I had a great time speaking at and attending the Social Online Conference over the weekend. There were so many positive and inspiring women and so little time. If you were an attendee, don’t forget to put those great tips and tools into action for your blog or business. Information is useless if you don’t use it.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to network with several new bloggers. Many of these great people are literally just that – new bloggers. How to increase blog traffic was a big concern. I want to spend a few days this week passing along some blogging tips to both the new and veteran bloggers. Hey. Even we forget the basics from time to time.

Increasing Blog Traffic by Taking Control

Refreshing your stats all day is not going to bring new readers to your blog. You need to get out there and make those connections. You can take control of your traffic in a number of ways:

• Commenting on Similar Blogs
• Guest Posting on Blogs in Your Niche
• Get Active on Social Networks and Relevant Forums

Build Trust to Increase Blog Traffic

Building trust with first-time visitors can increase blog traffic in a few ways. It will make these new readers feel comfortable enough to return in the future. It will also make them feel confident in sharing your content with their community.

Your tagline may be the first opportunity you have to connect with a new visitor and start building trust. This one sentence will let them know they are in the right place, and it may give them a little insight into the type of environment you foster on your blog.

The About Me page is often overlooked – sometimes not so unintentionally – but this is going to be one of the biggest opportunities you have to connect with potential readers and build trust. Visitors want to know who you are and why they should listen to you. If you are reluctant to share that information, they may feel you are intentionally keeping things under wraps. The absence of an About Me page may have the opposite effect. Rather than leaving that potential reader feeling neutral, they may feel you have something to hide.

Keep Those Readers Coming Back

Now that you went out there, brought those readers over to your blog, have them trusting your advice, make sure they return. Your readers may prefer to follow you in a number of ways:

• Social Networks
• RSS
• Email Newsletter

Don’t bury these links. The first place your new reader is likely to look for ways they can follow you will be above-the-fold. They will scroll back up and look in your sidebar or header for these opportunities. This is prime real estate. Advertisers know this as well. However, make sure you are promoting your blog or business above all others.

Now that these readers are following your blog and following you socially, you need to update regularly. Develop a content and marketing schedule to ensure you are updating both your blog and your social profiles on a consistent basis.

What is your favorite way to bring in new traffic?

Is your website traffic down recently? Did that happen around January 19? Your problem may be too many above-the-fold ads.

What Is Above-the-Fold?

This is what a visitor sees when they land on your site. No scrolling involved. They hit the page, and whatever they see at that very moment is above-the-fold. This likely includes your header, a navigation menu, but what about the actual content they came for? This is where Google has an issue. If your visitors have to scroll to get to your content, you may be penalized.

How Many Is Too Many?

You really didn’t think they would give you that much information, did you? As is always the case around here, we have to keep these algorithm changes cloaked in a bit of mystery. Matt Cutts has since said that the number of ads is not the issue. It does not matter if you have one massively enormous ad or 62. What matters is the amount of above-the-fold space that ad(s) is taking up. And who sees what is always a problem. Browser size varies from visitor to visitor.

If your website or blog traffic has dropped since January 19, you may already have a good indication that you have too many ads. Google does have a browser size tool that will let you see what the majority of your visitors see when they land on your site.

So You Have Too Many Ads, Now What?

The great thing about this little algorithm change is that it is a super quick fix for most webmasters (as long as prepaid, above-the-fold advertisers are not involved, of course). This is not a Panda-like change where years of behavior will need to be undone. Move your ads. As Google recrawls your site, your modifications will be taken into account. Google’s blog post states this may take several weeks depending on the size of your site and your current crawl rate.

Was your site penalized with this latest algorithm change? Have you proactively moved your top-of-the-page ads just in case?

A RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed is a XML-based format for web content. Most blog platforms have this built-in and begin creating a RSS feed with each new post. Website visitors can then subscribe to this feed to keep up-to-date on your latest news.

RSS feeds can be used in others ways as well. A webmaster can use the RSS feeds of others to provide up-to-the-minute news feeds for their readers. Many webmasters also use them to cross-promote personal properties in related niches.

A WordPress RSS widget is pre-installed on every self-hosted site on this platform. There is not much flexibility however.

If you are looking for customization, there is a better WordPress RSS plugin available. The Better RSS Widget is a free WordPress RSS feed plugin available in the WP directory. It provides the following features:

• Add title or post tags to the feed URL in the shortcode.
• Excerpt length can be set in both the widget and the shortcode.
• Page conditionals select whether or not to show on Home, Front, Single Post, Archive, Search, Category, Tag, and Date pages.
• Shortcode to allow embedding RSS feeds into posts and pages.
• Choose whether to cache the RSS feed and set the cache duration per feed, defaults to 3600 seconds (1 hour).
• Option to display the post time.
• Allows multiple widgets each with different settings.
• Adds the link target to both the RSS Title and all articles.
• Default settings screen allows you to decide what defaults will appear when adding a new widget.
• NoDoFollow or DoFollow option

Do you often find yourself staring at your computer screen trying to come up with new blog post ideas? I do. Far too often. Let me introduce you to our new friend, the long-tail keyword generator.

If you are a veteran blogger, you have likely seen Google Suggest recommended for finding long-tail keywords, digging down into your niche and brainstorming new topics. It’s a great tool. These suggestions are based on real searches after all. The problem is that you will be shown only a few suggestions at a time. Who has time for this?

Yes, there are a few tools out there that will search out keywords of three or more words. Many are a bit of an investment, and those that I have purchased are usually desktop software that are so clunky and slow that I can do it manually faster. And that still takes quite a bit of time.

Last week I came across Ubersuggest. This is Google Suggest on steroids. Even with entering a super broad term, Ubersuggest allows a user to drill down into a niche quickly. It will give the searcher a few popular searches to start with, but below it will start branching the original term out alphabetically.

Since I started with a one-word phrase, it isn’t finding many long-tail keywords yet. Long-tail generally refers to keywords of three or more words. But, Ubersuggest will let users dig further without having to start a new search. Each time you click on a keyword, this long-tail keyword generator will display new terms.

Sticking with the dog niche, dog health is a popular topic. Clicking “dog health” will branch the two-word phrase into three words. Clicking “dog health problems” will generate even longer tail keywords. Each click of “dog health problems” will generator another 10 keywords.

One drawback is that it doesn’t display search volume. However, clicking the “+” in front of the keywords you are interested in will add them to a list found towards the top of the page. From there, you can click Download which will allow you to cut and paste your selected keywords into Google Keyword Tool to get the search volume.

Ubersuggest is a great little tool for finding long-tail keywords and new blog post ideas. It is simple to use and it’s free.

Do you use a long-tail keyword generator?

As a blogger, sooner or later you will likely think you have run out of blogging topics. Everything has been said. Everyone else has already said it. You included. Don’t despair. Here are a few places to turn for brainstorming blog post ideas.

Related Blogs can be a great place to turn to for new blogging topics. Don’t worry that someone already said that. They haven’t said it with your voice and from your point-of-view.

Regardless of your blog’s niche, there is likely some type of Industry News you can incorporate into your blog. Relay important information, tips and tools to your readers.

Ask Your Readers what they need, or create posts around the most frequently asked questions you receive. Those questions may come from your comments, emails or social networks.

Yahoo! Answers was discussed in a recent post about blog traffic. It is also a great place to find blog post ideas. Just like reader questions, use those common queries on Yahoo! Answers for new posts.

EzineArticles has a Title Suggestions feature under their Author Tools. Use these blogging topics for your own site. Or, create two versions. One for EZA. One for yourself.

Guest Posts can help relieve the blogging pressure by putting the post in someone else’s hands. You may also have posts on occasion that you can use as a springboard for sharing your own point-of-view or suggestions.

Google Keyword Tool can always be used for blog post ideas. Though you do not want to blog strictly for search engines, keep in mind these are things your potential readers are already searching. Provide them the information.

The News has been the source of many blog post topics around here. If there is an industry trend making the rounds through media channels, hop on the bandwagon. Viewers often head to their computers to learn more.

Stay on topic. If your choices are to not post or to post anything for the sake of having a post, don’t be afraid to take a day off occasionally. Instead, spend that writing time finding a few topics that pique your interest. Take those ideas back to your own blog.

You likely see at least five articles each week telling you how you can increase blog traffic. The majority are probably telling you what you have already heard a thousand times. Targeted web traffic comes from guest posting on that popular blog, commenting in this circle, networking in that forum, joining this hot new social site, etc… But, you want something new. You need new surroundings. You want to expand your network. But, the last thing you want to do is join another time-intensive social networking site.

I know how you feel. I am sure there are a few social sites out there right now that could increase my site traffic. However, I don’t have an extra four hours per day to spend wooing and promoting the heck out of the crowd that new site was created by in hopes of digging up one new follower. I know the targeted web traffic I am searching out. I know they have likely never heard of that new networking site or the people on it. So, where do I go?

Yahoo! Answers

I love Yahoo! Answers for finding targeted web traffic. These are likely people that I have never had contact with prior. I can also search out those that are looking for exactly what I have to offer.

You will likely want to make this an investment made in small bits over time. They do not want you showing up strictly to self-promote. You are welcome to leave a link to your site as a source for your answer, but you need to make sure it is applicable and not too often. I try to only drop a link once every three questions. And, I also don’t drop links in broad questions. I have a far better success rate when the question matches a specific post. I find answers are flagged more often if I drop a link to my homepage.

After you reach Level 2, your source links will become clickable. Up until that point, they will only be text. This is one reason why you may want to tackle the site a few questions at a time.

Blekko

I told you a few weeks ago that Yahoo! Site Explorer was going to be put to rest. This would have been a bummer for those of us that used it to check our backlinks. No worries! We now have Blekko.

Blekko is another search engine. This one was designed for webmasters and incorporates the use of slashtags to narrow down search results. I can get a peek into my site, and others, by using slashtags. Simply put in the URL of your site followed by /seo.

The results will show me not only how many backlinks I have, but also what sites they are on, locations of my visitors, the last time my site was crawled, and more.

If I am looking to increase blog traffic, there is one other big perk here. I can compare my site to a similar one. By looking at the inbound links of a similar site, I can likely find new sites to comment and/or guest post, new forums to become active, networks to explore, maybe even a few easy backlinks. All of these avenues may bring me more targeted web traffic.

You can often find a treasure when you take the road less traveled. These are only a few ways to increase blog traffic by going it alone. What have you been doing lately outside of the box? 

There is a big Three-For-Three-At-A-Half Sale on a few ProBlogger eBooks right now. Now is the time to grab a few of ProBlogger’s best-sellers just in time for the New Year. These three eBooks are all 50% off until Friday, December 23.

ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging is a newer eBook. This one walks you through those first days as a new blogger: choosing a niche, targeting your audience, planning content, social media and more. Through Friday: $9.99.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog is a blogging best seller. It has sold over 19,000 copies. I have gone through this one myself. Each day is a new actionable task to improve your blog. It not only went up in price this year, it was also updated for 2012. This is a great opportunity to pick it up for only $14.99.

The Blogger’s Guide to Online Marketing is also a newer eBook. This one focuses on becoming a profitable blogger in 31 detailed steps. Included are 21 templates, worksheets, examples and documents. Get it for only $49.99 through Friday.

We have talked about page loading time here before. Not necessarily because Page Rank and site speed are directly linked, but simply because from the reader standpoint slow-loading sites drive me nuts!

I came across this infographic yesterday, and I wanted to share it. It compares quite a few tools that us bloggers use most often, and it shows which one is most likely to slow down your site.