I need help with my blogging tactics

[dynamicrevelation]

I've been making a pretty good disaster of my on-line venture for well over a year now, and need some real help. I seriously need to get things right- I've been putting way too much time and effort in for having such a pathetic result.

All of my visitors so far have come from either a safelist or traffic exchange (that pretty much sums up how my sales have been).

I've been struggling to maintain 10 blogs (for each of my sites), having been told it would help with SEO, but I'm thinking that's old information, as it hasn't helped much.

I stuck it out, thinking "OK, it's a slow process, but it'll pay off eventually." The blogs themselves still don't get much traffic. I need to fix it.

I have 2 questions for now:

1. Is it better to focus on one blog, or to have a few that pertain to the topic?

2. How in the world, exactly, do you set up the whole network/link/ back link/RSS thing?- which I'm sure might have a lot to do with the fact that my blogs seem invisible.

In any material I've read, I'd been told "you need to do it" but left out HOW to actually set it up.

Pretty much, what do you do with a blog (besides posting) to draw traffic?

Also, I have basically the same sort of questions in regard to social sites, seeing as how they have blogs too.

[dynamicrevelation]

Wow... thanks for the help.

???

No worries. I'll figure it out.

[citrus]

Maybe nobody wanted to reply because you have a ton of things you need answered. Anyhoo, here's my attempt to answer them.

SEO is not old information. Stuff like title tags, alt tags for your images, keyword density and all that is still very much related to your site's rankings. Backlinks are extremely important as well.

The traffic from the safelists and traffic exchanges are extremely untargeted, so if you're putting in a lot of effort and/or cash into that, stop. Put your effort into writing articles linking back to your site and submitting them to places like EzineArticles and GoArticles. Also social bookmark your site using sites like SocialMarker.

The network thing you speak of is basically having your main "money site" and having a whole bunch of social bookmarks, links, articles, and RSS feeds all linking back to your site. To make the network larger, you can link your web 2.0 properties to each other, like writing an article which points to your squidoo lens which links to your main page.

If you're using Wordpress, then your RSS feed is yourdomain.com/feed. What you need to do is submit that feed to RSS aggregators like feedagg (to name but one). If you go the Warrior Forum and look up Big Mike, you'll find discount codes for his software that automates RSS submissions and social bookmarking. He has a lot of other useful pieces of software as well, some of which doesn't pertain to what you're trying to do.

To get people to view your blog:
-target keywords with little competition on the search engines, but receive at least some search volume
-SEO, get backlinks, social bookmark, write articles, post ads

[Trevas Walker]

I've been struggling to maintain 10 blogs (for each of my sites), having been told it would help with SEO, but I'm thinking that's old information, as it hasn't helped much.

I stuck it out, thinking "OK, it's a slow process, but it'll pay off eventually." The blogs themselves still don't get much traffic. I need to fix it.

I have 2 questions for now:

1. Is it better to focus on one blog, or to have a few that pertain to the topic?

2. How in the world, exactly, do you set up the whole network/link/ back link/RSS thing?- which I'm sure might have a lot to do with the fact that my blogs seem invisible.

I would say your way better to focus on one blog instead of spreading yourself thin over 10. My latest blog ebookguru.org is getting close to five hundred hits a day and I only started the site in November. The secret to success in blogging is to provide useful information and posts that your readers will want to keep coming back for.

Backlinks are easy to build, although I have only begun doing this, commenting on blogs that don't make use of no-follow tags (such as my own) will give you a link back that begins to build your page rank. Focus on relevant blogs to your own products and try to put keywords in your name when you comment.

For RSS I am partial to feedburner since it simplifies the whole process of maintaining an RSS subscriber list, and also allows for simple integration of AdSense once you've built a decent following.

Rather than make this a long post, if you visit the blog I referred to and click on eBook articles at the top of the page there are two articles title eBook markting with a blog in the list. These were written with authors in mind, but the same principles will work for any blog.

Regards,
Trevas Walker

[Audrey Thorne]

Once again, I am a newbie, but from what I have read(which is an awful lot, and my head hurts), it's better to concentrate on one blog/campaign and get that right first.

If you are promoting any product, you should do yourself a favor and take advantage of every single free backlink-creating resource you can. SO, to summarize what Trevas and Curtis said...

Articles about your topic, use a resource box at the end with your link(I submit at least 3 different articles, to 8 different sites like ezinearticles etc.)
Blog about your topic
Place links to related articles on your blog, as well as to your own
Post on other's related blog topics and forums or groups, sign with your link
Create a lens(squidoo), link to your blog, lensroll related lenses
Create a hubpage, link to your blog, your lens, etc.
Link lens and page to your facebook account.
Register at all the sites on SocialMarker, and then use the service

Basically, there are so many other free traffic avenues, a blog is really just the tip of the iceberg. I set up a list for myself, and check off each step as I go. Just be sure that you are linking back in each instance, and that you are refreshing content regularly.

Good luck, I hope this helps. I know how frustrating it can be, believe me!!

[dmarzean]

I am not sure if you are trying to work on 10 different niches at once with a blog for each, or if you have 10 blogs for a single niche. But, either way, I would concentrate on one at a time. The one thing that I notice over and over again, is people trying to do to many things at once and really getting nowhere.

If you have been working on these same blogs for a year now (not clear on this either) then maybe you need to try a different niche. There is no sense in spinning your wheels on a niche that is not generating income.

Try to start something from scratch. Do some research on something that interest you and find an affiliate program to go with. Do your keyword research and then set up your landing page to start driving traffic to.

Now, there are several ways to start driving traffic. You can use article marketing as well as a blog. If you are going to be using "free" methods to drive traffic, you need to find some good longtail keywords with good search volume. My rule of thumb is at least 1000 searches a month with less that 500 competing pages in the serps.

There are a lot of great products out there that can get you started in the right direction. I suggest you find something for newbies that offers a clear blueprint for getting started. Once you have that, the key is to follow through the steps one by one. It doesn't matter how basic it all seems, do each step. Following through with a solid plan is the only way you will see success.

Don't get caught up in campaigns that fail. Just move on and learn from what you think went wrong.

Doug