Sure, you might still get a little Google traffic, and if it was a really good post, hopefully some other bloggers linked to it and you’re still getting a few visitors clicking through. But wouldn’t it be nice to keep the post alive and kicking on your own blog?

Fortunately, it’s not that hard, especially if you’re using WordPress (I mention some plugins below that are for WordPress blogs, but you might be able to find equivalent ways of doing these things on other platforms, too). Read on to discover a few tricks you can use today.

Help readers find related information

The easiest way to keep old posts visible is to link to them. It’s also extremely effective: you can pretty accurately predict what will be interesting to a reader based on what they’re currently reading.

The simplest way to do this is simply to link to older posts when you’re writing a new post. Use the search tool on your blog to find posts that you may have forgotten about, and quickly scan through the titles of posts in the same categories you’re planning to use for the new post. Anything relevant? Link directly to the old post within the content of your new post.

Don’t stop there, though. Include a list of “related posts” at the end of each post. If you’re on WordPress, there are several plugins that can do this for you automatically (I use Similar Posts). Even if you have to create the list manually, it’s worth the effort.

Why? Because when a reader reaches the end of a post, they’re at a kind of crossroads—from there, they’ll decide whether to read something else on your blog or close it and go elsewhere. It’s a natural decision point, so giving them links to the posts most likely to interest them will encourage them to stick around.

Don’t overlook the value of the built-in archives, either. Many bloggers display their archives as a list of months on their sidebars, but you’re much better off showing categories and/or tags instead of (or in addition to) dates. Most people can pick a topic they’re interested in from a list, but the dates aren’t nearly as useful unless someone wants to read from the beginning.

For the same reason, make sure your blog theme shows a list of categories and/or tags for each post, preferably at the end (for the same reason you should have related posts at the end). This is an easy way for readers to continue reading about a topic that interests them.

Share the love with other bloggers

When you’re trying to keep your readers around, it may seem counter-intuitive to link to other blogs, but there are several good reasons for doing so:

1. Linking makes your blog posts more useful to your readers. If additional information would help clarify your post, but you haven’t covered it before, linking elsewhere is a service to your readers.
2. Linking attracts attention from other bloggers. Most bloggers check their stats and notice when someone links to them, and they appreciate it. They’re likely to check out your post, and might even link to it (or another one in the future) if it’s a good fit.
3. Linking raises your own awareness. If you’re paying attention to what’s being said elsewhere on the same topic, you’re less likely to write redundant posts, and more likely to be truly well-informed.

How you choose to link to other bloggers is up to you. If the content is highly relevant, you might feature an excerpt and link to the full post, or you can just create simple links in body of the post (similar to how you’d link back to your older posts).

Another option is to create a “further reading” section at the bottom. You can use tools like Zemanta or Sphere to automate the process, or do it manually, and you can change your approach on a per-post basis, too. You can even visually show that the links go to another site—the External Links plugin does this for WordPress, and if you’re on another platform, there are a range of methods.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can easily overwhelm your readers with too much good information. As a reader, I always prefer blogs that collect and summarize the best information available, rather than link to everything available, which makes me feel like I have to read a gazillion posts just to be marginally informed.

That said, a “further reading”-type list implies that it’s optional, and is very helpful for those who’ve read your post and want to learn more about the specific topic.

Highlight your best posts

Now that you’ve tackled links from individual posts, it’s time to think about your blog as a whole. Consider it from a first-time visitor’s perspective. Is it obvious what your site is about? If they want to learn more, where do they go to do it?

Highlighting your best posts is a great way to help answer these questions. Like most of the previous tips, you can use a plugin like Popularity Contest to create the list automatically, or you can create it by hand. Doing it yourself ensures you are promoting your very best, but can be harder to maintain. You can also do both and see which works for you.

Once you’ve created your list, there are several good places to draw attention to the best of the best; use as many as make sense to you.

1. List popular posts on your sidebar or other prominent location. You can see an example of this on Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur-Journey.com, right at the top.
2. Create a special section under your posts. Again, the “crossroads” logic—you hit the reader at the moment they’re trying to decide what to do next.
3. Create a separate page.

Repurpose your blog posts

Bonus tip! This one is a little more work than the others, so I’m including it here as extra credit.

Once you’ve written your blog post, if you find you’ve got a winner on your hands (good traffic, or lots of comments, for instance), it might be worth re-using.

How can you re-use it? Well, you should first be prepared to put a little time into polishing or re-writing so that the new version is at least a little different from the original. How much of that you do will depend on how you intend to re-use.

Here are a few ideas:

• Submit it to an article site (see this selection of article sites). If you write a good mini-bio, you can get ongoing traffic to your blog with this method.
• Use it in a newsletter. If you have a newsletter that’s got similar-but-not-identical readership, this is a good option. Or another blogger might be interested in using it in their newsletter, too.
• Use it as the basis of an ebook or free report. If you expand it or make it more valuable in some way, you can sell it or use it as an incentive to get people to sign up for your newsletter or feed. For instance, Leo at Zen Habits compiled his best posts into an ebook that’s now for sale.

Honestly, I’d much rather spend my time doing search engine optimization, marketing, or coding new themes, but when I get a panicked email from a hack victim, I understand that getting their blog up and running again is (naturally) their number-one priority.

This post explains why WordPress blogs get hacked and how to keep it from happening to you.

How bloggers discover they’ve been hacked

Many times the hackers are pretty slick, and you might not even know you’ve been hacked until you start to lose traffic or see a weird error. I had a few blogs hacked about a year ago and it took me a while to notice because I wasn’t regularly monitoring my traffic.

Some symptoms I’ve seen (on my own blogs or on my clients’ blogs):

• Delisting, a dramatic drop in rank, or a “caution” page from Google. You’ll usually find out about this a while after the hack, either when you search for yourself on Google, or (if you usually get a lot of traffic from Google) when you notice your traffic go down. Sometimes you’ll get an email from Google that alerts you to the situation.
• Strange links in your posts that just “appeared.” You’ll usually only spot these if you go back and edit an existing post, so many bloggers don’t notice these right away, either.
• Weird blog behavior, like blank pages or “secret” pages that only show up if you try to go to a page that doesn’t exist. Not all of this points to being hacked (for instance, an out-dated plugin can cause a blank page) but it’s often the first clue that something’s wrong.

Why isn’t it easier to spot? The hackers purposely hide most of the evidence from you, and intentionally set it up so that search engines (like Google) see the new “content” they’ve added, but regular visitors (including you) do not. That makes it harder to catch the hack right away and makes it more likely the hackers will accomplish their goals.

What’s in it for the hackers

Most of the hacks I’ve seen have one goal: promoting spam sites. No doubt there are some purely malicious hackers who simply enjoy damaging blogs, but most seem to use hacking as a means to an end.

When they hack your blog, the most common thing they do is put in links to other sites, often porn, pharma, or other lucrative targets that are presumably paying for the effort. Why? Because when your site (presumably a respectable blog that Google knows is not a spam site) links to their site, they get a little boost with Google.

Google knows this happens and actively tries to stop it, but until they recognize that the linked sites are spam, those sites get some benefit. Google usually catches on pretty quickly, though, and when they do, your blog gets penalized right along with the spam sites it’s linking to.

This doesn’t bother the hackers much, because they’re already automatically hacking the next unsuspecting blog (and they sure as heck don’t care that their gain is your loss).

How they hack your blog

By far, the number one cause of hacked WordPress blogs is not having the most recent version installed. WordPress is software, and like any software, the people who wrote it try their best to make it as secure as they can, but occasionally there’s a bug. Sometimes these bugs, if not fixed, can allow hackers into the software.

With desktop software, like Windows or Photoshop or Firefox or Word, when a bug is discovered, the software company creates an update that fixes the bug and the software asks you to upgrade. This is the purpose of services like Windows Update—to make sure you have the latest version of the software, and all known bugs are fixed.

With software like WordPress that’s installed on a web host, it’s a little more complicated. Just like desktop software, when a bug is discovered, an update is created and the software prompts you to upgrade. However, the actual process of upgrading involves downloading and uploading files, backing up your database, and other tasks that non-techies find similarly intimidating. So many bloggers just don’t upgrade.

Though the bloggers often assume that they’re only missing out on new features when they don’t upgrade, the much more important fact is that they’re also leaving known security flaws wide open for hackers. Just like Windows, you only get the protection of the update if you install it. That’s why it’s so important to always have the latest updates (both with Windows and WordPress and any other software you use).

How you can avoid getting hacked

After that last section, this will be obvious, but it bears repeating: always install WordPress security upgrades.

How do you know if you need to upgrade? Log into your WordPress blog’s admin panel and go to the very bottom. It will have a version number, something that looks like 2.3.1 or 2.5 or 2.5.1 (or some other number—but it will follow the basic pattern).

If the number is lower than 2.3 (for instance, 2.2 or 2.2.3 or 2.0.1), you definitely need to upgrade.

If it’s 2.3 or higher, you’ll see a line near the top of your WordPress admin panel that notifies you when it’s time to upgrade:

That’s a good clue that it’s time to upgrade.

What if you don’t want to do the upgrade?

This is the root problem for many bloggers. They don’t have the time or the technical skills (or the time to learn the technical skills) to do their own upgrades, so upgrades don’t get done.

Trust me when I tell you that it’s almost always more expensive to fix a hacked blog than to keep up on upgrades, even if you have to pay someone to do it.

And that’s the answer: if you don’t want to do them yourself, pay someone to keep your blog up-to-date. We offer upgrades as a monthly subscription service, or you can talk to the person who set your blog up for you, or you can hire someone on oDesk or Elance when you need an upgrade. No matter which route you take, the temporary relief of ignoring the upgrade is not worth the much bigger headache of dealing with a hacked blog.

A few other precautions

While out-of-date versions of WordPress are far and away the primary cause of hacks, there are also some other things you can do to help protect yourself and recover in the event of a hack.

If you’re a DIY-type, check out this excellent list of WordPress security tips. These are additional things you can do to secure your blog (we do them by default on blogs we set up).

Having good backups on hand (of both your files and your database) can make it less painful to restore your blog to its former glory if you do get hacked.

Another precaution you should take is to create some “standard” email addresses for your site. When Google detects that your site may have been hacked, they usually try to contact you at the following email addresses:

• contact@yourdomain.com
• info@yourdomain.com
• support@yourdomain.com
• webmaster@yourdomain.com

If you don’t have at least one of these set up, you’ll probably be the last one to know if you do get hacked. This won’t prevent a hack, but it will give you a good shot at fixing things before too much damage is done.

If you need more details on any of the above, leave a comment; I’m considering covering these topics in future posts.

What if you’ve already been hacked?

Because there are different types of hacks and different levels of blogger expertise, there’s no one-size-fits-all fix. Usually it involves upgrading, digging into the files, and searching for any remaining hack code. Honestly, it can be tricky if you aren’t a WordPress code buff (because you don’t know what “normal” looks like).

Your best bet is to get a pro to do an upgrade and once-over. If you don’t want to pay, and you’re feeling adventurous, a much-cited post called “Has Your WordPress Been Hacked Recently?” is a good place to start. When you are confident that the hack has been undone, you can request reconsideration of your blog from Google as a first step in getting it back to normal.

What else?

I hope this post has helped you understand a little more about blog hacks and how to prevent them. I know there is a lot of ground to cover here, and I’ve just scratched the surface, so please share your questions, experiences, and tips in the comments!

Since I know people are interested in finding ways to cut costs when starting out, I thought I’d take a few minutes and outline a cheaper alternative to hiring me or another full-service blog/web development firm. This “how to” post is also part of the “Crowdsourcing Business How To’s” extravaganza at Sparkplugging.

Premium blog design is not for everybody

In case you think I’m nuts (or suspiciously unselfish, which hardly ever happens in the real world), I’ll start by addressing the obvious question: why would I tell you how to not hire me?

Simple. My services are not right for everyone!

Don’t get me wrong—if you and I are a match made in heaven, you will get tremendous value out of working with me. If you’re an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, or represent a business, your investment in my services will generate a great return. My excellent code quality, attention to SEO, and blog savvy easily present a high value that goes on to pay for itself.

However, if you’re doing the web thing as a hobby, or you’re bootstrapping and have no capital to invest (regardless of the ROI), or you’re not sure if you’re going to stick with this business, it’s wiser to hold off on any purchases that aren’t absolutely necessary. In my friend’s case, the site she wants is for an on-the-side business that she doesn’t plan to take full-time for a long time, so her anticipated revenues don’t justify much investment.

Given that you might not be an ideal client for me—yet—I have no problem suggesting something you can do in the meantime. Hopefully you’ll remember me and come calling when you need all the bells and whistles!

Since you’re probably wondering, I’ll define what I mean by “small budget.” I believe you can get an attractive, working site or blog designed for as little as about $800. You may be able to get it done cheaper, but lower than that and I find that the results can be disappointing and inconsistent (sometimes you’ll find a diamond in the rough, but often you’ll just get a ho-hum looking site).

Start by doing your design homework

No matter whom you work with, you’ll get the most bang for your buck when you have a good idea of what you want. I’m not talking about having a specific design in mind (that almost always ends in frustration), but simply knowing your tastes.

An easy way to start is by identifying sites that you find attractive and serve a similar purpose as yours. They don’t have to be in the same industry (and it’s usually better if they’re not), but if you’re looking for a blog design, look for appealing blogs. If you want a site that’s more like a magazine, look for attractive magazine sites.

If you’re not sure where to look, you can get a head start by going through sites that others have identified as good-looking. There are a bunch of “CSS Galleries,” sites that showcase the best designs on the web (as decided by them, usually). Among my favorite galleries: CSS Drive · CSS Mania · Unmatched Style

As you look through the designs, watch for those that just strike you, that seem to resonate somehow. Go until you’ve found maybe 15 of them, and then look for similarities. Do most of them have a similar style (like “sleek and clean” or “grungy” or “shiny”)? If so, narrow down to your favorite 3-5. If not, keep looking until you identify the style that is most appealing to you.

Once you have just a few, make a simple list of likes and dislikes for each design. Think about things like colors, number of columns, advertising (if you want it, and if so, which types and locations you prefer), menu location, that kind of thing.

Create a design brief

A “design brief” is just a document that explains to the designers what you’re shooting for. The more they know about your goals and your desires, the more likely they’ll come up with something you love.

What should go in your design brief? A good starting point:

• A description of the site or blog the design will be used on, including how you intend to make money if you do (e.g. advertising, selling a product or service, affiliate marketing, subscriptions, etc.)
• A link to the site or blog if it exists currently, with likes and dislikes, and notes on anything you’re definitely intending to change
• A link to a high-resolution version of your logo, photo, or any other images you intend to use in the new design, along with any specifics on usage (many new sites will not have any of these things, in which case you can say so)
• A description of your target audience, with as much detail as possible about things like gender, occupation, age, and interests
• A list of the content that will go on the front page (the more detail, the better)
• A short overview of the style you like
• A description of the types of colors you like (pastels vs. earth tones vs. bold vs. bright) as well as specific examples in the next section
• Your list of sites you like (make sure you include the URLs!) with your likes and dislikes
• Anything else you think will help designers understand what you want in a design

You can create your rough draft in any text program of your choice and then copy and paste it in the next step and add links and such.

Set the designers loose

The least expensive way I’ve found to get one great design is to hold a contest (if you are going to need lots of great designs, like I do, it’s easier to find a few great designers to work with regularly, but if you just need one, the “finding” process can be overwhelming).

My favorite place to set up a contest is 99designs. Design contests are all they do, so there are many good designers already using them, making it a lot easier on you than finding designers yourself.

The way it works is relatively simple: you sign up, you buy credits, and you start a contest, using the information you’ve already gathered. You really just follow the steps, but here are a few notes:

• Plan on devoting a good chunk of time to your contest. Setting it up is easy, but you are expected to provide feedback to every designer who enters. Since designers are spending their time without any guarantee of winning, giving them feedback is a reasonable trade-off for the reduced cost. Give feedback every day if possible or you’ll get fewer entries. Feedback is in your interest, too, as it’s public, so your early feedback will be used by all of the designers to create something you like.
• Expect to spend somewhere between $400 and $600, plus the contest fee ($39 as of this writing). If you offer less, you’ll still get entries but the quality will generally be lower, as the best designers won’t consider your contest worth the time.
• Mention the prize amount in your contest title. It catches eyes.
• Pay attention to comments and answer questions. This should go without saying, but it helps the designers help you.
• Understand that in this step, you’re buying a design, not a functional website (that part comes next). Ask for the design in Photoshop (PSD) format.

If you provide detailed information, pay a respectful amount, and generally behave like a nice person, you’ll get good entries. Once you’ve paid for and received the design file, you’re ready for the next step.

Get that design coded!

There are a number of online services that will take your Photoshop file and turn it into a working website, like CSSRockstars. The process is simple: you upload your Photoshop file and pick the options you want, and they give you back working site code.

If you want a WordPress blog theme, they do those for a small extra fee—if you just need a static site, that’s the base package, but for the extra $70, you’re almost certainly better off with a WordPress theme, even if you use it to run a regular (non-blog) website; it just makes things easier to update. You can expect to pay between $149 and $399 depending on the options you choose, but you’ll probably tend towards the lower end.

The final step is to put the site up. If you’re not sure how to do that, we can help; our hosting package includes setup, so that’s an option, or you can find one of the many tutorials on the topic.

Ethical considerations

It should be noted that many designers dislike the contest structure that 99designs uses. They feel that it’s not fair to ask designers to create work without a guarantee of payment (you’re guaranteeing payment for somebody, of course, but not compensating every designer who enters).

I tend to take a fair-market approach to it and figure that if designers are regularly entering contests, then they find the arrangement acceptable. I actually like that it gives skilled designers all over the world a chance to compete for good jobs without discrimination based on location or language.

However, if you’re concerned about this question, I encourage you to do your research and understand the issues. You may find this interview with a contest-enthusiast-designer helpful, as well as the NO!SPEC site, which takes the opposing view.

Understanding the trade-offs

I alluded earlier to the fact that you can pay less if you’re willing to get less. So what are you sacrificing if you go with the above plan?

• Search engine optimization The folks at CSSRockstars are good, but their main focus is on producing functional code that looks like the design you sent them, not going above and beyond and coding for maximum search engine friendliness. Honestly, it probably won’t hurt you a lot in the beginning, but as your competition gets more SEO-savvy, it will become more difficult to be found.
• Online expertise If you need advice on your strategy, feedback on monetization tactics, or ideas about structuring your information, you’ll have to pay for it separately or fend for yourself.
• WordPress experience and setup If you want to use WordPress as the basis for your site or blog (and I highly recommend you do), it can be helpful to work with someone who knows WordPress in and out, someone who knows what it can do and can recommend plugins to get the most out of it.
• Time It takes a fair amount of time and effort to manage the whole process yourself—and frankly, that’s something many people are happy to pay someone else to do. If you have more time than money, it’s probably an advantageous trade-off if you’re okay with the first three on the list.

If you’re so inclined, you can start today based on the information in this post. If you have questions, or any come up as you go through the process, leave comments and I’ll do my best to respond!

What’s the best way to make it so that my initial post, “Stir The Pot,” stays on the first page of my blog? How did you make it so that your findableblogs.com first page stays the same…like a website? I thought that posts automatically get archived as you continue to update and write new posts. I’d like what I said in the beginning to stay on there for at least awhile, but I want to add new material as well.

First, a confession: the only reason the front page of this blog hasn’t changed for a while (prior to this post and a change I’ll talk about in a moment) is that I haven’t written anything for a while! Between client work and an ebook I’m about to release, I’ve been a complete slacker where this blog is concerned.

If you’d rather not do the slacker thing (like Reonne, you have posts to write!), you have three options.

Use a Page as the home page

That probably sounds cryptic if you don’t understand the difference between Posts and Pages in WordPress, but a Page is designed to stick around without changing, while Posts tend to appear and disappear from the homepage, archives, and search results relative to how many other Posts you have.

You create a Page in the same way you do a Post, but instead of going to “Write” → “Post” (or just “Write”, since “Post” is the default sub-tab), you go to “Write” → “Page”. If you want the whole front page to stay essentially the same for a while, this is a good way to do it; just create the page here.

Once you’ve created your page, go to “Settings” → “Reading” (“Options” → “Reading” in pre-2.5 versions of WordPress) and switch the “Front page displays” setting to a “static page” of your choice. For instance, if I was going to change the front page of this blog to my “About” Page, I’d set it like so:

In fact, this is exactly what I’m going to do when I finish coding the new design for this site. In that case, I’ll create a special “Home” Page that will have the front page content, and that will be the first thing new visitors see.

The potential downside to this approach? Your front page is the Page you set up, not a list of entries. That might suit you just fine (like I said, that’s exactly what I’m planning on), but if you want your front page to automatically update with new posts, keep reading.

Use the WordPress time stamp magic

With WordPress, you can easily change the dates on your posts. The newest post shows up at the top of your front page (unless you’re using a very unusual theme), so all you have to do is make sure that the post you want at the top is always dated after the other posts.

This can be a bit of a pain, because you’ll need to change the date on the “top” post every time you create another post, or back-date your new posts to make them “older”, which is just confusing (if I was choosing between the two, I’d change the date on the “top” post each time).

Clearly, this isn’t as passive as the first method, but if you’re only talking about a few weeks or a few posts, it’s not that bad and accomplishes the goal nicely.

Use the sidebar

If the content you want to feature is really a kind of introduction, it might make sense to put it in the sidebar using a Widget. That way, it’s always readily available in a place where people look when they’re searching for context, but it’s not in the way of your content and doesn’t require any particular maintenance effort on your part.

All things being equal, this is probably the route I’d take in most cases, if it suits the content.

Advanced options

You can actually combine some of these ideas if you’re comfortable editing your theme. For instance, if you know your way around The Loop, you could show the content of a Page first thing, directly followed by the regular Posts. You could also just manually edit your theme’s home.php or index.php file to show a certain message before the regular content.

However, neither of these options are as easy or convenient as the previous three “out-of-the-box” options, so I tend to avoid them for short-term changes.

First, the dead-obvious suggestion: start with the blogs you’re already reading. Hopefully you’ve selected some high quality blogs that are written for people who are a lot like your ideal reader.

As you’re reading through posts, stay alert for points that catch your attention, give you an idea, remind you of something else, or even irritate you a little. Those things are excellent comment-fodder and, if you can communicate a response with clarity and intelligence, you’ll probably get the attention of the blogger and the readers.

Once you’ve visited all your “usual suspects,” though, where should you turn next?

Technorati

There are lots of options, but one of the best discovery tools is Technorati. Technorati’s claim to fame is their huge directory of blogs—over 110 million as of this writing. They also keep tabs on new posts, so they’re a great resource when you’re looking for fresh blog content on a specific topic.

The easiest way to find the most relevant posts is to use the search feature. Because of the absolutely massive amount of posts, you’ll want to be pretty specific with your search. Play around with it until you’re getting 3-10 relevant posts over the last couple of days. Then just read each of those posts and leave a thoughtful comment, and you’re done. (Well, almost. I like to track all of my comments with Commentful, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.)

Google BlogSearch

For our purposes, Google BlogSearch is a lot like Technorati. Often you’ll see the same posts in both places, so try them both for a few days and see which one you prefer; then just use the other briefly to pick up any that your primary method missed. Be sure to brush up on your search syntax to get the most out of Google.

CommentKahuna

I’m also growing to love a free little program called CommentKahuna (sorry, Mac folks, it’s Windows only). As far as I can tell, it’s being given away free to get people on a mailing list, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a still a great deal for me.

So what does CommentKahuna do? It finds blogs and blog posts that match your search terms. Exactly what you need, right? And it has a couple of other features that make it even better.

One is that it can be set (under “Options”) to mark blogs that will link directly to you, without using the “nofollow” attribute. This matters because you’ll get more benefit from Google by commenting on these blogs. Similarly, you can view the resulting blogs ranked by Google Pagerank and focus your efforts on the blogs that are already Google’s favorites.

The process of commenting with CommentKahuna is very simple. First, you create a “Profile”; this is your personal information that you normally fill in along with your comment. CommentKahuna keeps track of this info and fills it in for you, which saves a step.

The program also lets you visit the blogs right through its interface, one right after another. This saves time, but more importantly for me, means I’m less likely to get distracted (my biggest time-waster of all!).

In many cases, the link that CommentKahuna gives you goes to a blog’s homepage. In this case, just take a quick browse through to see if any of the posts catch your eye. If not, move on.

I find it’s most effective for me to search for keywords that are related to my most recent post. My reasoning is twofold. First, this keeps the me from constantly getting the same suggested blogs. Second, this makes it more likely that a visitor following my link will be interested in my blog.

You’ll probably have to tweak CommentKahuna somewhat to get it “just right.” I’ve had better results limiting the search to WordPress blogs; otherwise I was getting a lot of quasi-blogs that didn’t have traditional comments. I’ve also found it important to quickly note the dates on posts; adding a comment a year after the fact doesn’t really promote the relationship unless the comment is extremely relevant.

Social media websites such as Digg, Netscape, Reddit, Del.icio.us, and Stumble Upon send thousands of visitors to blogs and websites everyday. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of articles about becoming a top user of these sites to build your traffic. While they are all tremendous sources of traffic, getting a significant number of visitors from these sites can take a lot of effort—especially with Digg, Netscape, and Reddit.

If you’ve avoided social media marketing because you don’t have hours every day to spend submitting articles and voting on those submitted by other users, you are missing out on countless potential visitors.

For the average user the main problem with the most popular social media sites is that it can be difficult to generate any kind of traffic to your site. Most of us are completely overlooking the opportunity to benefit from 2nd tier social media sites that send decent levels of traffic and can make it easier for the time-starved blogger to succeed.

Literally hundreds of lesser-known social media sites exist that present far less competition for the top spots. Yes, they will send less traffic than Digg, but if you choose the right ones to use you can see substantial results.

Some of My Favorites

DZone: A community for developers that allows users to submit links. Other users then vote for links they like or dislike. The best ones make it to the “popular links” page and get sent out to over 8,000 RSS subscribers.
Alexa rank: 5,196

Sphinn: Targeted towards search and interactive marketers, Sphinn is a new site that was the beneficiary of some good publicity from SEOmoz recently. Sphinn is similar to Digg or Netscape with a voting system for posted articles, but it also has an area for discussion and networking.
Alexa rank: 109,326

Ma.gnolia: A social bookmarking site similar to Del.icio.us, but with a more attractive appearance.
Alexa rank: 7,418

Furl: Another social bookmarking site similar to Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia. Like Del.icio.us, Furl’s homepage also shows the most popular items.
Alexa rank: 4,052

Listible: Social site that has a voting system for user submitted articles.
Alexa rank: 25,921

This is just a small sample to give you an idea of what’s out there. I have a list of social media sites at www.vandelaydesign.com/socialmedia/listofsites.htm. As you’re looking for sites to join, look first for those that specialize in your particular niche. Those that are of a general nature probably have users that prefer a certain type of content. Take a look at what is popular there and see how you would fit in.

With less users competing for the top spots, these sites can all help to increase your traffic and readership quickly. The best method is to pick one or two of these sites that you want to target, sign up, and become an active member.

How to Succeed with 2nd Tier Social Media Sites

1. Provide good content. It’s the same key to success at any social site, large or small.
2. Be active. Read what other users have submitted and vote for the articles that you like. Also, submit other articles than just your own writing.
3. Build your network. If your blog already has some readers, write a post about the site that you are targeting and encourage your readers to sign up as well. With some of your readers signing up and voting for your articles you will be on your way to being one of the top users.
4. Make it easy to submit or vote for your site. After you join, many of these sites will give you the option of placing a button on your page (similar to a “Digg This” button) for readers to vote for your page. This is especially effective if you’ve already introduced the site to your readers.

The Possibility of Even More Traffic

If the amount of traffic that you can generate from these sites doesn’t excite you, take a look at the bigger picture. People who use these 2nd tier social media sites are probably also using some of the leaders. They may find your website at Furl or Sphinn and add it to Del.icio.us or Stumble it.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened to a few of my articles recently. I am an active user of DZone, and I’ve seen the rolling effect that social media sites can have. Getting to the popular page with DZone is not that difficult with the right content and it can easily bring a few hundred visitors in a day from one article.

I had one of my articles (that was generating little traffic on its own) become popular on DZone and within a few hours I got an email that it had made the front page of Del.icio.us. Sure enough, over 500 people have now booked the article. A day later that same article started getting traffic from Stumble Upon. In the next week Stumble Upon sent several thousand visitors to that page. The point of this example is that all of the traffic I received from major social media sites would probably have never happened if it hadn’t started with DZone.

Make the most of the time you spend marketing your blog by getting involved in some lesser-known social media websites. You may be surprised by the results.

The reason it’s so tricky is that you’ll really want to have .com domain name (like yourblognamehere.com) that matches the name of your blog, and each domain name is only available to one owner, so if the one you want is already taken, you’re out of luck.

I advocate getting a .com domain name in almost all cases (the main exception being if you can spell something clever by using a different extension, like del.icio.us has done). This is because most people naturally assume .com if they don’t remember (and most won’t remember), and that’s what they’ll type in. A .com address is especially important if you ever give your blog address verbally or in advertising). For the same reason, I suggest avoiding domain names with hyphens or numbers… they’re too easily misunderstood or forgotten.

It’s important that your domain name and your blog name match because, again, people will take the path of least resistance and type in your blog name plus “.com” and expect to find you. Even for those who would go to the effort of remembering something different, it’s a much easier memory task if they only have to remember one name to come up with the other.

This all makes sense (I hope) but it also limits your choices somewhat. When I’m brainstorming for a domain name, here’s what I do:

• Consider my keywords, and see if any clever, memorable, or obvious name emerges. Blog names don’t have to use the keywords (though the blog description should) but the keywords can be a good starting point.
• Let the idea for my blog percolate in my brain for a day or two. Often I’ll eventually come up with related words or concepts out of the blue, but only if I give it a little time.
• Once I have a few possibilities in mind, I go to Instant Domain Search and start typing in potential names. I like this tool because it is very efficient and also helps me explore variations quickly.
• Sometimes none of my ideas will pan out, and I’ll go back and start the process again. Sometimes I’ll get several good options and continue on.
• With a couple of acceptable names as real possibilities, I’ll look for the one that is most memorable and easy to spell, and if I’m happy with it, that’s the name I’ll choose. If I’m still not positive, I’ll write down the name for consideration and keep looking.

What if you’re having trouble coming up with a name, despite all your best efforts? It might be time to call in the professionals. There are several services that specialize in finding domain names, and one that comes highly recommended to me is PickyDomains. Their service is very affordable ($50 at the time of this writing) and risk-free; if they don’t find you a name you love, then you don’t pay. I’m trying them out for a new review site I’m creating right now.
To summarize, here is my list (in order of importance) of priorities when I’m evaluating potential domain names:

1. .com
2. no hypens or numbers (unless you can also buy all variations with numbers spelled out)
3. matches the blog name (with the possible omission of a leading “the” or “a”)
4. has some logical connection to the blog topic (though it’s okay if it’s a little cute or clever)
5. memorable
6. easy to spell
7. sounds good when spoken aloud
8. short

This post is a draft excerpt of the blogging book I’m writing for authors, consultants, and other experts. Click on the link to find out more and sign up for updates.

I’ll write another post about how to choose a post topic in the near future, but regardless of the specific topic, there are some common characteristics of good posts. You’ll come across plenty of exceptions, but it’s one of those “know the rules before you break them” things.

Good blog posts are laser-focused.

A good blog post has one (and only one) “big goal”—one key point to drive home, action to provoke, or concept to unpack. Sometimes a post, particularly a “list” post, will have many small points, but they should all lead back to the big goal.

Sometimes it’s tempting to throw more than one topic in a post, particularly if they’re related. However, this can hurt you in two ways:

1. Your readers have a set of expectations before they even start reading your post based on its title. If you add in other goals, you’re effectively asking readers to change their expectations, making them feel vaguely uncomfortable without knowing why.
2. It’s almost always the focused posts that search engines and other bloggers will send visitors to. They’re more likely to see focused posts as valuable resources on a specific topic, so don’t muddy the waters by adding unrelated (or even loosely-related) info.

Remember, this is blogging; you can always write a second post!

Good blog posts are relevant to the target audience.

This is more than just staying on topic—done well, it’s anticipating questions and needs and addressing them from an angle that makes sense to your ideal reader. This can sometimes be a gray area; for instance, if you’re an author, how much should you talk about the actual process of writing a book, and how much should you stick to the topic of your book (presumably the one your readers are interested in)?

If you can frame the writing process so that it helps your readers understand something better or consider a helpful concept, then I’d say go for it. Along the same lines, if you learned something really interesting as part of the research you did, then share it, with the writing process as context. If you find, though, that there’s no specific relevance, leave it out.

Good blog posts are personable.

This doesn’t mean you have to be extremely casual if that’s not your style, but you want to let your humanity shine through. You’re more likely to garner long-term readers if you reveal a little personality in your posts. This is as simple as using relevant personal anecdotes, offering an opinion, and writing “I” instead of “we.”

Posts without these small personal touches tend to read like textbooks and don’t seem to do very well with readers or with search engines.

Good blog posts have original content.

There are a few notable blogs that are successfully “recycling” information and have loyal followings. However, they are definitely the exception. Most blog posts on successful blogs have either completely new information or existing information with a new twist.

This doesn’t mean you can’t report relevant industry news, for example, but if you do, you should interpret it and add your own valuable insight rather than simply repeating it. If you don’t have anything significant to add, just let people read it elsewhere (and if it’s news, it will be elsewhere, probably on a blog that’s less interesting than yours!).

Good blog posts are readable.

This means not only having a readable writing style, but paying attention to your structure to make it easier for readers. For instance, long posts (like this one!) can be broken up into sections with sub-headings that tell the reader what to expect. You can use lists to make information easily “scanable” and break up long, intimidating blocks of text into smaller paragraphs.

Consider using pictures to make your posts more interesting to look at and give your readers one more clue about the content. You can find tons of photos on Flickr that are available for use on your blog (just link back to the original). Photos or illustrations can both add a little punch and break up a text-heavy post.

Good blog posts link to other relevant information.

Even though good posts are usually original writing, they often provide thoughtful links to other blogs or articles. Many new bloggers are a little wary of sending their hard-won readers to other sites, but more experienced bloggers will tell you that generosity is definitely the way to go.

The idea is that you’re providing a useful service to your readers, helping them dig deeper if they so desire, saving them time and effort and again, making your blog a valuable resource. And it doesn’t have to be entirely altruistic: most bloggers will notice if you’re sending readers their way and check you out, potentially launching a mutually beneficial relationship.

Good blog posts have accurate, intriguing titles.

I’ve written previously about good titles, but to summarize here, you should always aim for a title that clearly communicates the point of the post and compels visitors to jump in and read the first paragraph.

Wendy of eMoms at Home did a great writeup on ProBlogger yesterday where she talked about the importance of a well-coded blog template and described the phenomenal results she saw when I implemented a much better coded them for her (the number of people that Google sent her doubled the next day). Wendy explored the reasons for that and the result was the ProBlogger post.

I want to go into a little more background here so that you’ll understand why the theme change made such a huge difference. Most people choose a blog theme based strictly on how it looks (and that’s definitely a valid concern, since it’s setting the tone for your blog) but aren’t aware that the behind-the-scenes details of the code can drastically affect the way the search engines “feel” about your blog.

A brief history of blog themes

Way back in the early days of blogging most blog themes were created using the popular code technology of the day: HTML tables. Tables were a nifty way of coding that allowed designers far more control over where things showed up on the web page than we’d ever had before. Designers loved tables, and in 2000 or so, they were everywhere.

But lo, times (and technologies) change. Since that time, HTML tables have gone way out of fashion, and this isn’t just an arbitrary shift. When it comes right down to it, HTML tables were never really intended to be used for laying out a design, and they weren’t very efficient. Along came a new technology called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that really was intended for positioning designs, and worked much better.

Beyond the fact that CSS was created just for this task, it had some profound effects on the way HTML code is written. It dramatically reduced the amount of “extra” code that’s needed to put things in the right spot, which in turn made it much easier for the search engines to sort through the code and find the meaningful pieces of content. It also helped the search engines identify the important pieces, like titles and headlines.

Because the new code is easier for the search engines to use, sites (and blogs) that use this new code are at a real advantage over sites that use the old code. The technology keeps improving, and now it’s possible to effectively “tell” the search engines what parts of a given page are most important—and the search engines “listen.” A site that uses the new code to the fullest naturally sees much better results.

Enough theory! Let’s get practical.

So what can you do if you have a theme that’s working against you? And more critically, how can you tell if you have a theme that’s working against you? Well, it’s a little tricky, because most people find all code to be equally indecipherable, and kind of like it that way.

One tool you can use is the W3C Validator. This tool lets you put in your blog address and test to see if the code in your theme is “legal” code (meaning it follows the rules). You’ll see either a “Valid” message or the number of errors that are standing in your way. It won’t tell you if it’s using the newest code, but the chances are very good that if your blog is declared “Valid”, you’re on the right track.

Don’t panic if you have a few errors… say, less than 15. A few errors tend to come in just from really common mistakes that often have nothing to do with the theme itself (for instance, if you forget to end a link in a post). If you have more than just a few errors, though, it’s likely that your theme is pretty flawed.

What to do?

If you have reason to believe that your theme is a problem, what should you do?

If you’re a business and even remotely serious about your blog (or website), you should seek professional help. A professional developer can whip your existing theme into shape or create a new one that’s well designed both in terms of look and code. It doesn’t cost much in the overall budget of a business, and it will play a big part in the overall success of your blog or site.

But what if you’re an individual? Most people can’t afford to pay much for a hobby, so if you’re in that category, what you want is a well-designed free theme. This can take some trial and error. (You literally have to try adding the new theme, run it through the Validator, and see how it does. Rinse. Repeat.) You’ll be off to a great start, though, if you look for themes that say they were built using the Cutline theme or Sandbox. Those are two kind of “base themes” that are very well designed, code-wise, and provide a great starting point for other designers.

If there is interest (say so in the comments!), I’ll also be glad to do a list of really well-written free WordPress blog themes.

I’m sure you can relate to this, and have visited blog sites that are as dead as a doornail. You’ve also probably visited blogs that haven’t seen any updates for months or years. Clearly they’re still getting traffic (you’re there, right?), but they’re not using it in any kind of useful way.

So, how do you generate buzz on your blog website once you attract the traffic? It all comes down to a few simple points: presentation, writing style and topic choices.

Nail the Presentation!

When you visit a website, the first thing you probably notice is the aesthetic element—what the site actually looks like. Within seconds of a site loading on your website, you will form opinions and come to certain conclusions about the site and its owners. Those first few seconds on the site will determine whether you stay to explore or leave immediately.

That’s why you need to put some thought and effort into your blog site’s presentation. Make it look great, so you can attract people in to explore and participate! Experiment with color, with fonts and with images. You’ll be amazed at how much you can do to really liven up your blog site. Consider getting a custom design made or explore the free WordPress themes available to you now.

Develop an Attractive Writing Style

If you’re not much of a writer, you can practice daily to improve the way you come across. Blogging will help with this. For maximum results with your blog, most people do best with a down-to-earth and relaxed tone that encourages participation. Engage your readers with a friendly writing style, rather than “talk” at them. Some bloggers find it easier to write “lightly” when they write their posts in their email program. Just being in the program helps them feel like they’re writing to a friend (and most of our friends would laugh if we wrote pretentiously).

Develop Interesting Topics

Let’s face it. Some blogs focus on boring, industry-based topics, but even so, it is possible to brighten a topic by writing about it in an engaging way. A skilled writer can make even the most boring topic sound interesting, and encourage plenty of discussion.

It is important for you to present to your readers a whole range of relevant and interesting topics that gets them talking, and also stay focused on the topics that brought them to your blog in the first place. The best way to do this is talk about topics that are of interest to your readers (and to you!) and stay tuned to what’s going on in the world relating to your topic. Focused, topical subjects almost always work well—just make sure you use a writing style that engages and encourages participation.

Post Regularly

A surefire way to turn people away from your blog website is to neglect it completely. As a blogger, you must commit to your website and post regularly. Depending upon your traffic, create your own update schedule (you can call it an “editorial calendar” and make it sound official!) so you can keep your readers happy and returning regularly. You might start by posting one article per week and then once you have started generating a little traffic, increase to a couple posts each week. By the time you have a lot of traffic, you might increase it to several articles per day. It’s up to you, but keep your readers in mind at all times!

Most importantly, have fun and make sure you consistently deliver articles of value to your readers. This general rule of thumb works for all bloggers.