5 ways to drive traffic to your blog

  5 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Blog

Friday, November 16, 2007

When you blog for money you need to create your own content (and lots of it!), implement advertisement programs like Google AdSense and WidgetBucks, and last but not least – you need traffic.



In our offline lives we dread it, but online we embrace it. I want to give you 5 ways to start driving traffic to your blog today. With a little time and patience, you will slowly start to increase your viewer ship.

(In no particular order)

5.) Post comments on other blogs.

Blogs are everywhere – there’s certainly not a shortage of them. You should have no problem finding other bloggers in your niche that are popular and interesting. Bookmark those that you like, follow their topics daily, and if you find something that sparks your interest – comment.

Become a participating voice in the community. The more interesting your comments are, the more likely your peers will follow you to your blog. And who knows – you might stand out among the crowd and be recognized by the author, which can spin off into better opportunities.

4.) Register with blog networks like: Technorati, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog

It’s important that you get your blog out there for others to see. You can start the process by submitting to search engines, but that’s just the beginning. Technorati, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog are just a few of the high profile blog networks on the web. Register with them, network with other people in your releated area, and get your word out.

When you register with these services remember a couple of things:

1.) Create a detailed profile. Let people know a little bit about you and draw them in. Without that personal interaction people may flee quickly.

2.) Tag your blog properly. Tags are very important – they’re usually one or two word descriptions of your blog. So for example my blog would fall under categories like: Money, Business, and Finance. Dig around the specific service and look for popular tags and try to use those for your blog. It allows people who are interested in these topics to easily find your site.


3.) Register with several forums.

Do a Google search for forums that are related to your niche and register. Try to be an active voice in the community. People will flock to you if you’re interesting. Not only that but it allows you to find out what others are doing and what makes them appealing.

When you register with a forum, make sure to fill out the profile, similar to the blogging services. And equally as important – make a signature that is a direct link to your blog. Your signature is shown in every post that you make – helping you gain visibility. This is all the more reason to create thought provoking discussions.


2.) Social Bookmarking and Article Submission.

Social networking, bookmarking, and article submissions are all the rage today – don’t let it pass you by. Some of the major networks include delicious, Furl, and of course, Digg. These sites will allow you to tag, bookmark, and submit articles that you think are interesting. What’s more interesting than your own work? People should know about it so go spread the word.


1.) StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon really falls into tip #2, but I decided to break it away from the pack because it provides quicker results. Like the rest of the social networking sites, you create a profile and network with others. But what makes StumbleUpon so darn unique, is that you can “stumble” thousands of sites that you’re interested in by the click of a button. So what does that mean for you? Well, you can stumble your own site. By doing this you get into the Stumble rotation, and any people that you network with can stumble across it as well.

In my experience StumbleUpon can bring great surges of traffic for short periods of time. Due to the nature of the service, you’re likely to get overlooked more than not; however, those that do stop – tend to stay. And if they like the site, they can rate it and review it for all the friends in their network to see. Are you getting the picture here? Your viewer ship has the potential to explode!

As with most things in life, there’s no silver bullet for getting traffic. It takes a lot of research, careful planning, networking, patience, and time. If you have what it takes and start using my recommendations, you will definitely start to see an increase. Hopefully that increase in traffic will help you blog for money.

GLOBEL WARMING

All through Earth has warmed and cooled time and again when the planet received more or less sunlight but in the past century, another force has started to influence Earth's climate is humanity.

"Global warming is the rapid increase in Earth's average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released as people burn fossil fuels."

The 30% of incoming sunlight is reflected back into space and remaining 70% is absorbed by the land and ocean, and the rest is absorbed by the atmosphere. This absorption and radiation of heat by the atmosphere—the natural greenhouse effect—is beneficial for life on Earth. If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth's temperature would be -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today.

Is Today's Warming Different from the Past?

Earth's past climates or "paleoclimates" reveals that the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events. As the Earth moved out of ice ages, the global temperature raised 4-7°C over about 5,000 years. Models predict that Earth will warm between 2-6 degrees Celsius in the next century. The predicted rate of warming for the next century is at least 20 times faster.

Is Current Warming Natural?

Earth's climate changed due to wobbles in Earth's orbit, volcanic eruptions, ozone depletion etc. These natural causes are still in play today, but their influence is too small. NASA satellites record a vital signs including atmospheric aerosols (both from natural sources and human activities, such as factories, fires, deserts, and erupting volcanoes), atmospheric gases (including greenhouse gases), energy radiated from Earth's surface and the Sun, ocean surface temperature changes, global sea level, the extent of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice, plant growth, rainfall, cloud structure, and more. The human influence on climate has eclipsed the magnitude of natural temperature changes over the past 120 years.

How Much More Will Earth Warm?

Scientists build climate models which are designed to simulate the responses and interactions of the oceans and atmosphere, and to account for changes to the land surface, both natural and human-induced. The models predict that as the world consumes ever more fossil fuel, greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to rise and Earth's average surface temperature will rise with them. Based on a range of plausible emission scenarios, average surface temperatures could raise between 2°C and 6°C by the end of the 21st century.

 

How Will Global Warming Change Earth?

Global warming will modifies rainfall patterns, amplifies coastal erosion, lengthens the growing season in some regions, melts ice caps and glaciers, and alters the ranges of some infectious diseases. Some of these changes are:

Changing Weather

Global warming will result in storms, floods, and droughts and hurricanes. With some exceptions, the tropics will likely receive less rain (orange) as the planet warms, while the Polar Regions will receive more precipitation (green).

Rising Sea Levels

Global warming will impact rising sea levels will erode coasts and cause frequent coastal flooding. Sea levels crept up about 20 cm during the twentieth century and predicted to go up 18-59 cm over the next century, though the increase could be greater if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt more quickly than predicted.

Impacting Ecosystems

Global warming is putting pressure on ecosystems, the plants and animals, both on land and in the ocean. Warmer temperatures may affect lifecycles of pollinators and plants to survive and reproduce, which would reduce food availability throughout the food chain. To survive the extreme temperatures, both marine and land-based plants and animals have started to migrate towards the poles. Those that cannot quickly migrate or adapt, face extinction. About 20-30% of plant and animal species will be at risk of extinction. if temperatures climb more than 1.5°-2.5°C.

Impacting People

As tropical temperature zones expand, the reach of some infectious diseases, such as malaria, will change. Rising sea levels will lead flooding and potential loss of property and life. Hotter summers and more frequent fires will lead to more cases of heat stroke and deaths. Intense droughts can lead to an increase in malnutrition. On a longer time scale, fresh water will become scarcer. The same small change in temperature, however, would reduce food production.

Ultimately, global warming will impact life on Earth in many ways, but the extent of the change is largely up to us. Scientists have shown that human emissions of greenhouse gases are pushing global temperatures up, and many aspects of climate are responding to the warming in the way that scientists predicted they would. But the degree to which global warming changes life on Earth depends on our decisions now.