a stuffed panda. How cute :). Or is it?

Some people would agree. But many will say quite the contrary. These animals are supposed to give out a friendly image about the updates. They are monsters in disguise though! Many websites have been punished and penalized by these two. So what actually are they all about? And how do they effect websites?

Penguin and Panda Series

Part1: Google Penguin and Google Panda Penalty - What's that?

Part2: In Progress..

Part3: In Progress..

Part4: In Progress..

So why are these updates needed?

If this is about any one thing, it's about Quality Content vs Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The concept of SEO has evolved ever since search engines like Google have come along. SEO is good. It allows you to take your website ranking to a higher level. But that's precisely where the problem lies. You see, it provides a shortcut where you can skip writing quality content, and still be able to take the low quality content to a high ranking. In late 90s and early 2000s, when Google was still newborn, some webmasters started doing just that. They would spare themselves the trouble of writing good quality content, and would learn SEO tricks instead, which brought their poor quality content to the top.

Through he years, search engine optimizers kept at it. Google has been constantly improving its search module, bu these people learned to duck and dodge everything Google had to throw at them. Fundamentally, this practice defeats the basic goal of Google, which is to provide good quality content to readers, instead of bogus websites that spam the web and gain the high ground in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Hence,  the need for an advanced screening mechanism which would let quality through but not spam content.

Although Google has been implementing such a filer throughout the past few years, it only rolls out major algorithm updates once a year. Google Panda was just such an update last year. And may I say, it was the deadliest update yet. The major update for this year is the Google Penguin update, and it looks relatively less harmful than Panda, although it still has effected a lot of websites. So basically, these updates are aimed at promoting quality and filtering out spam.

Google Panda

Google unleashed the Panda on Feb 24 2011. And immediately, it made its mark and hit so many blogs and websites that the entire ranking structure was shaken, with new websites coming at the top while some old established websites dipping down. According to Google, it was aimed at filtering "thin or low quality content". Since its launch, Google have made changes to it 13 times as of 20th April 2012. And a total of 12% websites have been effected by this update.

Google Penguin

Google Penguin is another installment in Google's arsenal of weapons to be unloaded onto the online world. This was introduced on 24th April 2012. Again, it aimed at discouraging / punishing spam websites. By far, it has effected about 3% of the websites. Prior to its release, Google said;

In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at web spam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted web spam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. While we can’t divulge specific signals because we don’t want to give people a way to game our search results and worsen the experience for users, our advice for webmasters is to focus on creating high quality sites that create a good user experience and employ white hat SEO methods instead of engaging in aggressive webspam tactics.

Panda and Penguin penalty

Once again, these updates are aimed at punishing spam websites, although there could be a lot more reasons for the updates to hit your site. Sites that are hit have seen a demotion in their Google PageRank, and their traffic has dipped, while sites that have benefited from this update have seen a soar in their traffic. The saying "One man's gain is another man's loss" never seemed more appropriate.

Why have you been effected?

There can be many reasons why you got hit. But the exact factors are known only to Google insiders. Google doesn't disclose this information, because if they do, search engine optimizers would grab on to those points and cheat Google once again. So Google does not give out the precise details, thank you very much. Here are, however, some probable causes as to why you took a hit.

• Over optimization - This is very important. People who don't have quality content over optimize their websites. So you should do what is necessary, and no more!
• High keyword density - This is like calling out loud to search engines; "check me! check me! I have the most keywords!". And they don't like it when you call them. Using excessive keywords is also a form of spamming, since you are seeking for search engines' attention. In the past, pages were ranked according to the number of keywords they had. Not anymore though. Always keep that in mind.
• Virus and malware - People simply hate it when they land on a website infected with a virus. And so does Google. Having a virus on your site, or even having too many spam or bot scripts can trigger the alarm bells for Google. Please review your website regularly from now on.
• Lack of user experience - Now this is very crucial, and Google has been stressing on this a lot lately. Pleasing the search engine is one thing. Pleasing the visitors is another. Even with adequate SEO, a website that lacks a good user experience might have been hit by Google.
• Duplicate / copied content - Yeah you think you are making things easier for yourself when copying content, but actually, you aren't. In fact, quite the contrary, you are axing your own feet. Google hates it when it finds duplicate content on your website. Never copy from another source, and never use redundant content.
• High Bounce Rate - Make sure to reduce the number of banners and other heavy graphics as much as possible to make sure your site loads faster. Slow loading blogs are hated by visitors and so by Google. Do not reduce the size of the page so much that it may begin looking dull and grey. Be creative yet smart!

These were some of the tips we had for you. This is the first post in a series that looks into these updates from Google in more detail. We will discuss reasons for failure (in more detail), how to avoid them, and best practices. We also hope to prepare you for the next major Google update. So stay tuned, and give us your feedback in the comment section below. Peace :)

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