We all know that Google can do miracles for your blog and it’s quite easy to get some free targeted traffic to your blog. I think that many of you heard about the seo plugin for wordpress but don’t use it the right way.

Well, I think that you already know how to install it, just download it, and then upload it on the host in the folder wp-content/plugins. After that log into the admin area, go to “plugins” section and activate it.

Ok, you will notice something new at the “write post” section, under the writing box. Here’s a screenshot:

Now, let’s go a little back, at “options – > all in one seo”. There, make sure that “Use Categories for META keywords box” is not checked.

After doing that, everything is easy. At “Title” you should introduce the title of the article (many bloggers say that writing the title in capital letters may get you a better rank in google, but I personally don’t like all the title to be written in capital letters). At “Keywords” you should write some keywords related to the article, and at “Description” I generally write some keywords too. You can leave it blank, but writing some keywords there may get you a better rank in searches.

Finding your niche you like to write about is very important. You can’t start a blog about science for example if you don’t like science at all.

The secret for a successful blogger is to write only the things you are interested in, you must put some passion there. So how do you find your perfect niche?

Before starting blogging, I personally read many blogs and so, after a while I could say “yes, I do like writing about blogging tips”. You should do that too, read many blogs related to different niches, and see what’s your favorite. Don’t worry, there are readers for every single niche, there’s no such thing that a niche has more success than an other.

As I said in the past, stumbleupon is a great way to receive traffic to your blog. I really love it, it’s good for bloggers and for surfers too, you can surf the internet in a very easy way and find only the things you are interested in. But be careful, stumbleupon is addicting .

photo by Dennis Goedegebuure

Ok, so you have a blog, and you stumble a great article of yours. People like it, and you receive traffic. Be intelligent, convert this traffic into money.

I think that most of you use adsense, it’s so popular. Well, adsense is good too, it can generate some money but stumblers usually don’t stay much on a page, they just read the article, see what’s the deal with it, rate it or not and then they hit the “Stumble!” button and go on another page. This is how stumbleupon works, and because of that you won’t receive so many clicks on your ads.

The best way to convert stumbleupon traffic into money is using a CPM ( cost per mile ). You just have to find a website that pays you for holding its banner on your blog (don’t worry, usually these kind of banners are small and they won’t disturb anyone). There are many websites that pay you a certain amount per 1000 views of their banner. The best one I know is http://tribalfusion.com/ but the problem with this one is that you get approved very hard. Anyway, google will always help you.

So now that you know, go and write a great article and submit it for stumbleupon!

Social media websites are great sources of free traffic for your blog! So, don’t miss this chance. There’s not a big secret how they work. You should have a great article, submit it to a social media website ( like digg, stumbleupon, reddit ) and then, if the people will like it, they will rate it and visitors will come. If you get popular on digg, you may get around 60k visitors and you can convert them in returning visitors if you have interesting content. That’s nice, isn’t it?

But a good article isn’t always enough. Another thing that you should know and do is building your profile! Well, that’s all about your activity there, how many friends you have on the respective social media website and so on. More friends = more people to rate your articles = more visitors = more returning visitors = money and satisfaction.

So, how do you build it? This takes time, usually, older profiles that had some activity too rank better and have more authority.

Another tip is to tell your friends about your profiles, or write on your blog (if you have one) like I wrote here. Who knows? You may get some friends from your blog too!

Another thing that you should know – don’t abuse! That’s right, don’t abuse! Don’t submit every single article from your blog. You should select only the ones that you think are interesting. Yes, I know … you would say “all my articles are interesting” so that’s why it’s good to ask a friend what he thinks about that article.

And don’t forget, your profile is like your blog. Keep it fresh, have some activity there! 

As I was saying here, I am willing to make some free reviews of your cool blogs! Well, this is my first review. I am happy to present you a great design blog – http://garcya.us/blog.

photo by Lempkin

The first thing that will attract your attention is the blog’s design. My personal opinion is that first impression is very important, and with a great template you can easily attract the attention of your new visitors. Regarding this aspect, http://garcya.us/blog looks incredible!

Another thing that I like about it is that you can found there a lot of interesting things that every designer will love. Many times I found some incredible wordpress themes, and great wallpapers.

All in all, this blog has everything a design blog should have, and its owner always keeps it fresh with good and interesting content!

I will start with the basics in blogging. These first tips may be boring for some of you who already know these things but they might be very useful for a new blogger. So let’s take it easy.

photo by a trying youth

Blogger

What I do like at Blogger is that is very easy and quick to make your own blog. You only have to sign-up there, complete some details, log in and create a blog. Easy!

What I don’t like at Blogger is the fact that Blogger is not so professional like WordPress, it’s good for new bloggers but if you really really want to do something good, I recommend you WordPress. With blogger you can’t have your own domain, and your own host.

WordPress

WordPress is awesome, I love it! It’s a fantastic blogging script. Very easy to personalize and there are many themes available for wordpress.

There are two kinds of wordpress. The one that is almost like blogger ( you only have to sign-up and your blog is ready ) or another one that’s a little bit more tricky.

It has a blogging script that you can download for free and put it on your host. It’s easy too, but sometimes it can be tricky. What’s so nice about this script is that you have total freedom!

So final recommendation, new bloggers, use Blogger and advanced bloggers, use WordPress (but I think that you already use it)!