Blogging Tutorial

This may be the last tip in this book, but it's certainly not the least important. In fact, if I had to rank these 20 tips in order of importance, this would be number one without a doubt. So you could say I'm saving the best for last.

Let's examine the power of content for a minute...Why do search engines rank certain sites at the top of the results?...because of their relevant content.

Why do people subscribe to newsletters? ...because the content is unique and informative
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Why do people bookmark websites? ...because of the invaluable content that is updated regularly.

So what have we learned is important?... Relevant, unique, informative content that is updated regularly keeps visitors happy!

Bingo!

That really is the formula for success with any website. So if you're not getting the traffic you desire, maybe it's time to reevaluate your content.

Search engines love large sites that are frequently updated, and most successful sites get the majority of their traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Search engine traffic is probably one of the most valuable sources because they bring in free, targeted visitors to your site day after day after day.

So what can you do to improve your search engine traffic? Check Out Your Competition and Do It Better!

There's nothing wrong with getting ideas from your competitors. As long as you don't plagiarize their content, it's good to get inspiration from them.

Instead of taking the lazy way out and copying their work, take it a step further. Improve and expand their concepts until your site has evolved into the "Content King" of your niche.

Ask Yourself These Questions?

What is your competition doing that you could do better?

What information are they leaving out that you could add to your site?

What free services, products, or offers can you provide that they don't?

Don't worry if there are many other websites with the same kind of topic as yours. Just strive to be the best in your niche! You can achieve this by continuously building unique content that your competitors don't offer.

Other Webmasters Will Reward You

Here's the beauty of building good, quality content. Over time you'll discover that people will begin linking to your site voluntarily. Again, this benefits your search engine traffic because the engines check to see how many different sites are linking back to you.

I would say that 20% of the traffic to my asana site comes from people voluntarily linking to me from their sites, message boards, social networking sites, etc. This is all free traffic just because they liked my content and found it useful.

Never Stop Building Your site should never be complete.... ever! You should always be seeking ways to improve and grow. As I said above, people bookmark sites because they offer good content that is updated on a regular basis.

Don't let your content get stale. Continue building and striving to come up with fresh, innovative ideas to keep those visitors coming. I promise, you'll be rewarded in the long run. Soon you'll see that out of all the tips in this book, this one is the most valuable.

Perfect Your Writing

Sounds very basic but most people don't know how to write to effectively communicate to their audience. They talk at their visitors instead of connecting with them.

How you write can make a tremendous difference in how well you sell products and make money from your site. You need to develop a voice and personality throughout your site and that's done through your writing style. Unfortunately too many webmasters ignore that aspect of marketing.