As many of you may know, StumbleUpon is a site that is able to provide your blog with a lot of targeted exposure (traffic). As of the writing of this post, there are 6.5 million stumblers! I've written about StumbleUpon before (comparing short term vs. long term traffic spikes),  and have always found it a successful tool in building quality, targeted traffic. This hands-on project will use StumbleUpon's Advertising Campaign Tool. I've chosen StumbleUpon for four primary reasons: It's cheaper than many other "large" traffic advertising services. (5¢ USD per click as of the writing of this post). There's better long term traffic growth as those who are genuinely interested in your content can save your links (thumbs up), which their friends can also see, add to their links, visit your blog, and so on... (Commonly referred to as "organic"). Your clicks will not be in a pop-up/under, banner, etc. Visitors are taken directly to your site! You do not need to create an advertisement, all you need is a published blog post (or web page). Realistically, you can probably launch with a cheaper budget ($5.00 USD  per day for 100 visitors per day). If you ran that for a week, it would cost about ...

Do you monitor your web statistics regularly? Have you noticed that some of your posts have a higher bounce rate than others? Do you want to encourage your visitors to read more of your posts? If so, the following tools and suggestions will help. Before we review some of the things we can do, let's define what a "bounce rate" actually is, and see which tools can help us determine  our bounce rates. "Bounce rate" has two definitions. According to Google (analytics) it refers to the act of a visitor entering your blog (or web site) and leaving within the first five seconds. More commonly, we understand it to mean the percentage (or number) of visits to your blog, where the visitor enters and exits the same page without visiting any other pages on your blog. Evidently we want visitors to remain on our blogs. The top two tools I use to compare and find bounce rates are: AWStats. AWStats is robust and is a standard statistics gathering system on most web servers. Google Analytics. Is an online analytics service operated by Google. Both of the above tools will help you determine your bounce rates. Personally I favour Google Analytics for ease. Additionally, I'd recommend reading ...

One question I often field is how to encourage more visitors to comment on your blog. In particular it seems, many of the people I've spoken to seem demotivated because "...nobody ever sends feed back... there's no response..." Does this sound like you? If so, the following six tips are just for you. 1) Ask for Comments. I can't make the statement any simpler. I'll say it again, if you want something, ask for it. In my opinion, the best place to ask is right at the end of you post. If your visitor has read this far (if the content is good quality, they will), you're more likely to garner a response. Most importantly, indicate that you respect their opinions, make sure you respond. This is commonly referred to as a "Call to Action". Once you're blog post is finished, empower your readers to add to or improve the content. Empower them to ask questions. Also, enable them to easily follow up by using the Subscribe To Comments Wordpress plugin. This plugin allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. 2) Remove the Barriers. Nothing is more annoying then spending extra time writing a quality comment, and ...

It seems to me that the ever increasing demands placed on blog owners to enhance the growth of their business through the use of social media tools, has left many a bit unsure as to which tool best suit their needs. In fact, one of the most common questions I'm asked is along the lines of "Which social web site is the best for me?", followed by a plethora of names, ranging through Digg, StumbleUpon, twitter, LinkedIn and so on. One thing I'd like to clarify before continuing. Online social media promotion tools (such as the sites mentioned above) are best used as an extension of your existing, traditional marketing activities. The benefits in most cases result in: More targeted audience. Greater geographic reach. Reduction in marketing costs. Save time (in other words using time in a more productive effective manner). However, the above are only some of the most immediate that come to mind. One thing I always try to advise clients is to break down their business or blog promotion requirements to reflect the jobs (or responsibilities) at hand. Generally, there are four primary groups: Management. Your are the blog and/or business owner. Your primary goal should be to raise awareness and visibility of your products, ...

From time to time, I receive messages or talk to a blog owner who is unhappy with low traffic. They often lament how their new blog does not provide much traffic improvement and provides no value to their business. As such, some of them even go so far as to explain the above is the primary reason why they no longer spend time developing content. But wait, how do things get so bad that your blog has become a rusty tool? What happened that has demotivated the blog owner? Firstly, successful blog owners have a positive attitude, they try to be constructive, cooperative and well informed. They work with the community, not for the community. They understand that the benefits a blog can offer are bestowed by the community, as they are earned. Again, it's about good attitude. If you're going to burst on the blog scene all wild eyed, posting reams of comments on every forum or blog in sight - regardless of the subject matter, all tough and authoritative, posting low quality content on your own blog whilst sucking honey out of a bees arse... You're not going to get far. You need to find the golden middle way. Don't ...