How to Add Your Blog to Blog Directories: A Primer
There are over a million blogs now online, and there are thousands and thousands of readers who have to sift through all the intellectual and creative sedimentation in order to find the things that they would like to read. After all, there are as many tastes and thoughts as there are people on the planet, and having a blog can be a bid for anyone to be heard. If you have a blog, surely you’ve had dreams of making it big in the blogosphere and of getting people to read your work no matter where they are in the work. In order to do this, however, you will need to find ways to promote your blog.
Thanks to the power of technology and the Internet, you have a lot of techniques to choose from when it comes to promoting your blog. For one, you can post on forums that have topics that are related to your blog, and that have members who might be interested in the things that you have to say. Another way that you can promote your blog is through posting on mailing lists: you can extend help to people who you know can benefit from your expertise, or you can simply join a mailing list where people share your interests.
One more way for you to make more people come to your side of the bloggin universe is to add your blog to blog directories.
In the same way that Google indexes individual websites and puts them under the right keyword, so can you add your blog to an online blog directory. The blog directory is a great way for you to get noticed. By placing your blog under certain categories or keywords, and by placing it in a place that can be searched, and where individual entries can be categorized and filtered according to topic, you can get more readers – and not just casual readers who are passing through, but those who actually may share your interests.
How do you get your blog onto online blog directories?
There are many different directories available, and you will need to find one that not only offers free listing – there are many of these, so you need not worry – but those that will allow you to gain the most visibility. Moreover, you are not limited to a single blog directory: try placing yourself in about four or five, as there are readers and browsers that often stay loyal to a single blog directory. This technique may allow you to spread yourself farther, and faster.
Before you enter your blog onto an online directory, make sure that you know exactly what your blog keywords are.
These will be required when you register your blog site. You do not want to put down random keywords in an effort to get your blog noticed anywhere and everywhere. You know what it feels like to stumble onto a website that has absolutely nothing to do with your search term, so imagine what a blog reader would feel when he or she finds your blog but isn’t interested in its content!
Don’t turn potential readers away!
In the same way, make your content readable and worth going back to. There are many blog writers out there who do not even spell properly or write with sense, and you do need to set yourself apart from the rest. Make sure that your blog is ready for the world before you put it on a blog directory.
These are only a few tips that you may want to take note of before you start putting your blog down in a blog directory. For more information, go through the About and FAQ sections of blog directories to see what rules you need to follow, and the extent of the reach of the directory. With good planning and good keywords, not to mention good content, you will succeed in blogging.
How to Add Your Blog to Blog Directories: A Primer
There are over a million blogs now online, and there are thousands and thousands of readers who have to sift through all the intellectual and creative sedimentation in order to find the things that they would like to read. After all, there are as many tastes and thoughts as there are people on the planet, and having a blog can be a bid for anyone to be heard. If you have a blog, surely you’ve had dreams of making it big in the blogosphere and of getting people to read your work no matter where they are in the work. In order to do this, however, you will need to find ways to promote your blog.
Thanks to the power of technology and the Internet, you have a lot of techniques to choose from when it comes to promoting your blog. For one, you can post on forums that have topics that are related to your blog, and that have members who might be interested in the things that you have to say. Another way that you can promote your blog is through posting on mailing lists: you can extend help to people who you know can benefit from your expertise, or you can simply join a mailing list where people share your interests.
One more way for you to make more people come to your side of the bloggin universe is to add your blog to blog directories.
In the same way that Google indexes individual websites and puts them under the right keyword, so can you add your blog to an online blog directory. The blog directory is a great way for you to get noticed. By placing your blog under certain categories or keywords, and by placing it in a place that can be searched, and where individual entries can be categorized and filtered according to topic, you can get more readers – and not just casual readers who are passing through, but those who actually may share your interests.
How do you get your blog onto online blog directories?
There are many different directories available, and you will need to find one that not only offers free listing – there are many of these, so you need not worry – but those that will allow you to gain the most visibility. Moreover, you are not limited to a single blog directory: try placing yourself in about four or five, as there are readers and browsers that often stay loyal to a single blog directory. This technique may allow you to spread yourself farther, and faster.
Before you enter your blog onto an online directory, make sure that you know exactly what your blog keywords are.
These will be required when you register your blog site. You do not want to put down random keywords in an effort to get your blog noticed anywhere and everywhere. You know what it feels like to stumble onto a website that has absolutely nothing to do with your search term, so imagine what a blog reader would feel when he or she finds your blog but isn’t interested in its content!
Don’t turn potential readers away!
In the same way, make your content readable and worth going back to. There are many blog writers out there who do not even spell properly or write with sense, and you do need to set yourself apart from the rest. Make sure that your blog is ready for the world before you put it on a blog directory.
These are only a few tips that you may want to take note of before you start putting your blog down in a blog directory. For more information, go through the About and FAQ sections of blog directories to see what rules you need to follow, and the extent of the reach of the directory. With good planning and good keywords, not to mention good content, you will succeed in blogging.
Top Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog to
If you have a blog, then you can count yourself among the thousands of other people on earth who have a blog, who can sell their products and services online, and who find ways to network through friends, former classmates, relatives, even acquaintances, in order to make more money. There are thousands upon thousands of blogs on the Internet right now, and you will need to shine through the muddle of language, or, at the very least, be known to a few well enough in whatever niche you choose to place yourself.
One way for you to establish your audience is to actually have a niche that you proclaim yourself to be in, and one way for you to do this is to place your blog address in a blog directory. You also have the pick of the litter: you are not limited to placing your blog in a single directory, which is advantageous if you consider how these blog directories have their own audiences whom you might lose if you aren’t meticulous enough.
If you are interested in submitting your blog to a blog directory, make sure that your blog is ready for the viewing. Do not simply place your blog address and then expect people to read half-baked essays, poor stories, or no entries at all. Have a lot of good content to welcome your new and current readers. Moreover, be aware of exactly what keywords your blog will have.
This means that you will have to go through your content, and then evaluate what keywords to use, so that you can properly categorize your blog and then provide the right keywords if the blog directory service asks for it.
Here are some blog directories that you may want to consider when you are finally ready to sign your blog up.
1. Blog Catalog (http://www.blogcatalog.com) allows you to not only place your blog into a category. It also shows which categories are the most popular, so that you can be better guided as to what market has the biggest readers. Through blog catalog, you can join discussions and form or join groups.
2. At Blog Hub (http://www.bloghub.com), you can add your blog and chat at a forum, chat with your fellow bloggers, and get news on affordable web hosting services, as well as other articles that might be of interest to you. Blog hub also offers information on how to use services to monetize your blog.
3. You can also add your blog to the directory at Blog Hint (http://www.bloghints.com), where you can view the latest blogs added, the most popular, and the highest rated. Blog Hints will even suggest a category for your blog, and you can access some Wordpress themes if you are using that service. There are many different blogs in this directory that you can search through. The blogs are also arranged in folders that are readily visible on the front page of the site.
4. At Blogging Fusion (http://www.bloggingfusion.com) you can also readily view the available categories, and you can even get your blog featured. There are also available blog ratings systems and popular blogs lists for you to browse.
5. Another directory is Blog Flux (http://dir.blogflux.com) where you can look through an alphabetical directory, see featured blogs, and see the latest updates to blogs listed in the directory.
Using Tags to Get More Traffic to Your Blog through Blog Directories
Tags are generally ignored by site owners and bloggers in terms of potential. They're small, for one and very often easy to overlook. Furthermore, those who do not understand their use or significance or at least why and how they work may not often appreciate their value. This is unfortunate because tags can help increase the traffic coming in to your blog from blog directories. Learn what tags are and how they work so you can maximize their use.
Tag – you're it
A tag, also referred to as a meta tag, is a keyword that is used to label specific information found on a web page. A meta tag uses HTML tags that are hidden from plain sight but clearly 'visible' to web crawlers.
A tag functions mainly for identification of an article, for example, or a title, subheading, site description or image – hence the name 'tag'. They are often used as tools to ping multiple search engines, create a presence for use in social bookmarking and to drive traffic to your site, especially your blog. With tags, it will be easier for your site, article or web page to be found in search engines where they are supported.
Put simply, a tag is a small piece of identification on your blog that informs a search engine bot or spider what your site is about and how it should be indexed. If you can choose and design the right combination of tags for your blog, you will be able to manipulate the number and type of traffic that reaches your site from blog directories legally.
Using tags on your blog to drive more traffic
Blog directories are repositories of information and news regarding the types of blogs available for a particular topic or subject. As such, they can be very useful sources of highly targeted traffic for your own blog. To maximize the use of blog directories for this purpose, consider doing the following:
Choose your words carefully
Keep in mind that your blog is just one of millions out there vying for attention. Even if you're trying to build a reputation within a relatively smaller niche industry, you will still be competing with at least a dozen others in your market segment. Careful consideration in choosing the specific keywords (or tags) to use with your blog will help you stand out in blog directories.
There are three important tags that you should focus on when designing your blog for traffic increase from blog directories. These are the title tag, the description tag and the keyword/s tag.
The title tag. The title of each blog entry you have should contain the most essential keywords that appear in your write-up or are relevant to your content. This will help optimize your entry and make it easier for search engines to find and index.
Prospective visitors who perform a search using Google, Yahoo! or MSN Search, for example, will be able to reach an optimized blog, since it's more likely to appear in a search engine list. As a result, you drive more traffic to your blog.
The description tag. Although description tags are ignored by some search engines, adding this to your blog can help influence how your blog (or at least its web pages) is described.
The keyword tag. The keyword tag is the word or phrase that you will repeat within the content body or web page in question. Used strategically, these keywords can help increase your blog's results in search engines and bring in more traffic to your site by allowing visitors to easily find you.
Don't be afraid to combine keywords, though. That's how you will be able to create highly targeted key phrases to optimize your blog. Three- to four-word key phrases will do. Multiple word tags are advantageous to single word searches as well. If you use a keyword phrase tag that says 'rock paper scissors', for example, your blog still has the potential to show up in case someone uses only the word 'rock' or 'paper' in his search.
Don't overdo the use of tags
If you don't watch out, tags can be addictive. It could reach a point where you might find yourself using tags that have little relevance to your blog. This usually happens when you try too hard to make sure that your blog or web page appears in more listings.
Although it may seem like a good idea to help increase traffic to your blog particularly as a means to shine in blog directories, overuse of tags can be counter-productive. Try to be careful in choosing only the kind of tags that your blog truly needs. Leaner but highly targeted tags are much more effective than generic ones.
Follow through
A good tag can gain initial interest in your blog and increase traffic coming from blog directories. However, it can only do so much. Now that traffic is beating at your door, you should be able to throw a real party thereafter. Make sure that the content associated with your tag/s is well worth your visitor's click. It should offer specific information for a specific purpose and should include the content that you so readily promised in your links.
Otherwise, you won't earn the trust of a loyal readership or following. A baited title that lacks the backing of useful content will be viewed as a cheap trick and won't earn you a lot of respect – or traffic.
Basic Guideline about Article Directories
The Internet has given birth to a new way and purpose to article writing. It used to be solely for the love of the craft and the glee that a writer feels when their work gets published. But the cyber world has created concepts like article directories that prompted business people to think about articles in a different way.
Marketing Your Biz
Have you ever tried writing articles for directory sites? The first thing that you have to do is to establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field of interest. This doesn't actually mean your personal choice but rather the one related to whatever your line of business is.
You see, this is all about spreading the word out about your business and promoting your products and services. But you will not do such task in a bold manner. Creating articles is a subtle way to let people know about you, get interested with the information that you are giving or writing about, then click on the link that you provide them with.
Why is it important to write good contents? Not because you can submit to these directories for free means that you will no longer care about the quality of your work. You need to get readers' attention. And the only way to do that is by giving them what they want. You must give them useful information that they would definitely like to know.
You must have them hooked on what you wrote for them to take interest to click the link that you will provide on your author's bio space. That link will lead your probable clients to your own web site. And there you can sing a different tune. That is the time you have to aim for the sale.
Basic Guide
You will actually find a lot of free submission sites once you delve on the task of looking for such. There are certain guidelines to each site. But here are some of the basic ones that can help you prepare and start on your articles.
1. Word count
Be very careful with this aspect. Some submission sites will reject your articles for the mere fact that you lacked some words in your piece. While others allow 300 word count for the articles, most sites prefer a minimum of 500.
2. Avoid spamming
Choose a category where you think your articles will best fit in. Do not post your material on multiple categories for each site. This will result to spamming and the site can ban you for such act.
3. URL
Read carefully what the site's guideline is about placing your URLs. Some may allow this to be included on the body. And other sites would only accept URLs if these are included on the author's bio box.
4. Language
Basically, the language of your articles must be in English. You can use other languages and look for submission sites catering to such market. This can be done if you really want to broaden the reach of your materials.
You must remain professional sounding when it comes to your work. Do not use any obscene language as this may be taken as a negative thing against you.
Choose the right article directories that you will be submitting your materials to. You can check the web page rankings on Google and Alexa to gain more knowledge if such sites have high traffic or not.