• Blogging is web writing for a personal, informational or commercial purpose. Some people use blogs just to keep an online diary, but many are starting to use them to to sell products and report information. Whatever your purpose, if you want your blog to be seen by the masses and/or earn money, here are some easy-to-follow steps on how to blow out your blog. This article assumes that you have already read How to Set Up a Blog for Beginners and created your blog.

• Search engine optimization (SEO) is important so that people searching the web for various subjects (that you write about) can find your blog. It's very desirable to have your blog rank on the first page of Google and other search engines.Google: Homepage

• You need to find effective keywords for your blog. The best tools to find strong keywords are Wordtracker and Trellian's Keyword Discovery Tool.Wordtracker: Homepage Keyword Discovery: Homepage They both require payment in order to use their services, but you can use their trial versions to see if you like them. Free online services for keywords include Google Adwords Keyword tool and the SEO keyword suggestion tool.Google Adwords: Keyword Tool SEO Book: Keyword Suggestion Tool Another great tool for free keywords is Google Trends, which gives you the top 100 keywords being searched for at any time. Google Trends: Homepage

• Once you have determined which keywords are most applicable to your blog, the next step is placing the keywords in the correct areas of your blog. Most SEO experts agree that the following areas of keyword placement are important Google search engine ranking factors.SEOmoz: Google Search Engine Ranking Factors
• The title line (at the very top of the browser):
• Keywords in the body text:
• Anchor text of inbound link:
• Page URL (web address):
• In addition to the upper part of the web site, you want to place keywords in the following areas of your blog:
• (H1 or H2 tags):
• Domain name:
• Within bold type:
• Image and "atl" tags:
• Another area of your blog to optimize, seen only by search engines is the meta tags.Search Engine Watch: How To Use HTML Meta Tags - Meta Tag Overview In your meta description tag, write a one or two sentences (200 to 250 characters) describing your blog using keywords.Search Engine Watch: How To Use HTML Meta Tags - The Meta Description Tag In your meta keywords tag, enter specific keywords and common misspellings of keywords.Search Engine Land: Meta Keywords Tag 101: How To "Legally" Hide Words On Your Pages For Search Engines - Should You Use It? Sure, For Misspellings Keep in mind that Google doesn't recognize these meta tags, but Yahoo! search and other search engines do, and that's millions of users.Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Answering more popular picks: meta tags and web search Yahoo! Search Help: How do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results?

• One final word about keywords, always try to go for specific phrases, not general terms. For example, don't use the word "lawyer" as a keyword, be more specific, like "personal bankruptcy lawyer Seattle." The word "lawyer" could be a search term for a 16 year-old doing a paper for high school or an old lady looking for a TV show with lawyers.SEO Book.com: Keyword Value Pyramid
• However, someone searching for "personal bankruptcy lawyer Seattle" has a very specific need, they are looking for a personal bankruptcy lawyer in Seattle. Keep this in mind when you read about how to make money with your blog.

• If you want to earn money from your blog, there are some powerful ad programs that you can place in your blog to create income. Some ad programs pay you per click of the ad, while others pay when a user clicks through an ad on your blog and makes a purchase.

• A Digg Widget allows you to display the top stories on the popular community web site.Digg: Create a Digg Widget No need to update this widget, Digg automatically "talks" to this widget and gives it new stories. Several othe
  
• A Twitter Badge allows blog visitors to see all of your postings on this fast-moving community blog.Twitter Support: Put your Twitter updates on your site or blog You must join Twitter before installing this widget.
  

• Yahoo! Publisher Network
• Similar to Google Adsense, Yahoo! offers an ad program called the Yahoo! Publisher Network which also displays ads that are relevant to your blog's content.Google Adsense: Homepage Yahoo! Publisher Network: Homepage Like Google Adsense, you earn money when visitors on your blog click on the ads.Google Adsense: Homepage The same principles of ad placement and blending mentioned above also apply. However, you cannot use both of these programs on the same blog posting per their terms of service.
• Chitika Premium Ads
• Chitika Premium Ads are actually widgets and offer multiple products and a mini-search engine, all in one ad.Chitika: Chitika Premium Ads Chitika Premium Ads are not contextual (based on your blog's content), so you have more control over which ads appear on your blog.Chitika: Chitika Premium Ads Here is an example of a Chitika Premium Ad.Chitika: Chitika Premium Ads
• Affiliate Ad Programs
• Linkshare and Commission Junction represent numerous affiliate programs, from Apple Computers to British Airways.Linkshare: Homepage Commission Junction: Homepage After joining Linkshare and/or Commission Junction for free, you can apply for the affiliate programs that you're interested in advertising on your blog.Linkshare: Publisher Help Center :: How do I generate revenue? Commission Junction: About Affiliate Marketing
• Some companies will accept your affiliate application to advertise their products, while others may not, it just depends on their requirements.
• Amazon Affiliates
• Some companies, such as Amazon.com, work directly with you, without a middle-man.Amazon.com: Homepage Like the programs above, href="https://affiliate-program.amazo... Associates will provide you with HTML code for ads (text or banner) that you can place on your blog.Amazon.com Associates: Links & Banners Here is an example of an Amazon.com banner ad.Amazon.com: Homepage
• Text Link Ads
• Text Link Ads is an increasingly popular affiliate program that provides text ads for various companies and their products.Text Link Ads: Homepage Text Link Ads sends you the HTML code for various ads, but you place only the ones that you want on your blog.Text Link Ads: Homepage
• More Ad Programs
• Other popular ad programs include: ValueClick Media, Blogads, AdBrite and Affiliate Sensor.ValueClick Media: Homepage BlogAds: Homepage AdBrite: Homepage Affiliate Sensor: Homepage

• In many of these ad programs, you usually have the choice between using a banner ad:
• or a text ad:
• Text ads (words that link to advertiser site) generally have a greater click rate than banner ads because text ads seamlessly fit into your content and do not look like ads.Business Wire: iPerceptions Study Uncovers Consumers' Real Online Ad Preferences

• Once your blog is optimized and your ads are up, you need to bring traffic (visitors) to your blog. A great way to do this is by posting your blog on community web blogs and bookmarking sites; these are online town halls where people read and post stories. This is also called "social networking."Pro Blogger:

Social Bookmarking - Getting your Blog Noticed

• There are new community web blogs and social bookmarking sites starting up everyday, but you want to focus on popular ones such as: Digg, Reddit.com, Propeller, Yahoo! Buzz, Mixx, StumbleUpon and Delicious.Digg: Homepage Reddit.com: Homepage Propeller: Homepage Yahoo! Buzz: Homepage Mixx: Homepage StumbleUpon: Homepage Delicious: Homepage
• After joining a community web blog(s), the next step is to post an enticing headline (also known as "link baiting") about your blog's topic. This headline may also include a short synopsis and should always include a link back to your blog. For examples of good headlines/link bait, go to Popurls where the most popular posts from the most popular web communities are updated.Popurls: Homepage Pro Blogger: An Introduction to Linkbaiting
• You do not want to blatantly spam a community web site. This activity will likely get you banned from the site. Your post's headline and synopsis need to sound legitimate and interesting on their own merit; so stay away from posting things like "Check This Out!" That's a no-no. You must be subtle about it. In the marketing world, this subtle approach is called "viral marketing.EcommerceTimes.com: Tell A Friend: Viral Marketing Packs Clout Online
• Here is an example of a community blog post:
• If people click on that headline/link, it will take them to the full article on San Vicente Media.San Vicente Media: Blog
• Whether you use text ads, banner ads or a combination of both, it's important to try to match your ads with the content on your blog posts. Also, always place at least one ad "above the fold" which is the part of the computer screen that appears when you first log onto the web site.Performancing.com: Above vs below the fold ad pricing

• News Aggregator Sites
• Submit your blog posts to news aggregator sites where a real live person will decide whether or not your blog post should be published. Some of the top news aggregator sites include: Truemors, Fark and Tailrank.Truemors: Homepage Fark: Homepage Tailrank: Homepage If your blog post is published, it could drive quite a bit of traffic to your site.
• Blog Syndication
• Join Blogburst, an online service that syndicates blogger content to major newspaper web sites such as USA Today, Reuters, Fox News and more.Blogburst: Blogger Overview This exposure can bring traffic to your web site (via your byline on the newspaper web site) and the top bloggers are actually paid by Blogburst.Blogburst: Rewards Program FAQ
• Submit your blog posts to article directories. Pro Blogger: How To Market Your Blog in 2007Most of them do not pay, but many will allow you to include a link back to your blog. And there is always the possibility that your content could be reposted (over and over) via these article directories. A very popular article directory is Ezine Articles.Ezine Articles: Homepage
• Directories and Search Engines
• Place your blog (and its RSS feed) in blog directories such as Blog Catalog, Technorati, Blog Flux Topsites and others.Blog Catalog: Homepage Technorati: Homepage Blog Flux: Topsites TopRank Blog: RSS - Blog Directories Your blog gets exposure to other bloggers, improved ranking on search engines and more traffic.SEO Book.com: The Blogger's Guide to SEO, Link Building WebProNews: How To Build Traffic To Your Blog
• Enter your blog in Google's Sitemap Submission, which will enable Google to find your blog much easier and index all your blog posts quicker.Google: Webmaster Tool Tour Google: Homepage Also, Submit Express offers a free directory submission service that submits your blog/website to more than 40 search engines.Submit Express: Free Website URL Submission - Submit Google, Yahoo, MSN
• Website Communities
• Join a popular website community such as MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn. You can create links to your blog in these heavily traveled communities.MySpace: Homepage Facebook: Homepage LinkedIn: Homepage
• Press Releases
• Write a press release about your blog. A press release alerts journalists about an interesting story; if they decide to write an article about your blog posting, that could drive in a lot of traffic.
• You can distribute your press release to journalists through these 20+ Free Press Release Distribution Sites or pay a fee to a company such as PRWeb for writing and/or distribution to media outlets.Mashable: 20+ Free Press Release Distribution Sites PRWeb: Homepage

• Now that you have traffic coming to your blog (hopefully), you want to keep your audience coming back by doing several things.

• Add new content frequently. If you don't, people may assume it's a dead blog and stop logging on. Remember, the web has a huge appetite for new content. You want to update 2-3 times a week, unless you're running a news blog, which would be daily.
• Add bookmark features for visitors to bookmark your blog; this helps your blog's search engine ranking and increases web traffic.Caroline Middlebrook: 20 Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Sites That Actually Work (and how to bookmark QUICKLY)
• The easiest way is by installing ShareThis and/or Social Marker to your blog.ShareThis: Homepage Social Marker: Homepage These features allow users to bookmark your blog on popular community web logs such as Digg.Digg: Homepage

• Do you want your blog visitors to call you or send you a text via your cell phone? Then install jaxtr, a widget that allows blog readers to call your cell phone, but doesn't disclose your phone number.jaxtr: How it works 3jam allow
  
• Your blog users can find out the price of gas with Gas-Cost.net, various time zones with ClockLink.com, or the weather with iBegin Weather.Gas-Cost.net: Homepage ClockLink.com: About Clock Link
  
• You can create online surveys and polls on your blog with PollDaddy or Visu.PollDaddy: PollDaddy Surveys - Get feedback Visu: Homepage These widgets are customizable, so you can create any poll or survey
  

• If you're not the shy type, try adding a weekly video blog post to your blog. By adding this feature, you can actually speak to your visitors and create a more personal touch. Blogger Darren Rowse created a video, which he placed on his blog ProBlogger an
  
• You can also place your video blog on community video web sites such as Revver and Metacafe, which will actually pay you for traffic.Revver: General Questions Metacafe: Help Blog: Metacafe's Producer Rewards P
  

• Pings
• A "ping" is a signal sent from your blog to blog directories when your blog has been updated with a new post.Blogtonomy: What is a blog ping To send out pings, just copy and paste this list of ping services into your blog's ping function.Daily Blog Tips: List of Ping Services Also enter your blog in these popular ping services: Ping-o-Matic!, Technorati: Ping and Google Blog Search Ping Service.Ping-o-Matic! Homepage Technorati: Ping Google: Blog Search Ping Service To ping your RSS Feed, try FeedBurner's PingShot.FeedBurner: PingShot Overview and FAQ
• Trackbacks
• Activate the trackback feature on your blog. A trackback is when another web site links to your blog and your blog becomes "aware" of this external linking, automatically.Cruftbox: How Trackback Works The trackback feature makes a note of this, usually in the comments section of the your blog.
• Related Posts
• Add a "Related Posts" section at the bottom of each of your blog posts. If someone wants to read more about the topic that they have just finished reading, then they will click to another entry on your blog, increasing your page view count.Blog-Tutorials: Related Posts Links: Make Your Blog More User Friendly Depending on your blog platform, this may require a plug-in or you can manually create it.
• Subscribe to Comments
• Finally, a powerful option for your blog is the "Subscribe to Comments" feature.ProBlogger: 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky Some blogging platforms have this feature built in, while others require you to add it via a plug-in. Every time there is a new comment in the chosen blog post, the subscriber receives an email and a link back to that blog post.

• A widget is gadget for the web. By adding widgets to your blog, you can bring fresh content (created by others) to your blog for visitors to read. Most widgets reside in the left or right column/margin of your blog, depending on your blog platform.The Chitika Blog Archive: Blogs and Widgets By BUMPzee

• Google Adsense is the most popular ad program on the web.Google Adsense: Homepage After you sign up (for free), Google Adsense will generate a unique HTML code for you to insert into your blog posts.

  RSS Feeds  |  Add a Link

  • Most blogs come with an RSS Feed, often called "Really Simple Syndication." XML.com: What is RSS With an RSS Feed you can syndicate your blog to anyone who subscribes.XML.com: What is RSS When people sub
    
  • FeedBurner is a free web tool that you can install on your blog to manage, analyze (subscriber stats) and publicize your RSS Feed.FeedBurner: About FeedBurner XML.com: What is RSS You can also place a
    

• Technorati  |  Add a Link

  • Create a bookmark feature for users to link your blog to Technorati.Technorati: Front Page As mentioned earlier, Technorati is a blogging directory that keeps tabs on the blog community.Technorati
    

• Step 6: Incorporate Multimedia Into Your Blog

  • As blogging becomes more and more sophisticated, more bloggers are adding multimedia (audio and video) to their blogs.

• Money Making Widgets  |  Add a Link

  • Google AdSense for Search is a mini Google search engine for your blog.Google: AdSense for search - web search right from your site - AdSense Help Center Google: Homepage When your visit
    
  • ScribeFire QuickAds displays ads within a widget and you get a commission if someone clicks through your blog and buys an item.ScribeFire: QuickAds
    
  • You can also get a sales commission through aStore, a widget for those signed up in the Amazon Associates program.Amazon.com: aStore for Amazon Associates Amazon.com: Associates
    
  • Another fast-growing widget ad program is WidgetBucks.WidgetBucks: For Bloggers
    

• Google Video Units  |  Add a Link

  • Another option is adding other peoples' videos to your web site and earning money via Google's Video Units.Google: Video Units You need to have a Google AdSense account and a YouTube account (both are free) to sign up
    
  • Placed on your blog, the AdSense Player features YouTube videos with Google AdSense ads at the bottom of the screen.YouTube: Homepage Google: Adsense When visitors click on those ads, you receive
    

• Podcasting  |  Add a Link

  • You can also add podcasts to your blog. A podcast is an audio file and can include music, spoken word, anything audio. You can create a podcast with an audio recorder/microphone that is built into your computer or with an external audio recorder/microphon
    
  • Once you have your podcast posted in your blog, you'll want to list it in podcast directories such as iTunes, PodcastDirectory.com and Podfeed.Net.Podcast411: DIRECTORIES Apple: iPod + iTunes
    

• Step 7: Analyze Your Blog Traffic and Performance

  • Are any of the aforementioned steps working? To find out, check your blog's traffic info. Most blog platforms come with some type of basic traffic measuring feature, but to get more specific info on your traffic, consider these programs below.

• Popular Analytical Traffic Tools

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Analytics is a free service primarily used for web sites, but you can use it for your blog as well.Google: Analytics It tells you how many visitors came to your blog, how they were referred, each blog post visited, etc.
  • Yahoo! Web Analytics
  • Google's prime competition is Yahoo! Web Analytics, a pay service, primarily used by e-businesses.Yahoo!: FAQs This high-end tracking system tool uses "first cookie technology" to track visitors, returning visitors in real time. This service is for bloggers who are seriously trying to make money from their blog.
  • If you're looking for a free traffic analytic service from Yahoo!, then try MyBlogLog, which gives you blog visitor stats and has its own community (great for plugging your blog!).MyBlogLog: Homepage MyBlogLog: Community
  • PostRank
  • PostRank is a free online tool that analyzes your blog posts and ranks them by the number of comments and bookmarks.PostRank: What it is You can quickly see which types of posts your readers respond to and which ones they do not. This is a great way to see what types of blog posts are generating buzz!
  • Feedburner
  • FeedBurner was mentioned before as an RSS management tool.FeedBurner: Blogs It can also track your RSS Feed traffic and tell you how many visitors have subscribed.FeedBurner: And There Was Much Rejoicing: New FeedBurner Statistics This tool also tells you how many visitors clicked through your RSS feed to your blog posts.

• More Traffic Tools

  1. Open Web Analytics: Homepage
  2. Clicky: Web Analytics 2.0
  3. StatCounter.com: Free invisible Web tracker, Hit counter and Web stats
  4. Mint: A Fresh Look at your Site
  5. Sitemeter: Counter and Statistics Tracker

  • Note: Most of these analytical tools work the same way. They provide you with an HTML tracking code that is placed on each blog post that you wish to track.Open Web Analytics: Homepage Get Clicky: Homepage StatCounter: Homepage Have A Mint: Homepage Sitemeter: Homepage

• References for How To Blow Out a Blog

  •