Here are a few example ideas I came up with that you can use a shared Google Calendar to help promote your web site or business.

• If you are a speaker, publish a speaking schedule. You are probably already doing that through Google Calendar already. Maybe you are publishing the calendar to your website. If you are, people can also subscribe to the calendar via Google Calendars or iCal. Promote and publish those links too.
• Is your site or blog all about soccer? Create a calendar around the different soccer matches either around the world or the locality that your readers are most interested in. Let them know how they can subscribe to that calendar.
• Maybe your visitors are mostly business people or marketers. How about creating a calendar that shows when quarterly taxes are due, a reminder when to start their holiday marketing planning and when to start promoting? Enter the dates and weeks of holidays and observances they can use for promotions.
• Similarly, if your visitors are moms, how about a calendar with suggestions of places to visit, things to do, seasonal reminders or shopping and menu plans.
• If you are a coach. Create a calendar around a program let’s say, a 60 day organizing program that users can subscribe to and they be reminded or things they need to do each day or each week to help them move along.

Use your imagination. Think of the calendar as a free reminder tool for your visitors. Remember that you can enter a link in Google Calendar entries. This can encourage subscribed users to click through to visit your site, an offer or simply lead people to read old but timely posts.

Don’t think it would work? This is the third year I am creating a calendar for bloggers of the many blogging opportunities throughout the year. It is very popular and I get people asking when it will be updated each year. Great tool to keep you in front of your audience at all times through the year as well. You can get a PDF copy of this calendar as an example for your own project. This year, I will be creating both PDF and a online ‘live’ version using Google Calendar.

Image courtesy of yalcin Eren

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

Maybe many of us are tired of free PDF’s that are just gathering cyberdust on our hard drives not because the information isn’t good, not because it is free but because it’s no longer as ’sexy’ anymore. Maybe we have all ‘grown up’ in the manner we consume and share information online. I’m not saying that PDF’s aren’t good or effective and that we must rush to multi-media delivery. Not at all. What I am saying is, maybe the days of black and white text only PDF’s is going if not already gone. That we need to work harder to present our information with professional design and layouts whether they are in written format or multimedia.

I’m not sure. But I know this.

One of the biggest reasons I love my work is because I see lots of potential in utilizing technology for marketing purposes. It is true that everyone of us reading and contributing to this blog already are doing so to a certain extent. After all, for most of us, our business wouldn’t exist without technology – the Internet. But what I’m talking about is leveraging technology beyond the obvious.

It is my believe, that if you can deliver your freebie in the form of a tool – yes, I am talking about software, games, quizzes, plugins, themes, even Stock photo that people can actually use, interact and experience, free is still very much welcomed and works very, very well.

Most Sparkplugging readers are…well, small.  Call it consultant, micro-business, or whatever you like.  Freelancers are small businesses that can benefit from a very small amount of business.  Today I’d like to show you how to snag some highly targeted web traffic that will get you some great business – and it’s something you should be able to accomplish by yourself within a few hours.

My last post was on getting yourself added to the Google Local Business Directory.  Today I want to focus on how to expand that local presence.

What you’ll need:

• A website.
• Access to your website’s code, or at least the back end visual editor.  If you don’t make any changes to your website, you’ll need the person who makes those changes.
• Internet Access

Most freelancers work in competitive niches like writing, real estate, or consulting of some sort.  For this example I want to use the real estate industry to show how you can find buyers.

First, let’s do a little research. Do you know what people who are looking for your goods & services type into search engines?  Google will tell you, for free.  Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal# and use the free keyword tool to get an idea.  Start by typing in what you sell or provide. In this case, I’ll start with ‘Real Estate.’  I get this result.

Notice that at the top it shows me the average number of searches for the terms ‘real estate’ and ‘real estates.’  These are the exact matches for what I was searching for.  The neat thing is that lower down it also gives me a huge list of thing that Google says people also type when searching for real estate.  Wouldn’t you love to be found on the first page of Google when someone searches those things?  The big national real estate franchises like Remax, Coldwell Banker and others certainly love it.

Again, you can do this with any industry. Try it again with ‘counseling,’ ‘copy writing,’ ‘graphic design’ or whatever it is that you do.  The Keyword Tool will generate a list of keywords that relate to your industry.

Now, the next part that I am going to show you really only works for small markets where the competition is not too fierce, but it should work for many of you.  If you live in Los Angeles, NYC, or another major metro, you’ll need to do more than just this, but this is a good start.

Do the search again, but add a geo targeted qualifier to it.  That simply means add a city or zip code.  I picked a small town in Tennessee called Crossville (population 10,433).

Notice that the numbers drop dramatically?  It means its far less competitve.  If you could show up on the first page of 5000+ searches and get around 5 – 10% of those people to click through to your site, would you be happy?  I thought so.

Your next step is store those keywords you want to target.  You can click add next to all of them and it will generate a list on the right which you can then download as a text file or as a .csv (Excel) file.  You can also just write them down if you want to target just the top few.

Now you want to add these keywords to your website.  On your Home, About and Contact page, put in a few sentences about how you are a real estate agent that specializes in the Crossville area, and then rearrange that sentence in a few different ways.  Make sure that each page has different content.  A good example could be:

Cory Huff is a Crossville Real Estate Agent with over 10 years experience helping buyers locate homes for sale in Crossville, Lake Holiday, and Woodlawn.  Located at the intersection of Interstate 40 and State Highway 127, Crossville, Tennessee is a beautiful city that is growing like crazy and we have new real estate deals on beautiful homes and land for sale in the Crossville area.

You know your market, so write for your own customers, but you get the idea.  Google loves this local search stuff, and in a small market this can often be enough to get you the traffic you need.

Further ideas:

• Create a blog that you update once a week with posts about the local real estate market.  Make sure you put these keywords in the title and at the top of the posts.  For example, you might do a blog post about how Obama’s recent tax credits will affect the homes for sale in your current market, and lead with the title, “Homes for Sale under Obama’s Tax Plan.”
• If you’ve added yourself to the Google Local Business Directory, go back and add some of these keywords to your listing in the description and categories sections.
• Get other websites to link to your site using your keywords as the anchor text like I do here with my blog, TheAbundantArtist.com, which contains posts on the best day jobs for actors.

It will take a few weeks to a couple of months for you to start to see results from this work, but it’s well worth it when you start getting phone calls!  Please bookmark this post and come back after you start seeing results, and let us know how it works out for you!

Cory Huff, Sparkplugging.com intern, works as a blogger & social media guy for Netbiz.com, a company focused on search engine marketing for small businesses.  He’s also a trained actor and writes about the intersection of money & art at TheAbundantArtist.com.

Google has recently made some changes to the interface of their local business directory that will allow you to take full advantage of local search.  Let’s take a look at how you can make it work for you.

You’ve always been able to add yourself to the Local Business Directory by visiting http://www.google.com/local/add.  Click on add new listing and you’ll get this screen.

Be sure to fill out every single field.  Every little piece has an influence on whether you show up when people look for you.  The description field should be filled with your products, services, and the areas you service.  You get 200 characters, you should use them all.

On the next screen you’ll be given the option to claim an already existing listing.  If one of those listings is you, make sure you claim that listing so you can update the info.  If none of them are you, choose add listing.

On the next screen you get to add yourself to Google’s categories.  Instead of being able to type in your categories, you have to pick from Google’s pre-determined categories.  Try to fill all five spots, but don’t put yourself into categories that having nothing to do with your business.  That’s spam and Google may penalize you in the rankings for cheating.  Fill out the rest of the listings and make sure you add pictures and videos.  The more you add, the better off you are.  If you can add videos of you doing your work or talking about your work, even better.  (extra hint: also post these videos on Youtube and your own website)

Now, after you’ve submitted, you have some more work to do (it’s worth it, I promise).  After you hit submit you’ll get a screen that will show you the status of your listing.  In some cases, your listing may be flagged for manual review by a Google employee.  If that’s the case it may take a few extra days for your listing to appear.  There’s nothing you can do to make it run faster, so just sit tight.

After your listing status says Active, you’ll start seeing activity like how many impressions (the number of times your local listing appeared in a search result) and actions (the number of times someone clicked on your listing, requested driving directions to your place, or clicked through to your website).  You can view more detail by clicking on View Report.

Do More

• Make sure you have a strong website that contains lots of local information about your company and your surroundings, like driving directions to your business, local companies you’ve worked with, and local events where you can be found.
• Links to your website from local authority sites are awesome.  Chamber of Commerce, college & university links, and other local sites can help your search rankings improve.
• Get reviewed.  Ask your happy customers to review you on relevant review sites.  For example, a Bed and Breakfast might ask customers to review them on CitySearch.com, TravelGuide.com, or other travel sites.

There can be a lot to finding your local search market.  Let us know in the comments below what kind of questions you might have!

Cory Huff is the blogging & social media specialist for Netbiz.com, an internet marketing firm in Portland, Oregon and one of our very own Sparkplugging Interns!  You can follow him on Twitter at @AGoodHusband

This is a guest blog post by Alice Seba, the Internet Marketing Sweetie.

We work writing great content for our blogs and to be honest, it can suck if we don’t get the traffic we deserve (or that we need to earn a decent income!). It feels like a vicious cycle…you can’t get the traffic without doing the work, but it’s tough to justify all the work if you aren’t getting decent traffic. Here are 11 ways you can increase blog traffic and break that cycle.

1. Be Extraordinary

This tip is numero uno for good reason. If you do this, much of the rest will fall into place. Being unique will increase blog traffic long term even if you do little else.

Be extraordinary by:

• Teaching – Teach your readers what they need to know. Convey the information in a way your audience likes.
• Entertain – Inject a bit of humor (if you’re funny – if you’re not, skip it) and don’t be afraid to let a bit of your personality show in your writing. Get the reader’s attention by being genuine.
• Connect with Your Readers - Understand and speak to their problems, concerns and even their dreams and goals.
• Be a Little Controversial – Share your opinion…not everyone has to agree with you, and some people may be loyal readers even if they disagree. Noone wants to read a blog that’s always middle of the road on everything.

While the “if you build it, they will come” attitude is not totally realistic, there is some truth to it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be proactive in your efforts to increase blog traffic.

2. RSS Feed

At this point it should be a given, but there are still plenty of blogs without an RSS feed or without it being prominently displayed. If you’re not familiar with the term, an RSS feed allows your readers to be notified automatically when you write a new post. Unless your audience is very tech-savvy, it’s probably best to set up a feed that allows your reader to sign up for updates into their feed reader or email if they prefer. An easy way to set this up is to use a free service like FeedBurner.com.

3. Ping!

Make sure your blog is set up to ping the various weblogs. Many blog platforms allow you to set this up easily in your publishing settings. This lets a variety of information/search sites know that you’ve updated your blog without you having to manually notify them.

4. Leave Comments

Make useful comments on popular blogs related to your blog’s topic or that interest your target market. Usually, you can link back to your site when you make a comment on another blog. Don’t spam! Only use the space provided for your link…don’t write ads or fancy signatures AND make sure your comment is relevant and useful to other readers. Not following these rules of etiquette may get your comment deleted.

5. Trackback

Many blogs allow you to expand the dialogue and make commentary about their posts on your own blog. When you link to a particular blog post, a link to your own blog post appears in the comments area on their blog. For trackbacks between WordPress blogs, all you need to do is link to a blog post and it’s automatically set up. BE RESPECTFUL: If you’re going to trackback, say something meaningful. Just summarizing and linking to someone’s post does NOT add to the discussion. Don’t be a magpie, put your own spin on the story.

6. Use Your Email List

You already know that your mailing list is one of your most valuable assets in your business. Utilize this asset to the full – send them to your blog to read the posts you think they will enjoy.

7. Distribute Your Content

A great way to increase blog traffic is to get your content out there to a wider audience. You can distribute your articles, your videos, you can guest post on other blogs…just get some good stuff out there and lead people back to read your blog.

8. Get Affiliates Linking to Your Blog

If your affiliate program allows your affiliates to link to any page on your site, encourage them to link to and write about your various blog posts. They’re likely already talking about you on their blog. Now encourage them to do it more and reward them for it! Quicksales.com (a private-label 1ShoppingCart) allows your affiliates to quickly and easily link to any blog post they want.

Affiliate referrals are cookied when someone follows a link and if that referral eventually buys, they get the commission. The conversions on blog links aren’t likely to be as high as linking directly to your sales page, but it gives your affiliates the opportunity to bring value to their own readers (by linking to your incredible content) and the potential to benefit by increasing their commissions.

9. Social Media

You can use various social media sites (such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) to increase blog traffic. People you connect with socially are likely to want to read your blog. Make sure you follow proper etiquette and use good common sense. Just because someone is your “friend” on a social media site doesn’t mean you should spam them. Also, set limits with your self so you don’t overdo it and spend too much time with this. There is more profitable WORK to be done to boost your blog. Plus, if you are remarkable, those who use social networks will be doing much of the marketing for you – they’ll talking about you and refer their network to you.

10. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking includes sites like Digg, del.icio.us and Stumble Upon, where you can share links to a variety of content. Some people self-bookmark, but realize this could put your account in jeopardy, so read all the rules first. Others choose to work with others in helping each other bookmark. Being remarkable also encourages people to spread the word on your behalf.

11. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is mentioned last. While many marketers would put it first, your goal is repeat visitors who become loyal readers and customers. Putting SEO first may hamper this goal. Do SEO on your article or static html pages where first-time or drive-by visitors may visit.

Too much SEO on your blog can be a turnoff. An extraordinary is written with interesting subject lines (rather than boring keyword phrases) and isn’t always on topics that people use a search engine to find. Of course, you can keep SEO in mind as you blog and there are tools and plug-ins available for your blog that can assist you with this. Just remember to write for your reader first, and search engines second.

If you’re looking to pull more profit out of your business blog, check out the IM Blogging Bootcamp. This 4-week intensive program designed to get you actively and effectively blogging to reach more of your prospects and convert more of them into lifelong customers.

Some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

As good as it feels to get mad at Google about this, the fact remains that hundreds of web sites’ Page Rank were penalized at the time. Since then it has become clear that you are certain to lose traffic from Google if you don’t comply with Google’s new terms. It may be next week, next month, or further down the road, but let’s just assume that it will happen, because Google is saying it will.

So instead of venting, we all need to make a few choices, either:

Keep the paid links and lose the traffic

Dump the paid links and lose the revenue

Either way, there is one thing that we should all be choosing to do right now:

Decrease the percentage of traffic that Google sends to your site in the first place

I don’t mean to purposely decrease traffic from Google, nor do I mean that you should not optimize your site for search engines. If you haven’t done the basics of SEO, you should – because there ARE other search engines besides Google, and it still is one of the best ways to find new visitors to your site.

What I do mean is that we should be actively working on increasing traffic from sources that are not search engines.

27 Web Site Marketing Ideas

So, without further ado, here are 27 ways to increase traffic to your website or blog that have nothing to do with Google, search engines or SEO. But the bonus is that all of these things will indeed help you rank better in the search engines, too.

1. Social Bookmarking
   (Digg, Mixx, SU, Sk-rt, Sphinn, etc.)
2. Social Networking
   (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
3. Forum Participation
   (I shouldn’t have to say that you go there to add value, not just get traffic!!)
4. Blogging
   (If you aren’t doing this already this should be priority #1)
5. Linking Generously
   (What goes around, comes around – & referral traffic generally sends the best and most qualified visitors to a site)
6. Advertising
   (Even a small budget of $50 a month can get you started with a company like BlogAds or with PPC)
7. Email Marketing
   (An art in and of itself, but most email marketing providers can get you started for free & can cost as little as $15/month)
8. Directory Listings
   (There are lots of free niche directories, and some good paid ones, like BOTW)
9. Flyers
   (Get local and make flyers to post at local cafes and other community bulletin boards)
10. Yahoo Groups
    (I’ve had long-term success building communities through email discussion groups – really highly recommended if you have the stomach to be a good moderator)
11. Listservs
    (Hosting your own email discussion groups is a little more involved, but if you need a branded option to Yahoo groups, it is worth it)
12. Press Releases
    (Really important to raise the visibility of your site – it’s a new priority for me as well)
13. Video
    (I can’t go anywhere without hearing how important it is to get into video. ARGH!)
14. Twitter
    (I haven’t been very active there, but have heard that it can be a huge traffic driver I am now very active on Twitter and it IS a huge traffic driver!)
15. Conferences
    (A quick search for “Wendy Piersall” and “SOBCon” brings up an astonishing 1200 results. ‘Nuff said.)
16. Meetups
    (Real-life networking is crucial to your long-term success)
17. Blog Comments
    (Leave them, respond to them, encourage them – love them!)
18. Associations
    (Being involved with my local internet advertising community has been critical to my professional success)
19. Widgets
    (BlogRush kind of fizzled, but MyBlogLog has been the 12th top referrer to this site in 2007)
20. Memes
    (I find it hard to participate in them much of the time, but long-term they can be a great source of links and traffic)
21. Blog Carnivals
    (I never had a lot of traffic from carnivals, but I do think they are important, especially for beginners)
22. Craigslist
    (Some of my potential advertisers have done extremely well on Craigslist – not just getting traffic, but traffic that converts)
23. AdLandPro
    (I couldn’t handle this place – but it is indeed a forum dedicated exclusively to letting you promote yourself – mostly for free)
24. Contests
    (Just be careful that you don’t set up the rules so that you get banned by the search engines – unless, of course, you are already banned & don’t care )
25. Article Marketing
    (Some people swear by it, others say it’s dead – I think it’s worth mentioning and testing, as different things work in different niches)
26. Use Email Signatures
    (SOOooooooo important)
27. Feature RSS feeds prominently
    (Once you get them hooked on your content, keep them coming back by making it easy to subscribe to your feeds! A large, prominent RSS button DOES increase subscriber numbers)

So, what website marketing strategies would you add to the list?

But I got to thinking recently about the whole link-loving thing. I guess sometimes I forget how hard it seems in the first few months of blogging to get attention, traffic and those coveted links. Certainly, on my “Overdue Link Love” posts I try to spread the luv around. But then I read a post today by a woman I don’t even know, named Lizzie. And it moved me.

Lizzie has a brand new blog and wanted to try and monetize it. She turned to PayPerPost as a source of revenue, only to be flatly rejected because of her lack of Google Page Rank. So, in a quest for inbound links, Lizzie found a blogger who did link exchanges :: only to find that same said blogger refused all requests from sites with a Page Rank of less than 3.

Now, I may not be able to spend hours every week hunting out new and deserving bloggers to link to, but I can say this: that I have NEVER ONCE checked someone’s page rank before I decided to link or not. And you may disagree with me, but I don’t think it’s worth your time or energy to care about it, either.

Can I just state the obvious here :: sites without a current page rank will eventually get ranked. So let’s not be so dang short-sighted about our SEO goals here, people. URGH. What is a PR0 link today can be a PR6 link in 6-9 months.

Here’s a table that shows that even pages with a rank of 1 add up to help your total page rank “score”. Plus, there are even rumors that Google might do away with Page Rank altogether, anyway.

Write good headlines. Use good title and description tags. Link to sites that are relevant. Build relationships. Eventually, Google will love you for it. And if you are only relying on Google for traffic anyway, you’re missing out on some seriously great site building opportunities.

Lastly, I’ve always been grateful for every dang link that comes to this blog. Including Walter’s, Wendy’s, Jason’s, Leisa’s, Kate’s, WAH(web)Mommy’s and Jesse’s. These fine authors all have relatively new blogs in the work-at-home/small business niche and I think they deserve my link love and your attention.

And since running this site really is extremely time consuming, I’d like to ask that if you have a blog or site with good content (no splogs!!) that is a resource to entrepreneurs, work at home parents, or home business owners, please send me a note about your site. I would be happy to add you to this list, help build your page rank, and help you get the attention you deserve from Google, PayPerPost, or anyone else you wish to impress.

This wasn’t my first trip to Digg Stardom – nor the second. My little WordPress blog had been there twice before. Sure, the site had a bit of a hard time under the traffic load, but for the most part, it was smooth sailing with my hosting company. But in June, when my post “The Top 10 Blogging Mistakes I Made in My First Year” hit it big, my site crumbled – as in, within the first 10 minutes of hitting the front page.

And while I’m here, I’ll humbly tip my hat to the Digg commenters who had a FIELD DAY with the sheer irony of this blogging mistakes post bringing my site down from the Digg Effect:

” #11 Not having enough bandwidth…” – oxdeltaxo

” Nah… #1 is, not choosing appropriate hosting. ” – malcam

” The host is another mistake as well!” – LeeVal

But I think the winner goes to Konstantino

” Well, it’s not successful anymore, “suspended page”. “

But it just didn’t make sense. How could my hosting company have sailed through two Diggs (one recent BIG one May 23), only to crash and burn on the third – under significantly less traffic (June 8)?!

Well, I learned more about hosting a WordPress blog through this experience than I EVER WANTED TO KNOW.

Yes, this post will get a little technical. But if you don’t think it applies to you now, bookmark it for later, because if you…

• Run a WordPress blog in any kind of a shared hosting environment, and
• Want your blog to continue to grow

Then you will need this information at some point down the road.

WordPress Hosting Lesson #1 – Bandwidth and disk space are irrelevant

Most hosting companies offer about 300GB of disk space and 3000GB of bandwidth. Neither of them matter for a WordPress blog. You will have an extremely hard time coming up with 300GB of stuff to put on a server. And bandwidth is only relevant if you are running lots of video or audio files off of your own server. The only thing that matters under high traffic loads is the amount of memory available to your account.

My server was down for that week because I didn’t have enough server memory anymore. See Lesson #2…

WordPress Hosting Lesson #2 – Regular shared hosting is highly unpredictable

In a shared hosting environment, you will be limited to a set percentage of server resources – usually about 20%. Once you exceed 20% of the server’s resources, they will shut you down. This is because you risk taking down hundreds of other sites that share your server with you.

If everyone on your server is having a slow traffic day, you have a LOT of server resources at your disposal. If even just one other person on your server is getting a little StumbleUpon traffic or bought a good ad, you are out of luck.

My earlier Diggs happened on days in which I was able to take up 20% of the entire server resources. On June 8th, I wasn’t so lucky and I was stuck with a fraction of that amount.

WordPress Hosting Lesson #3 – The topic of your Dugg story, your blog template, the day of the week and time of day that your story hits the front page can all be the cause of a server outage

Hot political news hitting on a Friday afternoon (when people are looking for work distractions) will crash your server much faster than a recipes article hitting in the middle of the week. This is just because of the interests of the Digg audience, which skews younger and male.

The factors that influence how quickly people come to your site at the same time are really hard on a WordPress blog. This is because every element on your page is a separate call to the database – every image, sidebar widget, plugin, headline, article, etc. Too many calls to the database at any one given moment is just too much for an unprepared server to handle.

There are a couple of solutions for this. Under heavy traffic loads:

1. Always use the WPCache plugin
2. Use a different, lighter-weight template with fewer images and sidebar widgets
3. Turn off unnecessary plugins

WordPress Hosting Lesson #4 – A WordPress plugin can be the cause of a server outage

Poorly written plugins can do worse damage than crashing your blog during a Digg, so you should always be careful with the plugins you choose to install. If you are under a heavy traffic load, turn off all plugins that an author wrote and released recently in case they are problematic, unless the author has a long-standing history of writing solid working plugins.

WordPress Hosting Lesson #5 – Upgrading to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is NOT the answer

When I outgrew my shared hosting plan, I had to do a lot of fast research to determine how and where to move my site to a more stable server. I was faced with paying $40-$90 a month for a Virtual Private Server (VPS), or going all out for a dedicated server for $250+ a month. I thought the dedicated server was probably overkill, so I went from $6.95 a month to $60 a month and tried out the VPS.

It was a disaster.

In a VPS environment, you DO have more memory resources available to your account, but you also are limited at the high end of what your server is capable of. I started at 512MB and upgraded to 768MB, and with WordPress, it still wasn’t enough – it could hardly handle StumbleUpon traffic, let alone a big Digg.

I ended up having to bite the bullet and I moved to a dedicated server this last weekend. Every month I was paying my friend Steve Johnson to fix my WordPress problems on the VPS anyway, I figured I might as well just pay for a solid server that isn’t going to give me headaches anymore (and a support staff that knows their head from a hole in the ground, but that’s another story ).

Although I stand by WordPress as the blogging platform of choice, realize that as you grow, your hosting will have to grow with you. I even still stand by my first shared hosting company, (Blue Host) as they were extremely helpful in explaining how all of this works, and I was quite sad to leave them.

WordPress by nature is a memory hog. My new server has 6GB of RAM, and I’m fairly confident it will stay running throughout whatever I can throw at it.

Do you need this much memory for your own blog? Probably not. But if you keep at it, someday you will.

If you need to find a good WordPress Hosting Company, I can say from experience, don’t go with GoDaddy and DON’T GO WITH YAHOO (probably the worst WordPress hosting out there, actually). Go with Blue Host or one of these companies who offer both great tech support as well as Fantastico, which makes WordPress installation and setup a breeze. 

Digg brought my site to its knees yesterday – and somehow today it still can’t get back up and running consistently.

16 days ago, I had another post on the front page of Digg – the site didn’t even hiccup. So I’m working hard with a few people and my hosting company to figure out what the heck broke so we can fix it, because I haven’t made any site changes between my last Digg and this Digg.

Take a look at the following visitor numbers and tell me something. Do you think that yesterday’s traffic would have killed your server?!

Anyway, the irony of all of this happening because of my post The Top 10 Blogging Mistakes I Made in My First Year is rather humbling.

Yep – we’ll all have a good laugh when I write up my next post once we fix it – something like, “How to Hand the Trolls on Digg the Perfect Fodder to Rip You a New One”.

How I Became A Blogging Socialite From The Beginning

When I started blogging 3 short months ago I already had some websites that generated income. The only reason that I wanted to switch to blogging was because it made it so much easier to organize content! I wouldn’t have to design each and every page and I would be able to dedicate more time to writing content.

One thing I didn’t anticipate when I started blogging was how social it is. Bloggers love to be friends with other bloggers! I am still amazed by how friendly bloggers are; people genuinely care about you in this cyber-social world!

A few weeks ago I was reading Wendy’s Monday Motivation and felt compelled to make a goal to meet 50 new bloggers. My motivation to meet them was based on three factors:

1. Curiosity – I wanted to know what’s out there and was hoping to find some new, helpful blogs to read.
2. Social Interaction – Meeting cool people is fun for me and I was hoping that I could meet a few bloggers that I liked.
3. Ambition – I obviously wanted to get some extra visitors to my site and was hoping that this experiment would bring some.

A funny thing usually happens to me when I decide to do things like this. If I’m going to experiment, I love to take the experiment to the extreme. I decided that instead of meeting 50 new bloggers, I would meet new bloggers for an entire, 8-hour day.

I decided to spend the entire work day finding new blogs and introducing myself to the prospective bloggers through comments. I figured that in order to best analyze the results I would need to make the experiment bigger than 50 people. I had no idea how many I could find in a day so I didn’t know how big the experiment would end up.

Preparing For My Day As A Blogging Socialite

The day before I started this little social experiment I had to organize a few things. I first wrote my post for the next day – I didn’t want my readers to miss a day of learning just because I was going to spend my day as a socialite. I also told my friends that I would be turning my phone off. I completely blocked off 8 hours of my day.

How I Approached The Day

I decided that I would completely focus on the new sites that I found as part of the experiment. I never once tried to draw attention to my own site, although I did leave my URL each time I left a comment. Since I felt that I would be more likely to click with bloggers whose blogs are similar to mine, I decided to use Technorati to find them. I went to Technorati and set the search bar to “in tags” and did a search for “blogging tips”:

I didn’t discriminate between the results at all. I visited each site that appeared on the list hoping that I could find something that inspired me to comment. If nothing inspired me to comment I simply moved on to the next site.

Each time I was inspired to comment, I did. I sincerely thanked each blogger who was able to teach me something new. I asked many of them questions and praised their good work. Interestingly, I didn’t really expect to learn much about blogging from the experiment, but found tons of information I didn’t know before. I had to email 6 different bloggers to find out how they were able to do certain things with their blogs. Amazingly, each of the 6 answered the emails.

During my 8 hours as a blogging socialite I visited nearly 300 blogs that were somewhat related to mine. I immediately closed the ones that were splogs (spam-blogs that steal content from others) and read at least one article on the rest. I left a genuine comment that added to the discussion on almost 150 blogs.

Positives From Being A Blogging Socialite

• I met some outstanding people. I can’t believe how friendly everyone was! I asked questions to multiple bloggers and was amazed by the number of them that emailed answers to me.
• My daily traffic grew to over 100 unique visitors higher than its per-day average. During the 24 hour period following the experiment, I got nearly 300 visitors more than my all-time high. Much of the additional traffic obviously turned into daily readers. At first it didn’t really make sense that the traffic spiked that much; I only commented on 150 blogs. After thinking it over I realized that I received visits from the bloggers and their readers.
• At least 22 of the 150 blogs I commented on linked to articles on my site. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were more that I haven’t been able to find in Technorati. So far it has been exactly a week since I became a blogging socialite, so I would imagine that I’ll get even more links as some bloggers probably haven’t gotten around to reading through my site yet.
• I was added to 4 Blogrolls. Again, there could be more that I haven’t found.
• I got some great ideas for my site. I was able to find a very powerful plugin because I saw it in action on one of the sites I visited. Teaching my readers about the plugin sparked a great debate and the article was linked to by several of my readers.

Becoming Permanently Social

This experiment taught me that being social is one of the best things that you can do to promote your blog. For obvious reasons I can’t spend eight hours a day as a blogging socialite, but I can definitely spend one. You don’t need to spend eight hours to get positive results. Spend a little time each day!

From now on, I will always be a blogging socialite! I would highly recommend doing the same.

This guest post was written by Court Tuttle, who blogs about making money online, SEO and internet marketing at CourtneyTuttle.com.

I can’t keep up with it all.

It’s a risk as blogs grow – I used to try and link back to everyone that left a comment or who linked to me. I certainly left a comment back on posts that linked to this site. I commented back on every comment here (I certainly don’t know how Liz keeps up with it so well!), and was even able to somewhat stay on top of the conversations on comment threads on others’ blogs.

This week, if I spent every spare second on contributing to all of the conversations I have going, I wouldn’t have posted a darn thing. It’s both exciting and a little disappointing.

And as I started the conversation about being inclusional this week, I fear that too much success can also make our blogs a little exclusional.

So this isn’t a whining session – it’s one of those think-out-loud posts. Here’s some ideas, based in no small part on your suggestions as well as mine:

Lay Out the Welcome Mat on your Blog

• Set up a section with top posts, a site introduction, and a VERY basic intro to how to navigate and comment on a blog
• Occasionally write a “Welcome New Commenters” post
• Always respond to the really thoughtful comments – somehow!
• Write posts in an “approachable voice”, inviting participation from everyone

Keep in Touch with Your Most Loyal Readers

• I know that the Top Commenters plugin makes a huge difference in how much people have to say. It also shows these people that you care enough about them to give them a site-wide link!
• Shoot an email to frequent commenters thanking them for their involvement, especially when they have so much to say that you can’t keep up with them, let alone everyone else…. ahem…. ALEX!
• Darren had some great ideas today on a related subject – one of which was to create a separate feed for beginning vs. advanced level posts

Don’t Isolate Yourself

It’s been increasingly difficult staying on top of my favorite blogs and commenting. But when I slack on it, both of us suffer (well, “suffer” is probably a strong word…). Here’s some of the ways I make it easier to connect with others:

• I would be L.O.S.T. without my CoComment plugin – it tracks all posts you have commented on in one place
• I have my RSS feeds set up by topic, but also have a folder set up with my favorites – people I really want to maintain a relationship with. If that folder starts getting too full of unread posts, I know it’s a signal to get out and mingle.
• Starting the Guest Blogger tradition has been phenomenal for everyone involved – and it helps bring other blogs to me, so that it’s easy to stay on top of what others’ have to say!
• REMEMBER what made us successful: all of the mingling, helping, linking and commenting with each other. No matter how busy I am, it’s critical for me to do everything I can to stay true to what makes a blog successful. It’s not as much as I used to be able to do, but if I didn’t do it at all, the “ship would sink”.

And if any of you ever think I’m losing touch with you as this blog continues to grow, by all means, let me know. As I say on my About page, you have given me a greater gift than I have given you on this site – and it’s my top priority to continue to try and “catch up with you”.

~~

Dawud Miracle also wrote a post in this vein today – with even more insightful comments from his own readers. This indeed is evolving into a great conversation!

1. If my site is installed in a sub-directory /blog/], what is the absolute best way to set up my index page for SEO impact?Jeremiah Owyang has a very helpful post on this subject, in which he poses the same burning question. He had a static html page at his site root, which he has now changed to a redirect to the blog, which is installed at web-strategist/blog/ (like mine). Ian Lurie from Portent Interactive offered some very good suggestions, but the comment thread offers varying opinions on the subject.

   What do you think?
   ~

2. This may be a silly question, but what is the difference between Google’s “referral” traffic and Google’s “organic” traffic? Is the referral traffic the people who click through Google Reader, perhaps?
   ~
3. It’s been suggested by the ever-helpful and wise Dan of AskDanAndJennifer that I install the Google Sitemap Generator WP plugin. Once that’s installed, does it take care of itself, or do I need to go upload it to Google, or another second step? And if I’m well indexed by Google, what’s the benefit to installing this plugin in the first place?
   ~
4. What would you suggest I do to maximize this PPC (pay per click) campaign? I’m tweaking my email list building strategy, working on reaching newbie bloggers who have barely started in the blogosphere. I have a squeeze page set up to build my mailing list with free goodies. I’ve done PPC before with not-very-stellar results. The revenue on this will be gained with affiliate links in the free advice.Part two of that question is that my landing pages are going to be static html, because a blog layout is NOT condusive to converting leads. What is the best way to optimize these pages since they aren’t part of my blog (which gets the most Google juice).
   ~
5. Last time I posted questions, it was roundly established that this blog template is NOT valid xhtml *blush*. Hopefully that will all be taken care of in the new redesign. But Ian made an interesting point in Jeremiah’s aforementioned post. He said that headings and sub-headings should be tagged with H1, H2 heading tags, etc.But how does one go about adding those tags in a WordPress post without going in and changing the html code manually (way more hassle than it would be worth!)

OK, wise and knowledgable readers! Strut your stuff and share your answers! This post will get updated as answers come in with links back to you!

(And THANKS, too!)

I’m doing my duty to get in on the action. You might want to, too.

This dang MyBlogLog widget has stolen my weekend away from me!!!

I can now see those of you who lurk.
I can see what other blogs you like.
I am shocked at how many of you are eDads – not eMoms.

I’m already making new contacts.
I’ve already increased traffic and links.

It’s been less than 48 hours!

Cant. Stop.

Must. Meet. More. Of. You……

At first, it just seemed like a pointless widget.

Then at least I thought it was cool to see who was surfing where – but still pointless.

Then I started getting emails from readers asking me if I had heard about it. They were telling me that it was a great traffic driver.

Traffic?

OK, I’m in.

Stay tuned… we’ll see if it’s worth it.

(But frankly, I’m already impressed, simply because 2 of the first three visitors to my site after I set it up were readers I never knew I had. That was kick-butt in and of itself! )

Welcome, MyBlogLog users! Join my community!

I’ve lightly touched on the Law of Attraction before; it’s one of those things that seems a little off topic – until I see my page views and I get a bit of a clue – you guys are interested in this stuff.

So here is the story of eMoms at Home – and how my thoughts, actions and feelings have contributed to the success of my blog – AND to my traffic dips along the way.

I highlight some of the key attitude here with *’s

• April ‘06
  I start up eSelfHelp.com, wanting it to become a social networking site for people interested in personal development. I have no experience and no startup capital.
• Intentions: I am finally going to pursue the work that I was put on this earth to do, no matter what.
  ~
• April ‘06
  I start up eMoms at Home as a blog to document the process
• Intentions: This is a topic I know one or two work at home moms might be interested in.
  ~
• May 1 ‘06
  I leave my high-paying job as Business Development Director of Socrates.com in a complete leap of faith – my marraige is on the rocks and we just bought a 4 bedroom home on half an acre of land near Chicago.
• Intentions: I had just jumped off of a cliff to follow my heart. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life.
  ~
• May 5 ‘06
  eMoms at Home breaks the Alexa top 100,000 for 24 hours. To this day I still don’t know how that happened.
• Intentions: I kept telling myself that if I listened to my heart and did work I was passionate about, success would come. *I knew in my heart that this was true.*
  ~
• July ‘06
  I have about 20 inbound links to this blog. I write Unsuspecting Secrets to Fast Blogging Success. I’m too chicken to post it.
• Intentions: I truly knew I had a successful blog on my hands here. eSelfHelp, on the other hand, was going nowhere. I decided to go with what was working.
  ~
• August 13th ‘06
  I start the 40 Day Prosperity Plan, for probably the 20th+ time. I’ve had this book since 1994, when I was a single mom making less than $20K.
• Intentions: Skyrocket this blog [and my marriage].
  ~
• August 14th ‘06
  Darren Rowse announces his Lists Group Writing Project. I decide to bite the bullet and post Unsuspecting Secrets. I send it to Darren 3 times. Somehow, it doesn’t get included.
• Intentions: I have been thinking I have a successful blog. *I decided it was time to act as though this was true*.
  ~
• August 19th ‘06
  Darren finds my submission. Gives me my own spotlight. I fall off my chair. This remains my #1 post of all time.
• Intentions: I owned the fact that this blog was successful – no matter what my rank anywhere, *I thought, felt and truly believed it to be true*.
  ~
• Aug – October ‘06
  I coast for a while – maintaining thoughts of a successful blog. Things go great.
  ~
• November 1 ‘06
  In the back of my mind I decide that I should plan on a dip in traffic due to the holidays. I say to myself, “Work at home parents don’t want to work during the holidays.” In less than a week, traffic dips and people stop commenting.
• Intentions: *To prepare myself for disappointment in case traffic dips. But I hope that I am wrong.*
  ~
• December ‘06
  It’s dead around here. My Alexa starts moving backwards.
• Intentions: I start questioning myself, wondering WTF is going on.
  ~
• January 23 ‘07
  I visit some of my competitor’s blogs. They not only have they maintained their traffic throughout the holidays, but they have more comments than I do, too.
• Intentions: *I realize I have been a fool to expect my traffic to go away. I make a new decision to remind myself that I am successful and that this blog (and blogger!) are capable of great things!*
  ~
• February ‘07
  My traffic has tripled in less than 2 weeks time. And get this – I got this email while writing this post.
  
• Intentions: *I have a damn successful blog.*
  ~

Now just for some statistical fun, check out how Alexa followed my thoughts and attitudes since I started this blog:

So is this proof positive that the Law of Attraction works? I’d say it’s up for you to decide.

I’m just a “Damn Successful Blogger” who wants to help you succeed too.

I’m not complaining, per se – just acknowledging the fact that Diggers aren’t really my target market – which is unfortunate, because some of my best friends, and coaching clients for that matter, are guys in their late 20’s and early 30’s.

Well, I am h*a*p*p*y to let you know that I have found an alternative to Digg – one that I know you will be interested in – it’s called Bringr.
According to the site, “Bringr is a website for women to bring stories that interest them in order to share them with other women. Our front page is made up of the most popular brings. What our users like and bring will decide what Bringr’s content is.” Now, I don’t think that it will bring traffic in “Bringr-lanche” style – yet, that is!

Take a look. It’s a pink Digg.

Love it! Use it!! Spread the word about it!!!

If you need some inspiration today check out this YouTube video about a wonderful kid who is blind, yet can see almost better than you or I can… you have to watch it to understand – very powerful! (Hint :: check out the empowering beliefs this mom has drilled into her son! Woot!)

Jessica Duquette writes on one of my favorite blogs at It’s Not About Your Stuff. She put up a great post with some wonderful Feng Shui links to help make your home office more productive, prosperous and energized. Guess what I’m doing this weekend?!

My buddy Steve Olson and I got the chance to talk on the phone earlier this week. I had asked for his help to understand StumbleUpon better. Boy, was that a well-spent chunk of time!! I normally don’t bother taking the time to learn about the in-depth details of this kind of service – but he had me convinced that I was wrong to dismiss StumbleUpon last week. Thanks to a few gracious Stumblers, WendyPiersall.com crashed into the Alexa top 100,000 sites within 48 hours of launching the site!

My $.02 = StumbleUpon is worth every second it takes to learn how it works. I it!!

The reason I tell you this is because I have some advice for you in times like this. I’m running on 5 hours of sleep for the last 3 nights, on a detox diet that is playing around with my intestines, I’m fried and I want to go to bed.

But I am a blogger. So the blog must go on!

I used to have a few posts written saved to my drafts to pull out of my back pocket for days just like today. But alas, they are all gone and already posted! And I could go take a nap and post tonight, but I have found there is a big drawback to that: traffic peaks after I post. If I am posting at midnight, or on the weekends, when my work at home parent cohorts are in bed or with their families, they aren’t around to stop by to read the latest at the blog. They sometimes come around and read later, but I would rather not miss the golden opportunity to invite them now to my site at a time that makes it easy for them to drop by and visit.

So what am I doing? Writing this post even though I think I would rather be cutting my eyelids off to keep my eyes open. So the moral of the story is:

1. Post during the time of day that most of your readers are at their computers. Someday when I am feeling really digital-minded I’ll crunch the traffic numbers to tell you just how much the traffic increases by doing this.
2. ALWAYS have backup posts handy so your readers don’t have to think about you sans eyelids

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!