However, traffic is not all that matters when it comes to readership. Truth be told, a handful of blog readers are probably too lazy to keep track of all their favorite blogs all the time. Even those who use RSS readers might have dozens and dozens of feeds to sift through. A good number would probably prefer just to receive their daily dose of your blog right in their email inboxes.

The advantage of adding email subscriptions to your usual RSS feed link mostly involves added ease of access to potential visitors. Rather than fumble with copying and pasting the feed URL to their feed reader, they just key in their email address, hit enter,” and expect to be alerted every day of new items.

Some services even go to the extent of copying the body of each post content into the body of the email. At first, you might feel that readership from emails might be eating into your page views. To the contrary, though, most people who want to check out discussions will click on the item and read the blog post from your site itself.

How to set up email subscriptions

The simplest way to set up email subscriptions on your blog is to run your feeds through Feedburner. Once you’ve set up Feedburner to “burn” your site’s feed, you can activate the Email notification service under the Publicize tab.

Can I monetize email subscriptions?

The main problem with email is that, unlike the web, you’re not always sure how your readers will be reading your content. Will it be in HTML? Will it be plain text? Will it be on the desktop computer, or a mobile device? It’s always best to assume that readers will be reading your post in as minimal a format possible, which means text.

This also means that monetizing content transmitted through email might be more difficult. You can monetize RSS feeds through AdSense or banner ads. With email, monetization will usually includes affiliate links and sponsored reviews. If your blog is popular enough, then you can run a newsletter for paid subscribers only, in conjunction with using email as a notification service. You can use software and services like Feedblitz and AWeber for this purpose.

In conclusion, adding email functionality to your blog would help drive traffic to your site. The main benefit, though, is that it gives users an easy way to access your blog without much effort.

You might be blogging consistently, publishing your 3-5 300 word posts week in and week out. However, that in itself will not get you a lot of search traffic.

To get a huge increase in search traffic, you will need links from authority sites. Authority sites include the popular sites in your niche, the well-branded sites, the about.com’s on the net, the blogs that get 10+ comments per post, and the sites with Alexa ratings under 100,000. Also, The EatonWeb Blog Directory lists blogs based on authority.

Google gives a lot of weight to these links because they are harder to build than the average link. These links can’t be bought (usually). Instead, they have to be earned with linkworthy content and diligent marketing.

So, how often do you create linkworthy content?

Many bloggers overestimate the linkworthiness of their content.

Here are some examples of recently published linkbait.

• 23 Ways to Keep Fast Food in Your Diet
• 11 Colorful Optical Illusions
• Seven years since — looking back and forward on 9/11 [PICS]
• E-Mail Addiction: Five Signs You Need Help
• 10 Things Millionaires Won’t Tell You
• Is hip-hop haunted by ghostwriters?

In the last couple of weeks, have you created anything similar to the above content? Have you produced something interesting, useful, and/or entertaining that has a good chance of attracting links?

If not, you’re missing out on a lot of links that lead to a huge search traffic increase – not to mention the direct traffic from those links as well as improved branding and reputation.

Linkworthy content is the backbone of a good linkbuilding strategy.

Linkbait vs. No Linkbait

Here are two graphs to help you understand the importance of this type of content.

In the above graph, you’ve blogged for two weeks without publishing anything linkworthy. You get two authority links, which increase your link popularity. The blue color represents link popularity.

I’m being generous with the two authority links. Many blogs will not get an authority link for months.

Compare that graph with this graph.

In this graph, you cut down you post frequency to spend time creating linkworthy content and emailing authority sites to tell them about your content.

A couple authority sites linked to you. You got a great amount of link popularity. Not only that, but the link popularity from the linkbait is bleeding over to your other posts and those posts are ranking better. See with Google, if you build authority links, even the pages that don’t get links receive a boost in ranking.

Imagine if most of your two week periods looked like graph #2 instead of graph #1.

In a couple months, you’ll be an authority site with a ton of search engine traffic. Other people will be emailing you to link to their site. You’ll be well-networked in your niche because you connected with other bloggers through your emails. And your branding will have improved because you’ll be known as the blogger that wrote that great resource or that funny list. You’ll be known for your linkbait.

Why the Higher Word Count for Linkbait?

I symbolized linkbait with the higher word count because linkworthy blog posts are usually much longer than the average blog post. Also, these posts have more elements like video and images.

Long posts stand out from the crowd of short posts. They are unique and bloggers are more likely to link to unique posts.

Why Keep the Short Posts?

There are a couple reasons to continue publishing short posts.

• Quality linkbait takes a lot more time to create.
• Short posts serve as great search engine fodder. The more blog posts you publish, the more keywords you target.
• If your site is consistently updated, readers will expect new content and return to your site more frequently.
• Your blog looks active.
• It shows your passion and expertise for your niche since you always have something to say.

Basically, doing a mixture of short posts and linkbait is a good SEO strategy.

Balance is the key. And if you don’t have a lot of time to blog, if you produce just one linkbait a month, you’ll be way ahead of most blogs.

Why Linkbait Works for SEO

The reason linkbait works so well is because Google’s algorithms are heavily based on the quality of links. Google used to focus more on anchor text but anchor text has taken a back seat to domain link popularity (aka the number of high quality links pointing to your site).

Yes, you still want keywords in your anchor text and title tags. However, it’s much better to have a link from about.com with the anchor text “click here” than a link with great anchor text from a blog without much traffic or PageRank.

Why Other Blogs Can Get Away Without Doing Linkbait

Some blogs didn’t have to linkbait to get their search traffic. Usually, they were one of the first to enter the niche. Since they had this advantage, they got a bunch of great links because of the lack of competition. I’m assuming most of you are blogging in niches that are already established with many competing blogs. In this situation, you’ll need to differentiate yourself from the other blogs with your linkworthy content.

Also, Google tends to rank older sites better than newer sites. But if you’re consistent with your linkbait, over time you’ll overtake those blogs that don’t publish much linkbait.

Learn More About Linkbait

It will take a whole new post to cover the basics of linkbait creation. The main principle is to take some time to do research on the sites in your industry. What are they linking to? Why are they linking? Then, based on that information, you can create content that they would want to link to.

Also, here are two resources to help you get started.

• Screencast Video: Here is an Easy 4 Step Formula to Create Linkworthy Content
• The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited

Your Turn

How often do you create linkbait and market it to other bloggers?

What’s In It For Me?

Always put yourself in the shoes of your audience because they will be asking that question. Keeping WIIFM in mind means figuring out how your blog can appeal to the people you want to reach.

Reading your blog needs to be a rewarding experience for both the regular readers and first-time visitors. You need to demonstrate this through all aspects of your blog, from the design to the functionality to the content.

Once your audience understands why they should be reading your blog, you must move on to what you want them to do on your blog. You need to be able to communicate to the benefits of bookmarking, subscribing, linking, and returning to your blog.

What are the more specific calls to action you wish to achieve on your blog? It could be a Digg or a Stumble. It could be a click on an affiliate link or any other advertisement. It could be directly buying your product. As you become more specific with the expectations you have of your audience, you must communicate them more clearly.

Connecting with your audience is an essential feature of successful blogs. And being mindful of WIIFM at all times is the way to do it.

He wrote about posting excerpts from his new book last month and also giving a recommendation for a book by author Garr Reynolds.  He built a Squidoo page about that book with an affiliate link to Amazon. 

Guess which book has gotten more sales?  His book or Garr’s book? 

Seth checked his stats and it shows that he’s sold more of Garr’s book than his own book.

What people say about you is much more important than what you say about yourself.

There’s a lot of talk about self-promotion but it’s a lot more beneficial and effective when other bloggers promote you.

When people talk about you and especially when they recommend you, you gain credibility, mindshare, and exposure.

So, how do you get other people to start talking about you?

Unique Content

First, and you’ve probably heard this a million times, write unique content. 

This is easier said than done because it takes work to be creative. 

The key to creating unique content is knowing your niche well.  If you do this, you’ll be able to see which topics, viewpoints, and media formats are not being covered well in your niche.  Also, you’ll be able to gauge your competition.  Can you produce something better than them?  Can you create something different from them?

When you find a "gap" you can fill, you have a much better chance of being recommended because no one else is doing what you’re doing.

For example, in my last blog post, I talked about producing audio and video content.

Many niches don’t have a blog with quality video and audio content.  If you produce multimedia content, you’ll greatly differentiate your blog from the other blogs in your niche.  This leads to people talking about you because you’re unique.

Here’s another example from the make money online niche.  Surprisingly, this niche does not have many good tutorials.  If you write a lengthy tutorial filled with screenshots (like this one), you’ll probably get a lot of links and traffic

Therefore, do some market research.  And then have a brainstorming session and come up with content ideas that aren’t being produced in your niche.

Network

Second, network. 

You may not agree with this but I think networking is more important than unique content.  Networking allows your content to be found.  Even non-unique content can get popular because the blogger that produced the content has many blogger friends.

Networking is simply building friendships with other bloggers in your niche.

Think about how you make friends offline and try to translate those methods on the blogosphere. 

For me, I find out where people hang out and then I go there to meet people.  When I’m online, I do a similar thing.  I visit places where other bloggers hang out to network with them.  Depending on the niche, these places could be a forum or a social voting site. 

Also, I find that I can meet new friends through my existing friends.  On the internet, I ask my existing blogger friends if they could introduce me to other bloggers.

Here are some other ways and places where you can build friendships with other bloggers in your niche.

• twitter
• blog commenting
• email
• link out with trackbacks
• help out another blogger

There’s more that can be said about networking.  Here are 2 posts that can give you more ideas:

• 3 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Networking Skills
• Effective Networking: 7 Ways to Connect With People in Your Niche 

The Final Ingredient: Time

Just like profitable blogging usually takes time, so does getting mentioned consistently by other bloggers.

If you’re only starting out, it will probably take a couple of months of producing unique content and networking before other bloggers start talking about you.

But give it some time and you’ll soon be a recognizable blogger in your niche.

Feedback

What have you done to get other bloggers to promote you?

However, don’t forget about forum marketing.

Forum marketing has many benefits. If other marketing methods are not working for you, give forum marketing a shot.

I think the learning curve for social media marketing is steeper than forum marketing. Also, you’ll often reach a more targeted audience with forums than with social media sites.

Forum marketing is similar to blog commenting. It allows you to reach a targeted audience. However, forum marketing has an advantage over blog commenting because you can start a forum thread in the topic of your choosing. In blog commenting, you’re constrained by the topic of the blog post.

Tips

Here are some tips for improving your forum marketing.

Some niches don’t have forums. Do a search for [your niche] forum to see if there are forums in your niche.

Make sure the forum has traffic and activity. I like to market in forums that have many new posts every day. Also, you can check Alexa.

The forum you participate in should allow you to market your site. Some forums allow you to put your site in your signature while others don’t allow you to promote your site at all. Some forums even let you to put your add your feed into your profile. Then, the forum software pulls your newest post and links to it on every forum post you make.

You don’t have to create totally unique content. Feel free to reuse your old blog content. However, don’t copy and paste. Rewrite your old content. Google does not like duplicate content. You want your forum threads to get ranked. And if the forum members find that you have been using the same exact content from your blog, you might be labeled a spammer.

However, don’t just start new threads. Find other threads with topics that interest you and reply to the forum posts on those threads. By participating in other threads, you’ll build your reputation.

Feedback

What other forum marketing tips can you think of?

Blog commenting is a great way to presell yourself and your content while also building friendships with other bloggers. Here are a couple tips to consider.

Comment early. Try one of the first 5 to comment on a post because those commenters get noticed more than the later commenters. You’ll get more traffic to your blog. The blogger will notice you over the other commenters if he receives many comments per post.

Leave an insightful comment. Too many comments are short and don’t add much value. It’s okay to leave a comment like “Awesome post. Thanks for sharing.” However, most of your comments should add value to the post and directly engage the post in an insightful way. By leaving good comments, you will brand yourself as someone who knows what he’s talking about.

Pick a blog that you enjoy reading. It will a lot easier to leave good comments if you comment on a blog that you enjoy reading.

Comment on posts that are closely related to your blog. If you have a Ford Mustang blog and want to comment on a general car blog, leave comments especially on the Mustang related posts. Also, other Mustang car blogs like this one are great places to leave comments.

Watch your stats. If you’re not getting a lot of traffic from your comments, it may be time to target another blog. Don’t just look at unique visitors. Check out the bounce rate and pageviews, too. Blog A may send less visitors than blog B. However, blog A’s visitors may actually be visiting more pages than blog B’s visitors. More pageviews can translate into subscribers and a higher conversion rate.

After a couple insightful comments especially if the blogger responded to them, feel free to contact the blogger directly and promote your best content. Make sure your content actually relates to his blog. Also, link out a couple times to the blogger to increase your success rate of getting a link and a positive mention.

Which blogs should you comment on? Our blog directory can help you with this. We have a lot of blogs and they’re ranked by 3 metrics: overall, strength, and momentum. For more information about these three metrics, check out our about page.

I personally like using the momentum metric, because you can find blogs that don’t have a huge readership base yet they are growing quickly. The problem with networking with bloggers who have big audiences is they are often hard to befriend because of their fame. It’s hard to get noticed in midst of their many comments and emails. However, blogs with a high momentum metric are often times smaller blogs that are on the rise. What better time to network with a blogger than when they have a relatively small audience, but at the same time, are growing their readership very quickly?

For example, if you are a celebrity blogger, check out the top momentum celeb blogs. Then, pick one like Pop Crunch and begin leaving comments. If you are a tech blogger, check out the top momentum tech blogs. You can then scan the blogs on the list and pick a blog to target like The Techdirt Blog.

Also, don’t forget to submit your blog if you haven’t already. Other bloggers are browsing the directory for other blogs in their niche. If you haven’t submitted your blog, those bloggers won’t be able to find you.

Feedback

Feel free to share your favorite blog commenting tip.

The debate is flawed. Links or content alone are just one type of asset. You might be able to profit from either for a while, but ultimately the real measure of relevancy and staying power is attention.

I think he’s right. The internet is getting more crowded. More people are trying to make money online. More bloggers are learning internet marketing skills. Here is a list of over 100 make money online bloggers. I think most of these blogs were started less than a year ago. Information is easy to produce. Big offline publishers with massive amounts of quality content are starting to publish their content online. Therefore, attention is the most valuable resource right now.

You can have the best content but if no one knows about it, how will you make money or gain readership? You can be a marketing genius, but if your content doesn’t capture people’s attention, your marketing will be inefficient and ineffective. You can be the best link builder, but a blogger who has more attention than you will steal your rankings in the long-term because their attention will get them links faster than you can build them.

So, think of ways to get noticed. Write content that causes people to pay attention to you. Promote your blog in such a way that people don’t forget you. Don’t stop building links but also get attention because that is the best link building strategy.

Also, here are two principles that can help.

• Be bold.
• Focus. Don’t multi-task so much. Instead, “single task”. Much of the content and marketing that gets attention is well-planned and took much concentration and focused effort.

Today let’s talk about marketing without spamming. What’s the difference? How can you keep your marketing from becoming spammy?

Here are some equations that might help you understand the difference between spam and marketing.

Promoting low quality/irrelevant content = spam

Promoting with no prior relationship = spam

Promoting with good content and networking = good marketing

Good blog marketing is not just about letting people know about your content. You also need networking and good content.

Why Good Content?

People will share high quality content. But bad content, they’ll make fun of or ignore. For example, you promote one of your posts to popular bloggers. Popular bloggers are known for having quality content. For those bloggers to link to you, you must have quality content that their readers will enjoy. So, promote your best stuff and aim to increase the quality of your content.

Tips for Producing Good Content

Think about what people in your niche like to talk about. Would they share your content with their friends? Ask yourself if other bloggers would freely link to your posts. The key here is creating content that stands out from the crowd. There are many ways to do this. Here are 3 of those ways.

1. Cover the areas in your niche that no one else is covering.
Example: Follow the popular blogs in your niche and write about an important subject they’re not covering at the present time.

2. Write about your niche in a unique angle.
Example: Whenever you post a news item, add your opinions and views.

3. Format your blogs in a creative way.
Examples: Take quality content from your blog and other blogs and aggregate them in a organized list post. Also, make sure to have usable, clean, up-to-date blog design.

Finally, your content needs to be relevant to your audience. Therefore, know your audience well in order to give them what they consider useful/important/entertaining.

Why Networking?

Think about some blogs where you’d like to have a link. For example, if you have a basketball blog, you’d definitely want a link from TrueHoop? If you have a copywriting blog, you can get a lot of traffic from a link on Copyblogger. How would you go about pursuing these juicy links?

You could email them your best content. However, popular bloggers are used to getting promotional emails. Some of these promotional emails come from their friends. Hmmm. Are the popular bloggers more likely to link to their friends or you, a stranger? We are social creatures by nature. We like to support our friends more than random strangers. So, you have a much better chance of getting links on popular blogs by being friendly and networking.

Networking Tips

Here are some practical networking tips.

Think of networking like building offline friendships. Small talk first.

• Think of networking like building offline friendships. Small talk first.
• Introduce yourself to other bloggers by emailing them. Don’t promote any of your posts. Give them your blog URL and tell them a little bit about yourself. Ask them a small, relevant question.
• Leave insightful comments.
• Link out to quality content. Bloggers like trackbacks.
• Do interviews.
• Offer to guest post.
• Target bloggers who like to link out rather than the more “isolated” bloggers.

Conclusion

There is a lot more to say about quality content and networking so stick around. I’ll give more practical examples in later posts. Until then, reevaluate your networking efforts and the quality of your content. If you do this, you’ll be on your way to increasing the effectiveness of your marketing.