So it seems when many of us move to blogging type sites, it’s sometimes hard to mentally leap the barrier of “static” to dynamic (dynamic meaning content that changes). Blogs are something that engages your readers, they (blogs) facilitate two way communication between you and your readers (who, for business operators, are potential clients). All to often I notice new blog owners place some content on the blog and then sit and wait for traffic. Invariably I often get a message or phone call asking what can be done as nothing’s happening. The conversation usually sounds something like this (below being an actual transcript):

BloggerSavvy: “Have you added in-demand, valuable content to your blog?”

New Blog Owner: “I did that a while back, but nobody visited the site.”

BloggerSavvy: “Have you added anything recently, content?”

New Blog Owner: “Well, no, not really, there’s not enough traffic and I don’t want to waste my time.”

BloggerSavvy:  “What things are you doing to draw traffic to your blog?”

New Blog Owner: “What do you mean? This is the Internet, won’t Google provide the traffic?”

BloggerSavvy: “Oh, I see, okay, what sites and online communities are you participating in, what activities are you doing to attract the attention of readers?”

New Blog Owner: “The blog is on the Internet, so shouldn’t I get some traffic because of that? There are millions of people all over the world on the Internet.”

BloggerSavvy: <Pausing…>

New Blog Owner: “I don’t really know what you mean or what I should do, can’t you do something? What now?”

As I’m sure we can appreciate, it seems that much of the issue is related not only to understanding the concept of a dynamic web site (blog), but also in appreciating that the off line, tangible world (where we make friends, connections, etc.) is mirrored in the online world! – The Internet. With this in mind, let’s think about that conversation…

In-demand, valuable content. That’s important, it provides original information that is demanded by readers. In other words, copying content from somewhere else (even with permission) is simply not going to garner any traffic or blog popularity. After all, if the blog uses duplicated content, what incentive is there to visit? Most readers would prefer (and will)  visit the source.

Post new content consistently. Business demands are very great on our time (myself included).  However, it’s important to always post regularly, the more often the better (as long as the content is of good quality – posting tons of low quality content will simply motivate readers to leave). When your blog is not busy, you should still post content! The thought process that it’s not worthwhile to post (since there are not many readers) is, in my opinion, a defeatist perspective. If I don’t post there are no readers – They will leave! If I’m low on readers, that’s when I must post regular content – It gives new readers some meat and potatoes… If the table is bare, it’s not very inviting – is it?

Be active in promoting your blog. You’ve got to get out there and participate, shake the trees, be active – Just like Baloo (Don’t know what that means? See the video below).

It’s a matter of gaining the experience of knowing were to participate, where to look for traffic, readers, connections – As Baloo puts it “the bare necessities”. Or… more to the point how to search. Just because your blog is accessible to Internet  subscribers, does not impart a degree of excessive traffic. This still begs the question, what now? What can new blog owners do to improve their visibility and increase readership.

To get noticed, you’ll have to make some noise. For all those new blog owners, here are some of the things I’ve done that have worked for me.

• Create a signature for your email and include and invitation to your URL. This will automatically be appended to every email you send out. eMail applications like Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook Express, etc. all have the ability to do this.
• Join forums that appeal to your niche. When you answer questions (or ask them), most forums have the ability to include your tag line and/or signature. Again, include and invitation and a link to your URL. Do not spam forums (you’ll get banned). Instead, legitimately participate in them.
• Allow some of your content to be used on other sites only if the content links directly back to your blog.
• Participate in communities such as twitter, digg, etc. and those which appeal to your niche subject,  ensuring your profile in each of the communities you join all contain a URL to your blog.
• Comment on other blogs (do not spam – comment legitimately) with valuable content, insight, links, opinions, etc. – While making sure you include the URL of your blog in the appropriate area of the comment form you are completing.
• Always do your best to respond to readers who comment on your blog. Invite their opinions.
• Ensure your blog has the facility to allow commentors to be notified when someone responds to their comment – This invites return visits and further discussion.
• Offer to be a guest blogger on other blogs and invite your readers to be a guest on your blog.
• Make sure your blog has a “search” feature. Nothing could be more annoying than having to flip though page after page to try and find something. Make your blog user friendly.
• eMail readers and thank them for visiting.
• Get your best content seeded (included) in social bookmarking services like Stumbleupon and Delicious.

The above suggestions should help give new blog owners a good push in promoting their blog readership and traffic. Remember, don’t expect instant results, rather focus on community participation and providing quality content. If you do, your readership will grow all by itself.

What works for you that I’ve not mentioned? Have a success story you’d like to share? Feel free to add your comments below!

As I’m sure we can appreciate, humourous as the video may be, the end result is not the fault of the developer (or so we might initially think), rather the input of the clients. It’s one thing to provide valuable input (and we should), it’s quite another to assume command as if we are a graphic design or web development professional. Let’s elaborate on some of the issues in this video the majority of which have been mirrored in actual projects I’ve worked on:

• Over analyzing.
• Too many cooks in the kitchen.
• Unrealistic time line expectations.
• Changing the parameters mid-stream.
• Adding parameters that are not related to the targeted message.
• Too much information.
• Use of copyrighted or trademarked material.
• Obtaining the advice of people without knowledge and/or outside the target niche.
• Assumptions without supportive facts.
• Assuming personal ideas are paramount and effective.
• Providing conflicting information or directives.
• Impractical expectations.
• Assuming we’re in the drivers seat.
• Use of unresearched an unrealistic ideas.

Over analyzing, resulting in a loss of focus. When we are creating (or changing)  a logo for our business, keep it’s message to the point, clear, neat and understandable. Not all ideas are good, a professional, effective graphic designer will be up front and tell us if an idea is horrible – and why. We need to (really) listen to the professionals we’ve retained. Remember, from an experience perspective they work in the graphic and online industry day in and day out, we don’t.

Who’s in charge? Ensure that one team member in our group is in charge, and the liaison with our designer. Prior to flooding a designer with all our ideas, let’s weed them out amongst our team members. Remember the old adage, “garbage in, garbage out“. To many ideas are confusing and again facilitates the loss of focus. If there are too many cooks in our kitchen, we need to remove some of them.

An effective developer or designer can give us a realistic time line to project conclusion. Expecting a Valentines Day period launch, for example, should be considered four to six months earlier for most projects. The point here is that it’s up to us to ensure we provide enough time to allow our web contractors to complete a project on target.

Once a project is in development, it is not a good approach to change the parameters. This increases costs, lengthens development time and further confuses and loses the focus of our original message. Additionally, the inclusion of new, extra materials, ideas, etc. not only delay the completion of our project, they also further muddy the focus of the intended message. This would be a time to pause and consider that our “additions” should be part of a separate project.

It’s a good idea to provide our developers, designers, copywriters, etc. with as much relevant and pertinent information as we can. However, ensure that we do not overwhelm them with superfluous information. We should feed information that retains the focus of our project message.

No, we cannot use copyrighted or trademarked information, etc. unless there is written authorization from the legal owners to do so.

When inviting input from third parties, ensure that we’re asking the right people. Namely, the very people who are our intended niche and whom our message is targeted towards.

The old adage “When you assume, you make…” is applicable here. Remember, and idea we think might be good is exactly that… “might be”. Find out, do our research, gather the facts. Listen to the individuals we have retained to service our needs.  They can very quickly provide us with feedback, in great part because they have broader exposure. Remember, just because we like something does not mean it’s going to be effective, also, it does not mean that our target market is going to like it as well.

When we provide conflicting directives and information, that should be a clear sign that we’ve lost focus of the message and it’s objective. Stop, stand back, organize and then return. Remember, an effective contractor is one who works with us, not for us.

Remember, common sense and practicality are effective approaches. Expecting impractical fixes or changes, things that work opposite to their intended or standard fashions, etc. are often impractical, silly, add extra cost and frustration to us and our target market and provide no other function than to move focus to bear upon these inconvenient “things”. Again, we really should listen to the advice of the professionals we’ve retained.

Key point, when we retain the services of  a graphic designer, web developer, copywriter, etc., we are not the boss. They are. Our job is to provide them with the tools they need. It is their job to lead the project and bring it to successful fruition! They are the experts in their fields and should not be fettered. We rely on their expertise – That’s why we hired them, as such, we should not be trying to do their job (by constantly telling them what to do and/or how to do it). Instead we should be providing feedback based upon our own research.

Granted, we’ve discussed a fair bit of what we can do to ensure our focus remains effective and targeted, but as depicted in the video above, I noticed several failings of the developer among them are the following four:

1. He never indicated or further clarified conflicting information.
2. The designer didn’t seem to communicate that the initial message was becoming lost in the graphic flotsam being added.
3. Frustration seemed to be increasing for the designer and he should have approached the client to discuss and avoid the issues that were creating frustration (he should have said something).
4. Above all, the designer should have alerted the client that their ideas are obscuring their initial focused, targeted message and that it is putting the final success of the project in jeopardy.

Conclusion? Prior to even considering a project, we should already have documented our plan and fully researched it. We should have an action plan in place (much like writing a business plan) and be able to effectively communicate and answer the questions from the professional we retain. On a personal note, the best client I ever had was one who had a web site plan developed . She gave it to me to read (and it read almost like a business plan). It listed all the information and answers to questions. It was well organized, very focused. It was designed in a way that clearly outline the objective, goals and needs, while providing the freedom for me to complete the site in a professional manner, as I needed (so as to meet the objectives).

What’s your take on this? Agree? Disagree? What would you add, remove or suggest? Feel free to comment your input below.

1) Create an Action Plan

Much in the same way we create business plans, we should also do the same for successful blog launches. Among the more obvious, some things you’ll need to pay extra attention to are:

Domain name. Is it easy to remember. Does it describe the blog?

Measurable goals. Does your plan include tangible goals that you can measure and evaluate? Does it include contingencies.

Budgeting. Have you evaluated and included all foreseeable expenses? What about a financial buffer – What happens when an unexpected expense occurs?

2) Use Reliable Hosting

Make sure your blog is hosted on a server that you have control over. I can’t stress this point enough. Why is this important? Not only does this effect us directly (if visitors cannot access the site properly) one related aspect it seems is an SEO effect. In March of 2005 Google was issued a patent (Information retrieval based on historical data ) of interesting note is the nameservers (DNS) handling the server on which your blog is hosted. One statement of Google’s treatment of nameserver information is:

“…the age, or other information, regarding a name server associated with a domain may be used to predict the legitimacy of the domain. A “good” name server may have a mix of different domains from different registrars and have a history of hosting those domains, while a “bad” name server might host mainly pornography or doorway domains, domains with commercial words (a common indicator of spam), or primarily bulk domains from a single registrar, or might be brand new. The newness of a name server might not automatically be a negative factor in determining the legitimacy of the associated domain, but in combination with other factors, such as ones described herein, it could be…”

If you control your server, you are able to ensure that your nameserver is not “bad”. In a shared hosting environment you will not be able to ensure this (and other aspects) don’t come back to bite you in the future. While a dedicated server is the best option, it’s not always within each budget. At the very least, I’d suggest using a Virtual Private Server (VPS).

I should also note here, register a domain name that you will use for your blog. Ensure you include the following points in the choice of domain name:

• Make it easy to remember. That way people are more likely to visit you as they don’t have to try to find you.
• Keep it short. Excessively long domain names are such a pain to try and remember, then type into the address bar of a browser. (Who is going to remember a very long name).
• Make it easy to spell (and difficult to spell incorrectly). Easy to spell, equals simple access to your blog.
• Try to ensure it describes your blog, business, product or you (the primary blogger) in some way. This helps with SEO and also gives people some clue as to your blog’s purpose.
• Don’t use hyphens or numbers in the domain name. Is that “2″, “to”, “too”, “two” or “tu”? Is that “4″, “for”, “fore” or “four”? A lot of people forget to type in the hyphen if there is one, I always do and end up at some other site. (I think you get the point).
• If possible, try to obtain a .com name. (.com refers to commercial, .net refers to a network, .org refers to organizations and so on)

3) Include Informative Pages (Such as “About Us”, “Contact”, etc.)

Ensure you have a well written “About Us” page. As ProBlogger points out about such pages “…There’s nothing more of a turn off for a blog that doesn’t go to the effort of making sure all it’s menu items lead to useful information…”. In general, make sure you answer the following questions where applicable:

• How to contact you.
• Who you and/or your blog are.
• What you do and how you do it.
• What are the benefits to readers.
• How readers can join in and contribute.

4) Obtain the Blog Software Platform and Applications

In my opinion, the best platform currently available is WordPress and you can download WordPress the files (for installation to your server) from their site. You will also want to ensure that you’ve obtained the most helpful and productive plugins, which are featured in another post called: 25 Most Beneficial WordPress Plugins.

Additionally, try to budget for a small computer (it can easily be an older second hand PC) and use that exclusively for working on your blog. The next question may revolve around which applications to install on your blogging PC? If so, my post about the Top 15 Software Applications for Windows Bloggers might just be the resource to get you going productively.

Side Note: If you are looking for a robust list of applications my post Top 100 of the Best (Useful) OpenSource Applications (found on my other blog) will give you a VERY good round-up.

5) Create Initial Content

Before launching your blog ensure you have between 5 to 10 posts of great content which you can post. This gives visitors to your new blog something to read and determine if your blog is worthwhile to revisit. It also give search engines a bit of meat and potatoes with which to crawl and index your blog. And of course, provides initial content that you can promote to social sites.

Make sure the content is of high quality. Reposted articles or content (with permission) is just not going to cut it. Why? Well… Why should I read copied (reposted) content on your blog when I can go to the original writer’s blog (or site) to read it?

6) Promote Your Blog Via Social Sites

Ensure to promote (also refered to as “seed” or “seeding”) your best quality content on social sites. Doing so will greatly help in building traffic to your blog. One key is to ensure you are using the best tags (when posting to social sites).

Firefox has a plugin called Kgen, helps you see which keywords are strong each post (or page). Then it becomes a simple matter to use them to help determine relevant tags for social sites.

Of course you’ll want to select the appropriate social sites that have more traffic and less spam. The following are the ones I have used:

Digg has huge traffic and a variety of readers. It used to be technically heavy, but that no longer appears to be the case. However, technical and design subjects and gadgets still have a huge following at Digg. If I’m looking for solutions or blog topics to discuss and bloggers to link to, I may look here.

Reddit has a lower traffic flow and a wide range of subjects, but appears to be mainly political.

StumbleUpon, again has medium traffic and an even more diverse range of interests. You can find some pretty strange things on StumbleUpon.

Delicious has high traffic and appears to have a large technical and design following (like Digg). Again, like Digg, if I’m looking for solutions or blog topics to discuss and blogs to link to, I might look here.

Furl is a lower traffic site, but it’s good because it has a wide range of subjects and visitors. It won’t give me a lot of traffic, but it does not hurt to use Furl in your “mix”.

Newsvine appears primarily polictial in disposition, also providing news related subject. Lower volume.

Sphinn is a lower traffic site appearing to focus on marketing and SEO related subject. Again, it does include other subject matter and appers to have a wide range of visitors.

The bottom of this post has other social networking icons you can use to promote your blog, take a look at them as you may find others of interest.

Also, you may find the post How to Find Readers for Your Blog, will help with some other aspects of building readership.

I should note that there are some other social sites you may want to explore, among them are:

MySpace

Facebook

Twitter (You can follow me on twitter @BloggerSavvy)

7) Submit Your Blog to Directories

Increasing the number of inbound links improves the indexing of your blog (and other SEO related values). Additionally, this increases search engine crawling to your blog.

Three directories that you can use to establish links from trusted sites are:

1. DMOZ Open Directory Project provides free directory listing that is edited by human operators.
2. Aviva Directory is a paid listing service.
3. Yahoo DIrectory is a paid listing. However, they do have a free Yahoo Search Submission.

I’m not suggesting that your path to a successful launch should include the above directories, I’m instead suggesting that they may help. Remember, if your blog has great content and is properly promoted, it will be successful regardless of which directories you list in.

Other directories, search submissions and Feed (RSS) resources that may be of help if you ensure your blog is listed in ones best suited for your subject matter, include:

• FeedBees
• Best Directory
• Blogotion
• ReadBurner
• Blogged
• Best of the Web Blogs
• Bloggernity
• Bloggapedia

Obviously a bit of searching on Google will provide even more results, but these (above) will at least get you going.

8) Provide Valuable Outbound Links

This actually is a way of encouraging traffic to your blog. I think we are all aware of the value inbound links place on building traffic, so much so, that I suspect many of use negate the effects including useful outbound links to resources. Blog readers (and search engines) like outbound links to tools, information and other resources that are related to the content you are writing. Not to mention the blog your site is linking to, would probably be thankful – Remember this is the “Web”, links are good. Outbound links are a way of offering your readers more valuable content.

In the same frame of thought (sort of)… if possible include free tool on your blog. Try including free trials, free software, etc. Quality is important here! DO NOT offer tacky, useless freebies as they will make your blog look unprofessional. Only offer QUALITY freebies, or none at all.

9) Share Your Comments on Other Blogs and Sites

One particularly good strategy to help boost a successful blog launch is to provide valuable input (comments) on other blogs that are related to or support your blog content in some fashion. Comments are one way of standing out and getting noticed. But let’s step back for a moment…

From time to time a get waves of email messages from blog owners introducing themselves and suggesting (in one manner or another) post collaboration, cross-linking, etc. My honest opinion is that this rarely works. Most of these “things” are accomplished via twittering, instant messaging (IM) , video chats, etc. In my opinion tweeting, IM, etc. are more effective ways of connecting with those in your niche and those who can support it. For email introductions to be more effective, you’d be better prepared if your blog is well established and well known.

10) Communicate and Develop Relationships

I have always found it amusing when people launch their web site or blog and fail to realize that the way they conduct business and client relations online is the same as offline. It seems that so many of us expect that the rules have changed and we’re trying to discover them all over again. STOP! Nothing much has changed. We still need to develop relationships with PEOPLE, just like we do in the physical world. Build relationships with other bloggers in your niche (and blogs that support it).

How do we introduce ourselves? The fastest way I have found is asking for advice or help or providing them with some valuable insight. Make sure you are familiar with their blogs! In other words this is called “Networking”, sound familiar? I thought so. <Smiling here>

11) Be “Lock and Load” Ready

When you notice a sudden surge in traffic levels to your blog, that is the time to post high quality, in demand, well written content. Always have a “draft” ready and waiting to take advantage of such opportunities. I’ve found from experience that you generally have three days or less to take advantage of such a windfall. When one of your posts attract attention (even go viral) that’s when all eyes are on you. That’s when other’s in your community are also giving you their attention. If you provide even more (quality, in demand) content, that provides more motivation for them to visit your blog again and even perhaps link to it.

12) Advertise in Signatures

Never forget the little things, over time they have a big impact. You can further support your blog by ensuring your email, forum post, etc. all include a linkl to your blog. Additionally, include a line or two telling the reader what the blog is about, or how they can benefit by visiting your blog.

13) Be a Gracious Guest

Do you provide high quality content? Is there another blog that you particularly desire traffic from? Then, put your writing skills to good work, be a guest blogger. Submit your (free) quality post to the blog for consideration after you have developed a good relationship or when the blog is asking for article/post submissions. Ensure your professional bio is well written and has a link back to your post. Bio’s are commonly included at the bottom of your post, but I’ve seen some blogs position them above posts.

One caveat… DO NOT submit the same post to other blogs. Each submission must be unique. If you’re considering guest blogging, you’ll gain more insight by reading ProBlogger’s: How to be a Good Guest Blogger.

14) Obtain Effective Feedback

Before actually launching your blog (for that matter even while the blog is live) ask the people around you (other web developers, web designers, bloggers, copywriters, etc.) for feedback. Offer them a sneak peak asking them to provide constructive critisism and pinpoint areas you could improve before launching. Doing so will garner you respect and help build relationships before your blog has even launched.

When you ask people for help, even your blog readers, you’re imparting a sense of ownership to them, in turn that encourages them to help when you need it (and you will). As such they are more likely to refer your blog to others they thing may find it useful or enjoyable, and more likely to provide backlinks to your blog.

All of the above will provide you with a strong, successful launch if you take the time and put in the hard work to complete. Typically a blog launch takes me anywhere from one month to six months depending on the size and scope of the project.

The rewards are well worth the effort – Always!

Before I go into the details below, I’d just like to point out a caveat. Most new blogs struggle to gain exposure, they need to be found by readers. Subsequently the issue of long term, sustained growth versus sudden spurts of short term growth (as new reader communities discover a blog), becomes the fulcrum (so to speak). In my opinion, the best approach is long term growth. This means your earning a few new readers each day, each post, each comment, etc. This really is where your focus should be (and most blogs do seem to fall into this category). When communities do discover you, through Digg, Slashdot, etc. that’s the cherries, the desert. Enjoy it, but remember that not all of them return. Normally there’s a sharp, sudden increase in traffic and a sharp drop. But each time you should be able to retain a few more readers. Your long term growth, that’s the meat and potatoes! That’s one thing which will make you big and strong.

One of the mistakes I made (initially) was to try and garner traffic from everywhere. I had the thought that the whole Internet was my audience. That’s just not true. Someone interested in knitting had no interest whatsoever in my earlier blog. If they visited at all, it was a one-time only visit. To better prepare myself (for long term growth), I should have mapped out what type of reader I wanted my blog to interest. In essence, I should have written down a profile and then only marketed to that niche. You’ll get much better traffic and faster growth if your activities are geared to target and attract a specific readership. Think of it this way, do you want pre-qualified traffic or just traffic.

Search engine optimization (SEO) was another area I could have tweaked a bit more. Not so much in terms of page rank, Google indexing etc., but in terms of content accuracy. What I mean by this is to ensure that I did take the time to provide individualized keywords, descriptions, etc. for every single post! At that time I was a bit lazy and let WordPress do all the work. In hindsight, I’d suggest using a plugin called All in One SEO Pack. It allows you to customize the keywords, descriptions, etc. for every single post, as you write or you can go back later and edit those things. Make sure you use it. One thing though, in my opinion search engine page rank, et al are NOT the holy grail. They should NEVER be your focus or your primary strategy. I remember getting caught up in the hype only to find out that some of my posts were ranking highly, not because of any SEO, instead, as a result of quality content and other blogs linking to it (among other factors).
As I alluded to earlier, there can be sudden bursts of traffic from sites (such as Digg). Frankly when this happened, I’d revel about it. I even remember phoning friends, telling them about the incredible traffic or how the post was on Diggs front page – It was party time! However, not once did I consider how to retain a larger share of those potential readers. I found out the traffic would have a sharp and steady decline over the next five days, but never consider looking at the long term incline. I was focusing on the wrong numbers! I should have been looking at maximizing the number of repeat visitors. For example, features to retain some of these new readers should have included:

• Cross linking to relevant posts within my content as well as a short list of the most relevant content (to the post being read). Incidentally, there is a plugin that will assist you in doing so, and it’s called Yet Another Related Posts Plugin, which helps visitors find related content of additional interest to them.
• Ensure I’m using a cache on the blog, so when a sudden surge of traffic appears, the site will remain available (not returning error messages).
• Allow for reader interaction (like comments), and make sure you respond. Provide a poll, you can even email them direct and thank them for visiting (I kid you not, common courtesy is always nice and professional), use your imagination, there are lots of interactive features you could use.
• Invite them to follow you on twitter, subscribe to your blog RSS, new post notifications, newsletters, and so on

Side note: For those looking for some useful and productive plugins, you can find more via 25 Most Beneficial WordPress Plugins an of course a shameless plug to contact me on twitter @BloggerSavvy

Finally, one important aspect I wish I used in the early stages of that blog was to go out and shake the trees. I spent almost all my time tweaking WordPress code, tweaking plugins, creating posts, researching blog technologies and content, responding to visitors, etc. Not once did it occur to me that one of the strongest factors to increasing my traffic was to involve myself in the very community I was writing quality content for! Visit their blogs, ask questions, provide comments and input, extend invitations and so forth. Think about it this way, if I want to get people to visit for a barbeque I have to phone them right? Well… it’s the same on the Internet. Don’t be afraid to ask, get involved, be happy and enjoy what you’re doing. Remember you are writing for people, not at them!

To come back to the original question, “About how long does it take for traffic to start picking up?”, it’s really up to you and your niche (community). The more involved you get the faster the growth may be. If you are very serious about blogging, are not afraid of the work and are committed. You’ll find that your traffic will reach your targeted level – Don’t worry about that, don’t focus on that. Just make sure you focus on your blog’s goals and ensuring your community is given the content and tools they need and want from you. If you focus on these things, the traffic will take care of itself.

As an afterthought, before I go, I’d like to highlight three traffic related activities you should never do:

1. Never spam users. If in launching a new service, you’ve added some of the people in your contacts, and they ask to be removed from your list. Do so immediately and with a smile!
2. I’ve received a lot of links lately where I’m promised all sorts of traffic to my blog if I buy their software or services. DON’T DO IT! Why? Your URL is entered into software by you or them. Then it connects to a huge list of proxy servers. The program is run by them (or you) for a several hours. Upon review of your web traffic statistics, it appears that lots of people visit your site (because those logs show visitors from thousands of different IP addresses). What’s really happening is that your blog is only being pinged by the proxy or pages are being requested, no one really actually reads your blog. Don’t waste your money on this.
3. Don’t use other blog/web site generators and similar Internet tricks. Such “Black Hat” methods work temporarily at best. Your blog is best grown by setting up and planning for the long term.

Well I’ve finally done it! I’ve launched a new blog!

This has been a long time coming, and I’ve still a ton of work to do on the design, graphics et al. However, it was imperative to at least get this blog launched and running.

For those of you who do not know me, I’m a web developer and hosting provider. I provide related services but I also provide advice and consultation services. One of my pet projects is conducting (free) web seminars that teach business owners how to launch web sites, market them, improve them, garner an understanding of the technical aspects of web sites and servers, etc.

You can find a bit more of my story from another blog I operate named Ubuntu Linux Help. Here’s the link ubuntulinuxhelp.com/why-i-quit-windows-and-switched-to-linux that will provide those interested, with a bit of information on my technical background.

The motivation for this blog is borne out of the excessive number of questions I receive about web site, blogging, web site promotion, video streaming, how to earn money and so forth. My vision is that this blog will contain that information in an easy to use site.