Hello, my name is Adam O’Connor and I am very happy to announce that I am the proud new owner of Pluginid.com. Our current cracker jack team consists of Bud Hennekes who will contine to write those amazing, thought-provoking posts, Glen Allsopp who will be on board to offer email support for Cloud Living, and myself who will be teaching you how I  have generated a 5-figure monthly passive income online for over 6 years now.

A bit about me…

I am a 33-year-old Southern California native (duuuude!!!) and I live there with my wife, daughter and newborn son.   No, my hair is not bleach-blonde and I don’t surf everyday.  In fact, I  haven’t surfed in years.  I do like to lift weights, make money online, read books on Catholic Apologetics, and I am very active in teaching the Catholic faith to adults and participating in the many rich and beautiful, traditional devotions in my local parish.

I am also an Internet Entreprenuer by day.  My wife and I have been developing niche content, ecommerce, affiliate/AdSense and small business websites since 2002 and have been earning a nice, 5-figure monthly passive income from the Internet for many years.  Last year we sold 39 of our AdSense/Affiliates sites to streamline our business so we could put more time, energy and focus into a handful of sites rather than trying to manage the 50 we had.  We also went looking to buy a few new website properties.  I found pluginid.com in April 2010 and quickly realized that it would be the perfect opportunity to do what has been a great desire of mine for years…  Teach and share what I know about generating passive income online.  So, very shortly, I plan to begin posting and offering new tools on the site on generating online passive income, buying and selling passive income sites and fixing/flipping them as well.  I absolutely love what I do and want to share that and help people make the leap to earning a nice income from niche affiliate minisites, blogs, etc.

And now for the special offer part of this post… for the next 15 days

We are offering these two Online Passive Income ebook Guides for the price of one:

Cloud Living and Online Reputation Management

Cloud Living alone sells for $37 and is our best-selling ebook. Seen as one of the best internet marketing e-books available, Cloud Living has grossed over 30 thousands dollars in the past year.

For the past year, Cloud Living has been selling at an outrageously affordable price. Several readers have already used the lessons they learned in Cloud Living to generate thousands of dollars in passive income.

Here’s the thing, next month in June, the price of Cloud Living will be going up to $47. With the current market, we feel that is more than a fair price for such an abundance of information, which may I remind you, is written by individuals who walk the walk.

But, before we do that, we want to reward you, yes you, for being such a loyal follower of this blog.

So for the next 15 days, we are offering 2 ebooks for the price of one: Cloud Living and Online Reputation Management (ORM).  Cloud Living will get you on your way to pulling down some nice passive income from mini affiliate sites and ORM give you the edge on building a large subscriber-base on your blog, manage a stellar reputation online, hide and refute negative posts, and grow your subscribers, friends and lists. ORM alone sells for $39 and together these ebooks are selling for $76.   But, we’re giving it all away for  $47 during the next 15 days.

Claim Both Guides Now for $76 $47!

While both products stand strong on their own, this is the one, two, punch will give you what you need to start or kick-start your Internet business: ORM is a guide for building lists, blog subscribers, a solid twitter-base and Stumble Upon credibility; and  Cloud Living, the simple, yet effective tool for creating profitable affiliate niche minisites and blogs.

If you’re serious about making a solid passive income online this bundle is for you.

What You Get with Cloud Living

Cloud Living is Glen Allsopp’s phrase that he coined to describe the charmed lifestyle he leads because he took the leap and started creating affiliate niche minisites and blogs. The Cloud Living ebook is a tactical and practical guide that will lead you by the hand to generating a 5-figure monthly income online in a few short years. Created with the beginner in mind, Glen walks you through the ins and outs of what it takes to make it in the online world.

Cloud Living Gets You Started with an Affiliate Web Site in Minutes!  It Includes:

• 176-page eBook
• 6 Tutorial Videos (ranging from 4-10 minutes in length)
• A Free Affiliate Website Template
• 8-page Documentation Guide
• 100% Free Email Support

Cloud Living contains ALL of Glen Allsopp’s secrets to show you how he created a 5-figure monthly income online and built a blog with 4,000 subscribers in less than one year.

What You Get with Online Reputation Management

• Why Online Reputation Management is important to your web survival
• Exactly how to monitor your brand, what to look for and the tools to use
• How to ‘own’ your search results and deal with any negative mention
• How to protect your reputation proactively with conversation channels
• New updates for every new version that is produced.

30 Day Money-Back Guarantee

Look we get it. 47 dollars isn’t pocket change. But we are so confident that you will be thrilled with your purchase that  if for whatever reason you don’t find it valuable, you are entitled to a 100% refund with no questions asked.

The time to create an online business has never been better, and we are certain both Cloud Living and Online Reputation Management will help to make that happen. If you’re ready to take your income and life to the next level there is no better time to do so than now. Your online journey will require effort, but with the tools at your hands there is no reason why you can’t reach your online goals.

Buy now and have both guides in seconds and with a bit of hard work be well on your way to creating an online empire..

Claim Yours Now for $76 $47!

I only quit my job 7 months ago, but have been making money online for over 4 years. These days, I sell products: both my own and for others. In the past, however, I didn’t used to sell products. Instead, I sold myself.

I’m not talking about anything illegal of course; I’m talking about freelancing. At 16 I had become fascinated with internet marketing and wanted to learn more about it. I specifically focused on SEO (getting traffic from Search Engine’s) and devoured every piece of information on the subject I could. Within a few months, I soon found myself having a lot of success with this practice and my websites were getting a lot of targeted traffic.

In fact, I started to have so much success with SEO, that I did it for others. I set-up my own website which included a blog to show off my expertise and a list of the services people could hire me for. I made sure to include examples of my previous work so that people could trust I knew what I was doing (there are a lot of shady characters in the industry).

For the next 2 years, this is where 90% of my internet income was generated. There was even a point when a big mobile phone manufacturer paid me thousands of dollars just to write a couple of articles for their blog. At 17, while working from my bedroom, I had managed to generate over $20,000 in the space of just 4 months.

And if that doesn’t seem like much, let me add that I was going to college 5 days per week at the time.

You Can Do The Same

In the past year, I’ve stopped doing pretty much any form of freelancing. This is for no other reason than wanting to create my own products. I absolutely loved what I did, but I love writing for you all on PluginID and promoting products that I believe in on various sites. As I started to focus more on this side of my business, my freelancing work took a back seat.

Over 300 of you have purchased a copy of Cloud Living and you’ll know that the content there shows you how to both build a successful blog, and how to sell products successfully online. I know many people who have followed the course and are having success, but admittedly, it’s not for everyone.

Some people can’t find a product they believe in or feel like they want to put more of themselves into the work. For a while, I didn’t have much advice to give the people who wanted to be a bit more creative, but now I do.

Introducing The Unlimited Freelancer

The Unlimited Freelancer is a guide that has been released by two good friends of mine: Mason Hipp and James Chartrand. It is the exact thing I wish I had when I was offering services to clients. Instead of creating and selling your own products or the products of others, freelancing is about selling yourself (for a good return, of course).

This is by far the best guide I’ve ever read which shows you how to make great money online by exploiting your talents and doing what you love. Some freelancing opportunities from the top of my head include:

• Copywriting
• Programming
• Graphic / Web Design
• Blogging
• Data Entry
• Community (Website) Manager
• Marketing

I know there are tons of readers here with talents in any one of these fields. Especially the ones in bold. If you have a skill or are willing to expand your expertise, there’s a lot of money to be made (yes, even in this economy).

How do you know if The Unlimited Freelancer is for you? I think the opening paragraph answers that question nicely:

Would you like a life that lets you grow, enjoy more free time, do what you love every day, make more money, and build a valuable business? If you said yes, then this book is for you.

Unlimited Freelancer Contents

The Unlimited Freelancer (TUF, as I’ll now call it) is jam packed with 200 pages of quality content and as one of the authors is a professional copywriter, it has been very well put together.

The guide itself is based around 5 main sections, each of which I’ve mentioned below.

1. How to Be an Unlimited Freelancer

The authors go into detail on what it really takes to be a successful freelancer. They don’t share any over-hyped claims and do admit that at times, freelancing can take some work. They do share though, and quite rightly, how freelancing is one of the best ways to utilise your talents and use them to work your own hours and build an income you deserve.

2. Systems, Software & Automation

This to me, was perhaps the best part of the guide. It is literally crammed with advice on how you can organise your time to take on freelancing work and get jobs completed within schedule. Not only that, but it goes into detail about how to handle your finances, your contacts, and even your marketing.

Each of the topics in this section contain tons of resources for outside advice and shows which tools these professionals really use.

3. Building a Freelance Team

I think this is a great addition to the guide and I’m glad they included it. This section gives you the knowledge you need to (if you wish) turn your freelancing career into a fully fledged business. It looks at taking on staff or simply just outsourcing certain work which is often necessary and a great business move in itself.

Just like in the other 4 sections, they really go all out here. James and Mason share their tips for creating excellent relationships with your staff (that can be used with clients) and great ways to get the responses that you want.

4. Revenue-Generating Assets

One thing you may come across as you start your freelancing career is that your time tends to equal your income. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you stop working, your income stops flowing. This section looks at how you can create other assets (and they give great examples) so that you can be making money on the back of your brand without having to put all of the extra work in.

5. Combine Strategies for Unlimited Potential

Section 5 looks at how you can live on your own terms and create a business that has an unlimited potential. I like that in this part of the guide there is an approach on how to make your business run smoothly as a whole and how to decide what to work on. After all, there is marketing, communication, branding, and other things that need attention.

Shown here though, is that it doesn’t just have to be your attention, or at least it doesn’t have to take up all of it. Each can either be tasked off to other sources or even just combined with tools to make your life easier.

Final Thoughts

In over a year of blogging, I have never recommended the goods of anyone else. This should show that I wouldn’t break this record for a lacklustre product. James and Mason have really hit the ball out of the park on this one and if you feel like you have some kind of service to offer, they show you exactly how to turn that into an income.

I love that each section of this guide contains both real life scenarios and mini take-aways from other professional freelancers who have ‘made it’ in their respective industries. I highly recommend that if this sounds like something you might be interested in, then you should pick up a copy today.

Disclaimer: I will only ever recommend products I have used or own personally. Trust is a hard thing to build (especially online) and I wouldn’t break it by putting my name behind something that I don’t believe in.

What I’m going to share with you today is a guide that my best (real life) friends have used to add hundreds of dollars per month to their income. Online strangers have used this guide to feed their families and anyone who follows it can apply the steps to help them leave the rat race.

Photo Credit

My Quick, Personal Story

I have been looking for ways to make money for as long as I can remember. For some reason, probably the child in me, I have always had this feeling that I will become a millionaire (not that this really matters to me). I remember building my first website when I was 15 about computer tips; I added a link to Paypal so that people could pay me and the idea was that I would give them access to my other articles.

I sat back and waited to get rich. I told all my friends and family that I would never need a job because I had found my income solution. Of course, nothing happened. Nobody came to the site and even if they did, the awful design would have probably turned them away.

Over the next 4 years I honed my skills, I got my name out there and I (or should I say, my website) was featured in the book DJ’ing for Dummies. I was also featured on 9 of the top 100 blogs in the world according to Technorati; all of this happening before I even had the idea to build PluginID.

In those 4 years I built so many disastrous websites that it would be nothing short of embarrassing to go back over my list and see what I created. Yet, through trial and a lot of error, I was able to quit my day job in January of this year.

The job that I quit, by the way, was a dream job for me. A job that I had quit college for and moved across the world for. Still, no matter how amazing a job may seem, I still don’t think anything can beat being your own boss.

How Did I Do It?

In order to land my dream job, I have already shared the principles that took me from an average Joe to an expert in my industry. Quitting my job to work for myself is something completely different though. It would be obvious for me to share principles such as “work hard”, “stay positive” and “don’t give up” but that still doesn’t help you achieve a boss-free life. You need to be motivated and you need to know what you’re going to do to provide you with an income.

There is just one thing that I can credit my success in this area: having a burning desire to leave the rat race.

That’s it. I had a strong passion to work for myself, to work my own hours and be in an industry where there are an abundance of people my age and even younger making 5 figures every single month. If you can get this drive to succeed in any area of your life, then the sky really is the limit.

It then helps to have an idea of what you want to do, but if you can grow your desire enough, you’ll literally start seeking out ideas and alternatives naturally.

My actual income, if you haven’t guessed already, all comes via the internet. I get funds wired to my bank account and regularly receive checks from companies like Google, Clickbank and others. I make money online, but I do feel a bit uneasy about helping others do the same. There is a good reason for that though…

The ‘Make Money Online’ Industry is a Scam

I had hesitated to write this post, simply because people telling others how to make money online is usually thought of as something slimy and unethical. It’s quite ironic that one of the best ways to make money online is to teach others how to make money online. This is why there are literally thousands of bloggers telling you how to do it, even though they don’t do it themselves.

The industry, in general, is very devious. Even when I started writing a genuine guide for my friends, they would always email me or message me on Facebook with the link to the latest fad asking if it would work. Even though I was putting together this no-nonsense guide for them, they were still curious about whether these “overnight riches” systems would help them succeed.

I mean, after-all, they have screenshots and video proof. (Sarcasm)

There are some good guides out there, but I have no doubt that they are in the minority. I have been in this industry for four years and rarely come across something I want to purchase or would recommend to others.

In general, the make money online industry is a scam.

My Guide Is Not

There were months in South Africa where I was making far more money working a couple of hours per week on my own projects than I was in my full-time job. One day a colleague was sitting next to me while I was showing them something on my laptop and I was literally getting a flood of new emails from Paypal, my payment processor.

The subject title’s read: “New payment received”, “New payment received”, “New payment received” – they just wouldn’t stop coming in. I had earned about $250 in the space of 10 minutes; even while I was working on my normal job. Of course, my colleague started asking me lots of questions and I promised them that one day I would write a guide on what I do.

I was slow on the uptake, but this guide was finally finished about three weeks ago. I didn’t want to post about it here until I knew it was complete and people made money…

…and trust me; people made money.

My guide was a hands-on case study of myself taking a brand new website from scratch, and laying down all the details of how I was going to make money with it.

In 30 days of the live case study, which includes videos, thousands of words and detailed images, I made $850.

I wasn’t the only one though, I received dozens of thank you emails from people who followed the guide and started making cash…

Click Here to Read My “$850 in 30 Days” Case Study

“Can I Trust You?”

My obvious response to that would be “Yes”, but I’m actually saying no. Don’t trust me. Instead, let the results and my guide speak for themselves. The guide in total comprises of 11 parts and it will take you around 2 hours to go through everything.

I reveal my website and the exact steps I take to make money online. I perform the same tactics that are shared in the guide across a large number of industries, and that is why I was able to quit my day job. This isn’t some get-rich-quick scheme; successful ones simply don’t exist. I do however, honestly believe that with around 4-5 hours of solid work, you can make your first $100 this month online.

This is all completely legitimate and the finer details are all explained on the site. At the bottom of each post there is a link to the next section and they all follow on from each other in the order they should be actioned. The maximum investment you will need to make is $5 per month for a host and maybe $9 (one-off payment) for a domain. If you already have hosting and a domain you want to use then you can follow the guide without having to make an investment.

And, just to clear a few things up:

• You do not need any technical skills, this is written for a complete beginner
• As long as you can edit a text file on your PC, you can follow this guide
• I put this guide together for my close friends, it wasn’t originally supposed to be promoted

If you have any questions about any part of the guide, please ask over on HQHow. I recommend that you start at part one and then follow along. You don’t have to take action, but I honestly believe this is one of the best guides on the internet for beginners, and it is absolutely free.

Click Here to Read My “$850 in 30 Days” Case Study

There are no real ‘secrets’ you need to learn in order to increase your blog traffic, so today I’m going to share what I know and how I effectively build traffic. This can be used on sites you are just starting up or on blogs that are already established, there should be something here for everyone to benefit from.

Photo Credit

Brief History

Before you wonder whether or not you should trust my advice, I just want to say that I’ve been in Internet Marketing for over 3 years. I work with newspapers and some Fortune 500 companies so have quite a bit of experience in the field with both large brands and sites I’ve started from scratch.

However, you shouldn’t take anything I say as the blogging traffic bible or word for word what you should do to get visitors to your content. This is simply my advice on building a high-trafficked blog that doesn’t require multiple digg homepages or PR8 backlinks in order to see a traffic spike.

So, without further anticipation, here are the sections we are going to cover today:

• Choosing your Niche
• Spreading your Brand
• Search Engine Optimisation
• Writing Quality Content
• Niche Engagement

To me, these are the main factors to building a blog to respectable traffic levels. You may know about SEO but you may not know about niche engagement so if you don’t have time to read all this or don’t think you will benefit from certain parts then just read the sections necessary for you.

Choosing Your Niche

Deciding a niche to blog about can be very difficult for most bloggers, once you’ve set the tone of your blog it can be challenging to veer off into other areas. The first thing I want to say is that you should not just start another ‘make money online’ website. These are absolutely everywhere, I actually feel bad for some of the authors who are preaching about how people can make money online when they have 18 subscribers and every other post is a product review.

Choosing your niche should not be a difficult job, you simply have to write about something you love; cover a topic you are passionate about. While knowing what you are passionate about shouldn’t be too difficult, you should also make sure that there is an audience for your content.

For example, if you are interested in ‘scandanavian fly fishing’ and are hoping to become a full-time blogger then you might struggle to find an audience large enough to make a decent income. What I recommend in this case is that you simply step back in terms of topic. So if you are interested in scandanavian fly fishing then you write about fishing, if you are interested in snow boarding then consider creating an extreme sports website.

The idea here is that you don’t limit yourself to what you can cover. There’s nothing wrong with writing about celebrities or blogging or self improvement. Although they are niche topics they do have a very large potential audience if you can build your brand and gain some marketshare. However, if you want to write about blog design (which a friend of mine does) then you are limiting your potential post ideas. On the other hand, with this topic you are branching out from a huge niche so there is still potential to reach a few thousand subscribers and make a great go of things.

Before you pick your final niche, make sure:

• You love the topic you are going to be writing about
• There’s a big enough audience for you to reach
• If you blog on a very specific topic then there’s a chance to become the niche leader
• There are other blogs in the space that you can interact with

The bottom point is not absolutely necessary, but when you are blogging in a specific niche rather than a broader industry it can feel lonely when you are on your own. One of the main benefits of blogging is that you can become part of a community and find like-minded people with the same interests. Don’t limit yourself too much but also don’t go to broad and write about everything. After a while you’ll work out what is best for you and what is best for your audience.

Spreading Your Brand

You found this blog post somehow. Somewhere out there in the World Wide Web you came across this post. Whether it was from StumbleUpon, a comment I left on another site, a recommendation from a friend or you were already subscribed to our feed, you found it. I’ve worked very hard at spreading the PluginID brand and I’m going to go through exactly how you can do the same thing.

Get an Avatar – I strongly recommend that you pick an avatar (a small image) that is going to be used to represent your site on the various platforms I mention below. Your avatar should be something that stands out, is catchy and most importantly…memorable. If you sign-up on social sites and don’t fill in your details or upload an image then you are going to look like every other lazy member of that community.

It can be something that represents your niche but it certainly doesn’t have to. Here are some popular examples from around the web:

The second one is mine

In order to get your avatar in comments like you see on a lot of blogs, including this one, simply join Gravatar and upload the image you want to use. It works based on your email address so whatever email you insert in your comments, the corresponding image will show (if any).

Join MyBlogLog – Although I don’t use any of the services provided in MyBlogLog, there’s one cool benefit to being a member. Whenever you view a blog that has their ‘recent visitors’ widget installed, which many of them do, your avatar will show on the side of the website.

Just through browsing the web I already had 4 friend requests on my profile and my page had been viewed over 160 times. When you factor in that your profile clearly displays your website URL then there’s the potential to get quite a few visitors for no extra work on your part. You can check out MyBlogLog here.

Register on Social Voting Websites – whether you are a fan of these or not, there’s a lot of traffic potential in all of them. I recommend only signing up on the ones that interest you and you will use but some of the biggest ones are:

• Digg
• Mixx
• StumbleUpon (Toolbar)
• Reddit

You should also check if there are any niche social voting sites in your industry, Squareoak has a huge list which might help in your search.

For all of the sites you join, upload your avatar from earlier and fill out your profile details. Whether or not you use a site name as your username is up to you. Some people prefer to remain anonymous so that they can become ‘power users’ and drive more traffic to their sites. For me, I make it clear who I am on StumbleUpon and Mixx but use a more anonymous profile on Digg where it is frowned upon to vote or submit your own content.

Join Twitter – Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging’ service which allows you to share 140 character updates with the world. My favourite aspect of Twitter is definitely the community aspect and seeing what other people are up to. Once again I recommend you use the same avatar as on other sites, or at least show a picture of yourself.

I’ve been using Twitter for PluginID for over 2 months now and it is consistently in the top 5 referring sites in terms of traffic to this blog. What I love is that you can ‘follow’ people (add them as a friend) and keep up to date with like-minded people that have similar interests. When you fill out your profile you get to put your URL in the site field so definitely do this, and then start following people in your niche.

Following is not something that you can just do on its own and expect to get traffic from the site, instead you want more people to follow you. Some quick tips to get more followers include:

• Link to your twitter profile from your website
• Establish relationships with friends who are already connections on the likes of StumbleUpon & Mixx
• Ask interesting questions that people will reply to, then their followers will find your profile
• Offer great tips and advice in your industry so that people would be missing out if they didn’t follow you

Finally, you can also use TwitterFeed to automatically update your followers of all new posts to your blog. I tend to click on the blog updates of others so this definitely sends traffic.

Make Content Easy to Share – I’m amazed at how difficult some blogs make it just in order to digg one of their stories or give it a save on delicious. If you want to grow and want people to share your content then you have to make it easy for them. If you look at the bottom of every post here then you will see there are quick links to:

• Email posts
• Stumble Posts
• Save to Delicious
• Digg

If you are using feedburner then you can set this up very easily, I also have the links showing in my RSS feed for people who prefer to read content that way. People aren’t going to share your content if you make it easy for them, why would they go through the hassle?

Search Engine Optimisation

When I first started out in SEO I was constantly learning and testing as much as I could. I was reading forums on a daily basis, writing my own SEO blog and trying out new techniques. Based on all this work, I’ve managed to successfully pick up the knowledge to rank very highly for competitive keywords in search engines and I’ve actually been providing SEO as a service for a few years.

In this post I’m just going to keep to the basics as…to be honest…that is all you really need.

Unique Title Tags – This is the tip that most people in the SEO industry give first because in terms of on-site optimisation this is one of the most important things you can have. The title tag is one of the best ways to tell search engines what your website is actually about. In terms of optimising this for blogs I tend to show an optimised homepage title which either features the site name and slogan or keywords relating to my niche.

In terms of single posts, I prefer simply having the title of the post as the full title of the page. Of course, if you want to add branding to that then I recommend you do so but only at the end of the title. It is believed (and proven in my own testing) that keywords at the beginning of a URL are given more weight.

Non-WWW to www Redirect – For those of you thinking ‘What??’, let me explain. Basically, it’s a good idea to make sure that either the non-www version of your site (http://pluginid.com) is redirecting to the www version of your site (http://www.pluginid.com) or vica versa. The reason for this is that whenever somebody links to your site you want all that link juice to go to the same place.

The best way to do this is by using a 301 redirect, which tells the search engines that the link is permanent. You can learn how to do this over here. As an extra measure, you can also sign your site up for Google Webmaster Tools and there’s a section to tell them which version of your site to show in the search results.

Interlink – Interlinking is when you relevantly link to other sections of your website in your blog posts. I do that quite a lot over here at PluginID and there are 2 benefits. The first benefit is that you increase the inbound links to these pages and thus increase their importance in the eyes of the search engines. This can help you get more pages indexed.

The second benefit is that you can keep your website visitors on your site for longer. Instead of just having them read an article and leave, you’ll find a lot of them clicking through to other sections and checking out your other content.

Have a Sitemap – We have a sitemap over here but for now it is only covering pages I’ve created that aren’t actually blog posts. The best things to normally include in your sitemap are:

• Post Categories
• Latest Posts
• Any other pages you’ve created

I will be implementing the latest posts on the PluginID sitemap shortly but for now the site is being indexed fine. I link to product reviews that I wouldn’t have on the main blog, this helps website visitors find content and also help search engines navigate around the website. When we add more pages in the future (which we will) this will become even more useful.

If you want to set-up your own simply create a new page in your blogging software and link to it from all pages of your website (I recommend the navigation bar or footer). Then include the main pages that you want the search engines and site visitors to see, that you may not have been able to link to elsewhere. You can also use this opportunity to guide new visitors around your site and direct them to your favourite posts.

Shorten your URL’s

Even on the big blogs out there today, I see this mistake over and over again. You look at the address bar for a post URL and it appears something like this:

http://www.domain.com/2009/10/03/keywords-that-I-used-in-the-title-of-my-blog-post-rediculous/

I’m not kidding, I see this on sites with over 50,000 subscribers. If you are using WordPress then go into the Settings >> Permalinks page and cut it down to simply the post-name. Now, whenever you are writing a post you can also cut this down as well, so for example the URL for this blog post will probably end up being something like:

http://www.pluginid.com/increase-blog-traffic

Doesn’t that look much better? Very long URL’s get cut off my search engines and they look quite spammy in my opinion. Personally, I prefer URL’s to remain short but just long enough so that the user knows what the page is about.

SEO No No’s

I’ve spent 3 years blogging in the SEO industry so I’ve never encountered as many people who sell links as I have in the personal development niche. I saw bloggers posting and wondering why their PR went down when they had 20 spammy links in their sidebar. If you want to stay on the safe side of the fence then I wouldn’t sell links in your blog. I do this on a few sites but only on sites where I don’t care about Google or other search related traffic.

I also recommend that you don’t write solely for search engines, your blog should be all about the readers. If you are creative you’ll find someway to include the keywords you are targeting into a post title without it looking spammy. If you simply want to include your keywords all over the place and make your text unreadable then you probably aren’t in blogging to build up a readerbase, or you shouldn’t expect to build one.

Writing Quality Content

Content is the main factor that you need to work on with your blog. Even if you don’t spend time tweaking your site for search benefits and don’t care that much about branding specifically on each social site, excellent content will still give your site a chance to succeed.

Of course, the definition of ‘quality’ really depends on which niche you are writing in. If you are writing on a golf blog then quality might be a new swing technique that nobody has thought of. If you are writing on a humour blog it may be about finding a funny image or a new joke that people just have to pass around. For our case in terms of the personal development niche, quality content tends to be content which is personal, original and fills a need.

The type of content that tends to do well are:

• List Content – ’11 Ways to’, ’21 Reasons why’, ’101 things that’ – you find these a lot on blogs
• Unique content i.e. research into something that hasn’t been done or a personal challenge people are thinking of trying which you report on
• Viral Content – something that is easy for people to share and something that they are likely to share. Humorous content tends to do well
• Resource posts – links to products, services or items in one place that can help peoples lives (example)

Although you might have success with a post on the ’11 Biggest Fashion Mistakes of 2008′, it’s not really going to go down well with your general audience on your soccer (football) blog. Remember that although social media sites have the potential to drive you a large amount of visitors, many of them will simply disappear so don’t push away your regular genuine readers with unrelated content.

If your content is just the same as what everybody in your niche is used to then you aren’t going to stand out. If most people write short newsy posts then try writing longer posts that are informative. If people tend to write list posts that offer little substance, can you do something different and still interest the audience?

Following is a look at some of my top articles with their titles and how many views they received:

Title: Dream Lifestyle? Think Again!
Views: 21,383
Reason: The reason that this post did so well is that I took a popular myth and showed people the behind the scenes look. If you can change people’s assumptions then you are onto a winner.

Title: Personal Development Blogs
Views: 15,126
Reason: The reason this page did so well is because I ranked the top sites in the personal development niche based on a number of public metrics. Everyone who is involved did their best to share the list with their fellow stumblers, tweeters or website visitors. If you can create a page that people benefit from sharing then definitely do it.

Title: Are you Living a Scripted Life?
Views: 13,980
Reason: I find post titles with questions tend to get a lot better response than those without, that’s not saying you should overdo it though. I think the main reason this post did so well is because many people could relate to the content and wondered if they where simply living a life that was already designed for them, rather than doing something unique. Once again, this is making people question themselves rather than feeding them all the answers.

Title: How to Get Someone or Something, Off Your Mind
Views: 8,836
Reason: This post did very well on Care2 and StumbleUpon and was posted quite recently. This is a resolution to a common problem that people have, but I’m also putting my own spin on it. I didn’t answer it in a way that you would normally expect and actually shared something I think would work better. I’ve noticed that a lot of search engine referrals are also coming in from this post so it’s view count will constantly increase whether I get social media traffic or not.

Niche Engagement

Niche engagement, as the name suggests, means immersing yourself in all aspects of your niche in order to get targeted traffic back to your blog. I’m going to run through some ideas of what I mean by this now:

Blog Comments – I regularly comment on blogs in this niche for a number of reasons. The first is that the author is likely to come back to your site to see who is commenting. The second is that there’s potential for visitors of the site you are commenting on to click your name (link) and arrive at your website. I found one blog comment to drive me over 100 visitors recently and when it is in the niche you blog in, you can’t complain at the effort it takes to comment when you can get that many visitors.

Thirdly, blog comments are a good way to become ‘closer’ to the author of a blog, in which they might link back to one of your blog posts or simply add you as a friend in other social websites. I tend to find that the authors of small to medium size blogs will comment back on your site as well when they get the time, making yours look a bit more lively.

Guest Posting – I’ve only done about 4 guest-posts since starting this blog, actually that’s quite a few for 3 months, but they’ve all been worth it. Guest posts are a great way to get both backlinks and traffic to your website which can help with direct visitors and search engine referrals. It’s best to do a guest post on a blog in your niche because that way the people that come across your site are much more likely to subscribe to your feed.

I’ve done a few guest posts for blogs that aren’t very related but are still large. My main reason for this is that I find it very easy to write on a range of subjects, and prefer relevant posts to this niche to be written solely for this blog. However, you should try things out and see what works best for you. If you do give guest posting a try then don’t value quantity over quality. You want to showcase your best work for others so that they:

• Are likely to post the content on their site
• Have a chance of receiving some good traffic to the article
• Bring in visitors from that site who want to see more of your work
• Are likely to invite you back to guest post again

Forum Activity – If you didn’t pick too small of a niche when you started your blog, it’s likely there will be a few large forums in your niche. In the personal development industry the biggest forum is definitely the one ran by Steve Pavlina. In the past I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the site, mostly because I enjoy the content and discussions there. If you don’t enjoy the content of the biggest forums in your niche then you should question whether you really love your industry.

The reason I state that is because forum posting is something that can be tedious for little results, however the result is targeted traffic. On most forums, you can place a signature link so that whenever you make a post there is a link back to your website at the bottom. I’ve found that this works well not only for website visitors but also in terms of making relationships with other bloggers on that website.

Be Active on StumbleUpon – StumbleUpon is one of my favourite websites because time and time again it is able to show me amazing content from my niche at the click of a button. Not only that, but StumbleUpon is known to have the ability to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website.

When you first sign-up to the site you will be given some options to share your interests, make sure you are actually interested in the topics that you select. Now, whenever you hit the ‘Stumble’ button in the toolbar, you will be directed to a new and interesting article in your niche, providing that some spam hasn’t gotten through their filters. I tend to Stumble a lot of related content, especially that of my friends on Twitter (Add me) and the blogs that I comment on. If you are nice to others and vote for their content, then you’ll find that they are likely to stumble yours back.

Of course, don’t only stumble the content of certain people as SU might pick up on this and it will look as if you are gaming the system. Vote for whatever you find interesting and if it is something of someone you’ve ‘connected’ with in the past then even better. In terms of traffic potential I can say that StumbleUpon has sent me over 30,000 visitors in one day before and for another site sent over 150,000 in one month. So in terms of potential, there’s absolutely loads.

Be Real – The ideas I mentioned above are not ‘tricks’ so that you can start receiving traffic from other blogs, they are all utilising the power of networking, helping others and being real. By being real I mean let people know who you are. There are multiple ways you can do this:

• Leave your full name in blog comments
• Have a picture of yourself on your about page
• Leave your full name in your blog posts
• Write from the heart, connect with people on a personal level

I do all of those things here and I don’t think this site would have had such a quick growth if I was robotic and anonymous. Consider whether there are ways that you could come across in a more humane manner.

In Summary

By far this is the longest blog post I’ve ever wrote, but that’s OK. It may have taken me 4-5 hours but it’s a blog post that I can keep referring people to, and hopefully one that other bloggers keep referring their visitors to. You see, when you care about your website you don’t mind writing a 4,000+ word post because you are enjoying what you are doing, you are looking forward to the reactions of your readers and other bloggers.

I’m not saying posts of this length or necessary, but now and again they might be what separates you from the thousands of other bloggers in your niche. And when there are hundreds of blogs in your niche, there’s no harm in doing things that stand out in a positive light, in fact I strongly encourage it. You found this post somehow, now get out there and make sure people are finding your content ‘somehow’. I hope I’ve helped you all in getting more traffic to your websites and look forward to reading what you guys have to say in the comments (genuinely)!