Every blogger wants more and more traffic. This is equally true for a professional blogger or personal blogger. No matter you want money from your blog or just want to show off your knowledge, you need some readers and I don't think this greed is wrong, after all we are not blogging for ourselves. If this is the case why blog? Just purchase a diary and go on - oh! so you want to use computers, just create a folder and keep docs as diary pages (don't forget to put the date in filename).
Enough chit chat, coming back to topic, we need visitors, lots of visitor, and again lots of visitors. How to achieve it? My first answer is - WRITE , WRITE GOOD and WRITE A LOT. Keep on writing, a good blog with 100+ posts will never go unnoticed. If you just said "I am already doing that !", my second answer is - market your blog. You need not to spend money (although if you can, I don't mind), you can market it free !
Before proceeding, let me tell you what is an article directory?
Its free publishing service, where you can post your articles. Publishers can publish your article freely on any medium (online or print). The only constraint is they have to publish article -
1. Without any change or modification (even spell check is not permitted). So your article is safe.
2. With signature of author, which contains a brief description of author and few website link, will be published with the article.
Just have a look at http://ezinearticles.com/ and you will get the idea. Although, there are several such directory, just Google it (ok .. ok.. you can also Bing it). If you don't know, let me tell you there are tens thousand of publisher who are article hungry and will publish your article without thinking much.
My Story
Now, I will tell you a story - 3-4 years back, just for fun, I wrote some 5-6 articles and posted on an article directory, I got a logo, pasted in my resume and forgot. Last week, I, just for curiosity, checked the status of all the articles, I was amazed to see that total views of those articles is more than 5 thousand !!! After this kick, I googled the article based on the title, I saw they were published on more than 100 different websites, forums, blogs and even on new letter PDFs. Most interesting point is - with my entire signature, which contains link to my homepage (although, I have stopped posting there).
Benefits of posting your article
They are in bunch, I will suggest few -
1. Get back link to your blog - Put link of your blog in your signature and briefly describe it. You will certainly get 15 sec of fame.
2. Get more targeted audience - Directories are categorized properly, so you will get targeted audience. If your article is getting published, certainly it will be published on site of your niche.
3. Just lend a few articles from your blog - Don't write a new one, just write an article for your blog and publish it, once approved and gone live, put it on back on your blog, this way you will become writer + publisher both. It will take another 24 hours, but let me tell you, its worth waiting that much.
4. Articles will be published on other websites - wait for 2-3 months and you will see your article posted on several other website.
5. Articles will be alive for years ! - Yes !!! I just told you my story. They will live forever. You will get some visitors always. Its a good investment.
6. Get direct visits from directory- Ok, let me tell you how it works, Even if your article is not published, a publisher (or any visitor) reading (or even just passing through) your article, if finds your introduction and signature interesting, will visit your blog.
7. Improves your page rank - yes, if your article is published on another 10 websites, you will get 10 link back + 1 (on the blog directory) link back. If your article is good enough, its nothing. You will get several times better than this.
Few tips Now, you are excited to post your articles on article directory. I have a
word of caution or small suggestion for you.
1. Try to be unique - This is rule number one - be unique. Don't write on what whole world is writing, just read few articles in same niche and see how you are different from other.
2. Target your audience- decide what you are going to write, on which topic, how much you know about it and how to make it interesting. Categorize it properly, most of the publisher will search articles based on certain niche.
3. Select your signature carefully - You have just a few words to be written in signature, you can put 2 to 3 links. So, its very tight. Write very interesting and to-the-point signature. Carefully choose links. This is very important, you can get good visits if your signature is interesting.
4. Be Aware ! you are not blogging- So avoid personal details, conversation type language. Its article not your blog post. Write like a scholar writing in exams (in my country, you have long answering questions asked in exams, I don't know if you have ever done it). On blog we always follow conversation tone - like we are talking with the reader, avoid this, it doesn't look professional.
5. Organize your article properly- Don't just narrate, use proper headings. Make sure your article looks like an essay. Also, don't forget to bold the headings. Your article should look good even if just looked at it. Mostly publishers are not going to waste more than 10-20 seconds to decide. The best way is to enumerate points on your articles, it looks very professional.
6. Double check your spelling and grammar - Yes, because a small typo (or even several) is fairly admissible on blogs, but not in article. It will simply kill the beauty, and on top of it, publisher cant even modify a typo (as per rule). So, triple check before posting.
Conclusion
I hope you will utilize this free and better way of marketing your blog. This magic will take 3-4 months to really give you some returns. By that time your blog will also get some maturity.
Happy blogging !!
