Is Twitter a place you should go to talk about what your business does, the features of your products, the details of your services? My opinion is No,

From copy blogger

Links and traffic… who wants some?

The number of excellent resources that have come out since the beginning of the year on attracting links and building traffic has really mushroomed. Plus there are some timeless classics that are still very relevant today.

I think it makes sense to compile the very best in one handy location and share it, so here’s my entire collection. If I missed your link and traffic resource let me know and I’ll take a look.

Now, it doesn’t matter if you like the term “link baiting” or not. It’s the process that one goes through to attract links that matters, not whether you prefer to think of your content as bait for links. I like to think that creating content that increases web traffic and builds links simply falls under the general social media optimization marketing buzz phrase that is gaining in popularity.

So, here’s your ultimate “how to” guide to creating content that attracts links and drives traffic in the social media environment:

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 | SEO Book

101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips | SEOpedia

25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog | Online Marketing Blog

10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic | SEOMoz

8 Reasons Why Lists Are Good for Getting Traffic to Your Blog | Problogger

7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.ico.us Popular Page | Problogger

3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic | Performancing

How to Get Traffic For Your Blog | Seth Godin

The Art of Linkbaiting | Performancing

The Art of Blog | SEO Black Hat

What is Linkbaiting? | Modern Life is Rubbish

SEO Advice: Linkbait and Linkbaiting | Matt Cutts of Google

Problogger Link Baiting Series | Problogger

Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 Revealed | Link Building Blog

What Makes a Site Link-Worthy? | Eric Ward

Using Digg to Attract Hits | Slate

Using Digg and Netscape to Get Traffic | Pronet Advertising

Social Bookmarking for Traffic | SiteProNews

The Sandbox and Delicious | Graywolf’s SEO Blog

Unleashing the IdeaVirus | Seth Godin

Viral Copy | Copyblogger

Building Traffic to Build Your Fan Club | Copyblogger

Trust Rank and Your Domain | Link Building Blog

Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns | Search Engine Watch

Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit | Search Engine Journal

Link Building Guide | Jim Westergren

Link Baiting & Effective Link Building | Search Engine Journal

Link Baiting and Viral Search Success | Search Engine Roundtable

How Much is Link Bait Worth? | Cartoon Barry

Link Baiting (How Nick Wilson Created SEO Even Seth Godin Could Love) | Stuntdubl

Link Baiting Case Study from Search Engine Journal | Search Engine Journal

Link Bait | SEO Book

The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do | Seth Godin at Squidoo

Building Traffic With Article Marketing | Copyblogger

Link Building Blog | Text Link Ads

Link Building Wiki | Text Link Brokers

Advanced Link Building Tactics | SEOMoz

Twitter, Social Medias, and Haters

From www.freetraffictip.com

About six weeks ago ago, I was over at Scoble’s blog, reading some of the things Guy said about Twitter in s recent interview. As usual, I was struck by some of the comments made. 

A few of the commenters in that and a related post seemed fixated on two areas. 


1- I don’t get Twitter/ Using Twitter for Business Is a Mistake, 

and 

2- Guy’s comments were outrageous.

Here’s what I said. Go read the post for more, but come back because I’m not done yet. Next we’re going to talk about *exactly* how Twitter and Social Media leads to more clients or customers. Once and for all, you’ll see how it’s possible, and more importantly how it’s possible to do without doing anything scummy, nor anything that would make you more uncomfortable than meeting people at a business conference in person. 

There’s a hint in the paragraph below.
Is Twitter a place you should go to talk about what your business does, the features of your products, the details of your services? My opinion is No, not unless someone asks you specifically. It should be clear by now, if you’ve read my past posts on Twitter, that I’m not going to tell you there’s only one way to use Twitter, just what I know gets results, and exposure of the techniques I know are full of shit.

If you’re interested in the results I have above, and wonder how I got them even though I only talk business on Twitter about one percent of the time, stay tuned.
Written by Tinu Abayomi-Paul

30 Traffic Generation Tips

From www.dailyblogtips.com

First of all a big “thank you” for every one who participated. As I said before the number of entries surprised me (and the quality as well, I will definitely apply some of those tips myself). 

Now, without further delay, the 30 Traffic Generation Tips:

1. Sridhar Katakam
Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site.

2. Ian Delaney
Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Consider writing posts with resources or explaining how things work. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page. 

3. Scott Townsend
Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources. (check the List of Ping Services)

4. Kyle
Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog. 

5. Grant Gerver
Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.

6. Daniel
A simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.

7. Rory
Submit articles to blog carnivals (http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to your niche. Your article almost always gets posted, and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.

8. Ramen Junkie
Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup. 

9. Eric Atkins
Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.

10. Megan Taylor
Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience, ask questions and call to action.

11. Guido
Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.

12. Brian Auer
You must be active to generate traffic. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it will certainly attract readers.

13. Shankar Ganesh
Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many communities as possible that are related to your topic.

14. Andrew Timberlake
A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.

15. Cory OBrien
Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).

16. Jester
Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes
just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost
ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.

17. Goerge Manty
Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.

18. Engtech
Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs” but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.

19. Chris
Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.” Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.

20. Splork
I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic. 

21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for
additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site. 

22. Kat
I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like” community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.

23. Inspirationbit
Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.

24. Mark Alves
Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.

25. Tillerman 
Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.

26. Nick
Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors. 

27. Brandon Wood
A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.

28. Alan Thomas
Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now. 

29. KWiz
Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works. 

30. Dennis Coughlin
Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.

About the Alexa Traffic Rankings

A listing of all sites on the Web, sorted by traffic...
Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources. The information is sorted, sifted, anonymized, counted, and computed, until, finally, we get the traffic rankings shown in the Alexa service. The process is relatively complex, but if you have a need to know, please read on.

What is Traffic Rank?
The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users). The three-month change is determined by comparing the site's current rank with its rank from three months ago. For example, on July 1, the three-month change would show the difference between the rank based on traffic during the first quarter of the year and the rank based on traffic during the second quarter.

What are sites and Web hosts?
Traffic is computed for sites, which are typically defined at the domain level. For example, the Web hosts www.msn.com, carpoint.msn.com and slate.msn.com are all treated as part of the same site, because they all reside on the same domain, msn.com. An exception is blogs or personal home pages, which are treated separately if they can be automatically identified as such from the URLs in question. Also, sites which are found to be serving the same content (mirrors) are generally counted together as the same site.

What is Reach?
Reach measures the number of users. Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. So, for example, if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that of all global Internet users measured by Alexa, 28% of them visit yahoo.com. Alexa's one-week and three-month average reach are measures of daily reach, averaged over the specified time period. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current reach with its values from three months ago.

What are Page Views?
Page views measure the number of pages viewed by site visitors. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once. The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the visitors to the site. The three-month change is determined by comparing a site's current page view numbers with those from three months ago.

How Are Traffic Trend Graphs Calculated?
The Trend graph shows you a three-day moving average of the site's daily traffic rank, charted over time. The daily traffic rank reflects the traffic to the site based on data for a single day. In contrast, the main traffic rank shown in the Alexa Toolbar and elsewhere in the service is calculated from three months of aggregate traffic data.

Daily traffic rankings will sometimes benefit sites with sporadically high traffic, while the three-month traffic ranking benefits sites with consistent traffic over time. Since we feel that consistent traffic is a better indication of a site's value, we've chosen to use the three-month traffic rank to represent the site's overall popularity. We use the daily traffic rank in the Trend graphs because it allows you to see short-term fluctuations in traffic much more clearly.
It is possible for a site's three-month traffic rank to be higher than any single daily rank shown in the Trend graph. On any given day there may be many sites that temporarily shoot up in the rankings. But if a site has consistent traffic performance, it may end up with the best ranking when the traffic data are aggregated into the three-month average. A good analogy is a four-day golf tournament: if a different player comes in first at each match, but you come in second at all four matches, you can end up winning the tournament.

What is Data Normalization?
Alexa's ranking methodology corrects for a large number of potential biases and calculates the ranks accordingly. We normalize based on the geographic location of site visitors. We correct for biases in the demographic distribution of site visitors. We correct for potential biases in the data collected from our Alexa Toolbar to better represent those types of site visitors who might not use an Alexa Toolbar.

How are Movers & Shakers Calculated?
The movers and shakers list is based on changes in average reach (numbers of users). For each site on the net, we compute the average weekly reach and compare it with the average reach during previous weeks. The more significant the change, the higher the site will be on the list. The percent change shown on the Movers & Shakers list is based on the change in reach. It is important to note that the traffic rankings shown on the Movers & Shakers page are weekly traffic rankings; they are not the same as the three-month average traffic rankings shown in the other Alexa services and are not the same as the reach numbers used to generate the list.
Some Important ദിസ്ക്ലൈമെര്സ്

The traffic data are based on the set of toolbars that use Alexa data, which may not be a representative sample of the global Internet population. To the extent that our sample of users differs from the set of all Internet users, our traffic estimates may over- or under-estimate the actual traffic to any particular site.

In some cases traffic data may also be adversely affected by our "site" definitions. With tens of millions of hosts on the Internet, our automated procedures for determining which hosts are serving the "same" content may be incorrect and/or out-of-date. Similarly, the determinations of domains and home pages may not always be accurate. Sites with relatively low traffic will not be accurately ranked by Alexa. Alexa's data comes from a large sample of several million Alexa Toolbar users and other traffic data sources; however, the size of the Web and concentration of users on the most popular sites make it difficult to accurately determine the ranking of sites with fewer than 1,000 monthly visitors. Generally, traffic rankings of 100,000 and above should be regarded as not reliable. Conversely, the closer a site gets to #1, the more reliable its traffic ranking becomes.

INCREASE TRAFFIC

FROM SITEPOINT.COM
Increase traffic and improve your sales conversion ratios in a day? Impossible… or is it? Take the next 24 hours to implement the following tried and tested tactics. Integrate them into your ongoing business and marketing plans, and, executed properly, they can have a significant impact on traffic levels and the browser-to-buyer conversion success of your site.

1. Signup with Google.com’s AdWords Program

Google.com is one of the largest and most popular engines on the Web today, due to the speed and accuracy of its search engine. Literally thousands of searches are conducted on Google.com every day using keywords related to your site!

And now Google.com offers a new advertising service, AdWords, which allows you to purchase specific search terms. When a user enters these terms, your text ad, which can be targeted to the user on the basis of language and country, appears on the search results page. The price you pay for your AdWords is based on the position in which the results appear on the results page. And Google.com determines this position according to how many users click on those particular words over time.

The trick is to buy highly targeted keywords, so that only very qualified users (those searching for specific information in a limited field) will be exposed to your ad. Exposing your ad only to those who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer increases your conversion ratios, and generates a greater ROI.

Because there are thousands of searches a day, Google.com’s AdWords could become one of your biggest sales drivers. For more details, see the Google AdWords pages - they have plenty of tips.


2. Pay-Per-Click with Goto.com

Goto.com is a powerful pay-per-listing search engine. The trick is to pay for a position within the top 3. Depending on your product, how much gross profit you make, and what your conversion ration is, you may be able to profit very well with the top spot. Why is the #1 position so important? Goto.com is actually a relatively small search engine compared to the others, but its power comes from search partners with which Goto.com is affiliated. Goto’s top search results reach 75% of all Internet users, through their affiliate partner network, which includes America Online, Microsoft Internet Explorer, EarthLink, Lycos, and AltaVista! But these partner sites only show Goto.com's top one to three results for any search - so bid for the top spot if you can afford it.

The good thing about Goto.com is that you only pay when someone clicks on your link. Top spots can cost you anywhere from 0.01 cents to over $4, depending on the keyword, and your listing appears in around 3 days. It’s more effective to buy about 20 highly targeted keywords, than it is to have just one very expensive but more general keyword. So, with pay-per-click engines like Goto, it’s worth doing your homework and compiling a number of very specific and targeted keywords.

3. Listing with DMOZ

DMOZ.org, or the open directory project, actually powers the search results of several of the top search engines, and listing is free! It takes about 3 weeks for your site to be indexed once you submit it, and may take up to a couple of months for your listing to actually appear in the search results on engines that use DMOZ.

DMOZ listings are arranged in alphabetical order according to domain name, so the closer your domain name to the beginning of the alphabet, the higher your listing will be. And don’t forget to include your primary keyword phrase - the one most people use to find your site - in your Website name (title) and its description.

4. Register with Yahoo!

Yahoo!, the big gorilla of the Internet, has immense reach. Your Yahoo! registration is essential - it can deliver as much as 50% of your traffic – or even more! Fortunately, you can now get listed with Yahoo! in 7 days for a cost of just $199. And you’ll earn back this investment in a matter of days from the traffic you’ll receive on a well-chosen keyword.

Again, it’s handy to have a domain name which starts with a letter that’s close to the beginning of the alphabet, and to include your primary keyword phrase - the one most people use to find your site - in your Website name (title) and its description.

Once your site’s listed, consider signing up to have it sponsored within Yahoo! This service costs between $25 to $300 or more a month, depending on the category. Sponsored sites appear in a separate, clearly demarcated listing box, located on appropriate category pages, which draws users’ attention and can mean more traffic for your site!

5. LookSmart Listings

LookSmart might not be used very much as an independent service, but Looksmart listings reach over 83% of Web users through its extensive partner network: its listings actually reach a much wider audience than even Yahoo! can provide! LookSmart currently delivers search solutions to leading Internet portals, 370 ISPs and 600,000 Web sites including the Microsoft Network, AltaVista, Excite@Home, iWon, Time Warner, Sony, British Telecom, US West, AltaVista, Netscape Netcenter and NetZero. Your LookSmart listing is obviously another essential traffic tactic.

Recent changes to the service mean that, for around $199, your site can now be listed on LookSmart in 2 days, and its partner sites will pick up your listing shortly afterwards - usually within a few days or weeks. As with many of the other search network services, it will increase your exposure if your domain name starts with a letter that’s close to the beginning of the alphabet. Again, remember to include your primary keyword phrase - the one most people use to find your site - in your Website name (title) and its description.

6. DirectHit/AskJeeves

DirectHit/AskJeeves offers a paid text ad system similar to Google.com's. Your linked ad appears alongside the search results for every search topic you sponsor on the AskJeeves site. Your ad also accompanies relevant search results on all Jeeves Text Sponsorship Network participating sites, including MSN, Searchalot, Bomis.com, SuperCyberSearch, and Direct Hit. Your ads appear within a few days, and a minimum deposit of just $25 will get you started.

7. Doorway Pages

There are still 11 search engines that drive almost 84% of traffic (especially new users) to Websites. Even some engines that use DMOZ and Looksmart databases also have their own index. They key here is getting your listing to appear in the top 1 to 3 pages of results for relevant keyword searches.

Two things determine where you will be ranked. One is ‘page factors,’ which refers to elements contained in your pages, and which you can easily control. The other is ‘link factors,’ which takes into account the number and quality of any other sites that link to your site. Obviously, this variable is harder to control.

Remember that it’s more effective to have many well ranked pages, than it is to have just one page which has a number 1 ranking. Read that sentence again. You’ll gain more extensive exposure and enjoy significantly more traffic if you have many well ranking pages, than if you have a single page with a number 1 ranking! So, create hundreds of pages for a large number of keywords, rather than just establishing one or two top ranking pages for just a few keywords.

Ensure also that your keywords are all related to your site content, otherwise you may be banned from important, more popular search engines, which would severely limit the traffic you’d easily be able to attract.

There are a number of services and software packages that can generate and submit your site to search services, with associated costs anywhere between $39 for a downloadable, DIY software product, to several thousand dollars for a consulting firm to create the pages for you. These firms usually charge a setup fee of between a few hundred, and a few thousand dollars, plus a fee for each click-through the doorway pages deliver.

Not all software packages or consultants will do the job well, so find out as much as possible about the service you’re considering, and its alternatives, before handing over your money. You should especially avoid a solution that creates these pages using templates – this can result in duplication, which is frowned upon by the engines.

8. Write a Press Release

This is another great source of free publicity, though it doesn’t necessarily guarantee media attention upon release. A number of companies, like Xpresspress provide release-writing services, but you can also find tips for writing your own release on their Website.

Think carefully about who you’ll send your release to - you’ll need to make sure the publications you approach have a readership who will be interested in your product or service. Also, always include newsworthy information in your press release, so that the journalist or editor you’ve approached has a hook or angle on which to base their story.

9. Write Articles

This is a powerful tool! Write articles and submit them for publication in relevant ezines/newsletters whose readership fits your target audience characteristics. In all articles, make sure you carefully, and subtly, reference your site, and include a bio of yourself that contains your url. Obtain a list of ezines from EzineSource.com. Ezine Money is a popular and inexpensive writing course for those interested in writing for ezines.

10. Submission to Search Engines

Search Engine Commando is the product I use to submit my pages to search engines. But whatever package you use, be careful! Most search engines have very specific rules as to what they expect and require of submissions. And it’s up to you to ensure your submissions are responsible and in agreeance with the rules of each individual search engine.

11. Joint Venture

Begin research on potential partners – teaming up on the Web can be really advantageous. Try to locate a firm who have a product or service that’s complimentary to your own, and who have a mailing list that’s at least as large as yours. Such potential partners provide huge opportunities for cross-promotion through product reviews, newsletter and site link exchanges, and content syndication.

12. Start your own Mailing List

Most of your revenue will come from repeat sales, and this is where a mailing list can be very worthwhile. Regular communications with your customers reminds them that you exist, and provides opportunities for dialogue with clients and prospects. Consider these hints:

Think outside the newsletter. Use your mailing list for special announcements, invitations to valued customers to purchase in advance, and other value-add information.
Offer your users something in return for their email address – a chance to win a prize, for example, or a free product trial.
Put in place processes that make it easy to expand your mailing list:
Get email addresses from each customer upon purchase
Request an email address before your provide prospects with free product trials, or as a mandatory on your site contact form.
Be proactive about email marketing. Keep records of past purchases per customer, so that you can contact them when a new product that might interest them comes into stock. Or send seasonal greetings with a special offer attached at Christmas and Easter.
The best email collection tools are those that automatically follow up your mailings, and allow you to send a mass email whenever necessary. Aweber is a great collection tool, and is affordably priced.

How to get traffic for your blog

Use lists.

Be topical... write posts that need to be read right now.

Learn enough to become the expert in your field.

Break news.

Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year.

Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.

Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.

Announce news.

Write short, pithy posts.

Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.

Don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.

Write long, definitive posts.

Write about your kids.

Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.

Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.

Include polls, meters and other eye candy.

Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.

Coin a term or two.

Do email interviews with the well-known.

Answer your email.

Use photos. Salacious ones are best.

Be anonymous.

Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.

Post your photos on flickr.

Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.

Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.

Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.

Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.

Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.

Point to useful but little-known resources.

Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.

Write about Google.

Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.

Don't include comments, people will cross post their responses.

Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.

Run no ads.

Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
Write about blogging.

Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.

Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.

Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.

Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.

Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.

Don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.

Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.

Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.

Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.

Be patient.

Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.

Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.

Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.

Write in English.

Better, write in Chinese.

Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.

Don't be boring.

Write stuff that people want to read and share.