Blogging for List Building Traffic

So, do you have a blog? Why not? You want people to come to your website, right? If you don't have one, is it because you're scared that your writing stinks on ice? Or, maybe you don't think you have the know-how to set one up. But, and this is the best excuse, you think you don't have the time. Guess what? You're dead wrong.

Everyone interested in list building should be driving traffic to squeeze pages, and blogs are an incredibly easy way to do that. First, search engines love them, so if you start a blog and make an entry every day, you'll soon get ranked highly, if you stick to a theme and use keywords in your posts that show the search engines: "This is what my blog is all about." It doesn't take very long, either. One of my blogs came out as a PR5, the first time it ever got page rank, and for those of you who don't understand the significance, it's great!

Google ranks web pages (not sites, pages) from 0 to 10, with PR10 being the highest. Even Google's own front door only has a PR8, so a PR10 is pretty hard to get. A PR5 site will show up higher in the results pages than a PR1, for instance, so it will get more traffic. The goal is to be on one of the first three pages. However, page one for the search term is still the most desired, with the #1 spot on the first page being the best of all. It gets the most traffic.

But let's address those issues that are stopping you.

You're afraid you can't write.

Well, everyone can write and there are lots of good courses out there to help you learn to do that. Get one and study it. Then, set aside one hour a day to start writing. Don't do another thing, except stare at the blank screen, until you get some words down, even if you're only outlining an idea. If you make this a ritual, it might be hard for the first day or so, but eventually, you'll train your brain to realize that "Doh! It's 9 o'clock. I have to be writing." If you can't afford a whole hour to start, try half an hour or even just fifteen minutes. You'll be amazed at how much you can get done, when you have that "special" time set aside. After you've been doing this a while, you'll probably write a blog entry every day. It won't happen at first, but it will happen.

Or, find content from other places on the web. Go to one of the free article directories, like Ezine Articles or iSnare, and find content that's pertinent to your niche. Be sure to use the whole article, if you do this. Add a paragraph of introduction at the beginning and a paragraph after the author's bio box at the end, and wrap the article in your own words. If you use other people's words any other way, be sure to use less than 10% or you're plagiarizing. If you want to use any more than that, ask the author. And always give credit where credit is due.

You're still not convinced? OK, so hire a ghostwriter. You can find them easily at Elance.com or Craigslist.com, and look to pay around $10 - 15 an article. But all rights with the article and then, you can do anything you want with it, including rewriting, repurposing, rebranding with your own byline, selling it, etc.

You don't have the know-how to set up a blog:

Sure you can! You have to have cPanel hosting with Fantastico, but if you do, it's a snap. Just go into cPanel and look for "Fantastico." The icon is a big smiley face. Once inside, you'll see something that says, "WordPress 2.0" If you click on that, you'll be asked to fill in a few blanks, and BINGO! You have a brand new blog on your server. Simple! Customization might be a bit more difficult because it requires knowledge of HTML.

If you need a tech person to do these things, try RentaCoder.com to find one. It should be fairly inexpensive.

You don't have time for a blog:

You don't have time NOT to have a blog. Blogs are great for many reasons. First, as mentioned above search engines love them. By placing a link to your main site on your blog, you're getting a one-way link back to your site, too. That's also great for search engine optimization because search engines look at links like votes. The more one-way votes you have, the higher your site will rank. But the best thing about a blog is the traffic you'll get. Sign up for some Web2.0 sites, like StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, and Spicy Page, and book mark your posts there, too. You'll get tons of traffic!

People need to see your squeeze page to sign up for your list, right? If you don't take some action to make this happen, you won't get a very big list, so get that blog going. Join some Web 2.0 sites on blogging, too, like MyBlogLog.com, Technorati.com, or FeedBlaster.com. You'll see your traffic pick up. Maybe overnight!

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. and knows how to build massive traffic. He gets results! If you'd like to learn more ways to drive traffic to your site, visit MyFirstTraffic.com at http://traffic.overcomeeverything.com