Showing posts with label readers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label readers. Show all posts

Monday, October 31, 2011

Bring New Readers To Your Blog By Comment Posting in Early Days

The adage of “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t always hold up online. Though great content is a necessity for any blog that wants to succeed, it simply isn’t enough by itself.

However, getting new readers to your site can feel like an exercise in frustration. To get a lot of targeted visitors, you need to have a good search engine presence. To get that, you need to have a lot of inbound links. That, in turn, requires a lot of people come by your site and like it enough to link to it.


This can make starting a blog feel hopeless, as if there is no way to get it off the ground.


But there is one technique that is often-overlooked, blog commenting, as it can be a simple, powerful way to attract targeted readers to your site and slowly build up your link presence. This, in the long run, can help you drive organic traffic to your site and cause your readership to start snowballing.


Best of all, it’s very simple to do and only requires a few minutes out of your day to make it work.

Use Twitter blog search tools to find people who are talking about topics related to your blog. Though the content doesn’t have to be “new” to be worth commenting on, new posts are usually better to target as comments on such posts are more likely to be read, both by the site’s owner and by its readers.

A good topic is one where anyone who is interested in reading that post will likely enjoy your site as well. Either something related to your topic or something you have different information on usually works best.


What isn’t very important is the traffic of the site. Though higher traffic is better, it might actually work against you, causing your comment to get lost. Sometimes a well-timed comment on a smaller site is much better than a lone comment in a swarm on a larger one.

Once you post a comment, keep track of it. If people are interested in what you have to say and begin to reply to your comment, engage with them and keep the conversation going. The only thing better than one good comment is several more good comments.

Best of all, the people you meet this way often become your first fans and a foundation that you can build the rest of your site’s traffic on.


In the end, when you first start out a site, especially if you don’t have a popular platform to launch it from, you will need to work hard for your first view visitors, often times working for hours just to get a small handful of people to come by.


However, all of that clawing to move the hit counter pays off in the long run as you develop a loyal reader base that eventually helps spread the word for you and helps you build search engine trust.


Posting blog comments is a great way to get to that point.


This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for a psd to html service company which provides psd to html formatting conversions.  Lior also consults for the international MA in political science department at the Tel Aviv University.


View the original article here

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers

The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical ReadersLong an advocate of frequent, voluminous reading in schools, the author draws on evidence gathered in twenty years of classroom teaching to make the case for reading workshop more powerful than ever. The book establishes the top ten conditions for making engaged classroom reading possible for students at all levels and provides the practical support and structures necessary for achieving them. 144 pages.

Price: $16.99


Click here to buy from Amazon

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Make an App to Engage Your Blog’s Readers

This guest post is by Leah Goodman of AppsGeyser.


A few months ago, when I started working for AppsGeyser, a friend asked me if I could turn her blog into an app, to which I responded, “Yes.” Then she asked me the more important question: why would she want to do that?


There are loads of reasons. Here are just a few ways you can use an app to bring new readers to your blog and give more value to your current readers.

Make a blog app Copyright taka - Fotolia.com

Mobile users can read your blog on a mobile RSS reader, but reading a blog through an app means that they’re coming to your blog specifically. It’s a different level of engagement. They’re looking for this blog’s icon. They’re looking to interact with this blog each time. It’s not just one of a bunch of publications.

Regular readers will have your blog in their RSS feeds on their mobile devices, but new mobile readers are much more likely to find your blog by searching for apps than by searching the Web. Having an app gives bloggers a whole additional avenue for discovery.


Once people have downloaded the app, you can engage them in some really great ways, too. Provide unique content for app users, creating the sense that they’ve joined a “secret society,” just by downloading the app. Utilize the fact that it’s not just an RSS feed, and have them vote, fill out forms, and leave comments without having to use a different interface.


Last, but definitely not least, is the idea of push messaging. With an app, it’s easy to send messages to people who’ve downloaded your app—even if they’re not checked in.


Push messages are just like text messages to everyone who has the app installed. For a craft blogger, this might be the way to tell people that the project everyone’s been asking about is finally completed, and the instructions are up.  Are you a mommy blogger in her ninth month? Push messaging is a great way to instantly let everyone know it’s a girl! Financial blogger? This is the way to tell everyone the mortgage is finally paid off! The possibilities to connect more closely are right there, the moment a blog becomes an app.


There are a number of ways to make a blog into an app.

You can have an app developer create a custom app for you. This is the most expensive option, but it will give you an app that looks perfect, works beautifully, and gives you all the special features you want to offer your readers.You can use a service that turns an RSS feed into an app, such as Android Apps Maker or Mippin.Our recommendation (and yes, we’re slightly biased) is to use AppsGeyser, because it gives you the full power of your blog in an app.

Your blog app needs to be distributed in two main ways.


The first is on the blog itself. This is achieved by taking the app’s link information and adding it to the blog. It’s important to copy the QR code to make it easy for readers to download the app easily with just a click of their phone camera.


The second avenue of distribution is the Android Market. This is how new readers will find the app and, by extension, your blog. When adding the app to the Android Market, pay special attention to the app’s name and description. The name and description are what prospective readers will search when they are looking for new apps to download. Be especially careful about the name, as it’s a problem to change it later. You can change the description later if you’re not happy with it.


Don’t skimp on your icon and screenshots, either. We’ve put together a post on making an attractive icon without hiring a designer. An attractive-looking app is an important part of reaching a wider audience.


Does your blog have an app? How has it affected your readership? Share your experiences in the comments.


Leah Goodman is a Content and Community Manager at Abel Communications, managing the blog and community for AppsGeyser.com. She believes in a t-shirt economy and is an amateur juggler.


View the original article here

Thursday, September 1, 2011

How to silence readers from commenting on your Blog

This guest post is by Ramcel Gatchalian for Meek Watcher.

You wake up one day and check your mobile phone for a new e-mail messages. There are none. Surprised, you can quickly enable your laptop and watched your latest blog post comment status. You can't believe it. No comments. Zero as in zip, zilch, nil, nothing.

silencedCopyright Artsem Martysiuk-Fotolia. comYou open your Google Analytics to monitor your blog stats. And you feel a bit relieved to learn that you have a number of pageviews. At least someone saw your recent post. But how come your visitors left without leaving a comment on your blog? Not one!

Your blog is turning into a "ghost town" as far as I can tell. People just passing by, that no traces. The worst part is you are blogging for several months now and it has been the same.

"So, what seems to be wrong?" you ask. Well, you can have honed the skill of your readers silenced. And how to refine this flair? Let us count the ways.

You may have published a number of articles and achieved movement of a species, but unless you relentlessly promote your blog you'll be just a small spark in the blogosphere. No matter how big is your content.

It might sound stupid, but people usually don't have anything if you don't ask them to. In fact, even if you are the best article that you can craft, prove if it is actually inspire interaction is not written, people will have no reason to comment. So why don't you invite them literally comment on your blog?

Readers love to think — especially if they have your article interesting, relevant and fascinating find. It encourages them to their thinking caps and their thoughts on the subject. If you do not call seduction and your topic with a few questions close, then why do you expect answers?

Why, oh why you Force your readers to register or login to your blog? Do you think they find it fun type valuable insights in that comment box of yours, just to get rid of a message that says they are not logged on and they need to register? You wasted their precious time — something that cannot be reduced.

Readers came, but felt lonely because no one was commenting. Why would they be the first? It's not fun to go to a party with no people on it. And you're not DoFollowa.

Now that you came to realize this "talents" of yours, you are ready to go to the next level? I hope not. Let's go for an open session: How you can counter these pitfalls? Are you a budding blogger, what advice can you give to bloggers who are in this situation?

Happiness is only important to get the chance to sell itself at the right time. After that, you have a talent and know how to use it. — Frank Sinatra

Ramcel Gatchalian is a blogger who writes blogging about and a food criticism of his Food blog. Checkout his blog where he shares about blogging and how he can tease your food cravings.


View the original article here

Sunday, July 17, 2011

How to engage with your readers to get more results

All you have to get traffic to your blog has not helped you?

Have you tried to promote your product to your readers, but it is difficult to progress?

Can be difficult to get feedback and social media shares in your blog posts?

If you answered Yes to one or all of the above questions then it's time to rethink your blogging strategy.

It is true, it should be your blog to get visitors who come on the market but we need to start thinking about the difference between getting and retaining visitors. Since there is no point in getting readers who do not take action or to stick on your blog, you'll need to start thinking less about marketing and more information about the visitors of moderation, and one of the best ways to make sure you get the best from the visitors to your blog is by engaging with them.

Everyone loves to participate, which is why news spread faster. There is a welcome contribution, particularly if it is from someone you so much for this because it will quickly go now if you can learn to engage with your readers by today. This blog post will give you some tips that will help you get more results by engaging with your readers.

Encourage the newsreader

If you've been in business for more than a day now we should know the importance of the call to action. A lot of things sound so simple, but you'll be surprised at how people. Send an e-mail message to your list will not necessary result on answers, but by telling your readers who want to hear from them can lead to more emails than you can reply to.

People know what to do, but sometimes they need external instructions to do so. When you write a new blog post you know you want to hear them every time you send an e-mail message to you know you want to hear from them every time you are in your favorite social media site to let your readers know that you are willing to hear from readers with their readers. Constantly interacting with you will begin to feel as if you already know and it will be difficult to let just like this.

The best way to encourage reader interaction is requested, so started calling today!

Time to be there for them

One thing that many of us bloggers fail to make available to our readers. The joke is that it seems so simple but it can be very powerful.

I recently read an article about Joe Girard at DailyBlogTips. Really enjoyed your article and retweeted, even if I did not tag Joe Girard to retweet you ended up answering and thanks for the retweet. That just won me over, and became a fan instantly.

People appreciate that exist for them that will start letting your readers know you care for them time to respond to their comments, reply to their emails, to thank and to interact with their favorite social media sites, and you can see how much of a significant impact that can make alone.

I appreciate the newsreader

You can also encourage reader engagement and interaction by examining your readers to engage with you and others on your blog. This can be done in many ways, which may include the carrying out of studies, and has a link at the top readers and sometimes even personally, e-mail readers know you appreciate their support.

I usually don't expect to appreciate them, and this is just the magic of this type. Make sure you let your readers know that you appreciate their support and involvement, and you will see how you can achieve with it.


View the original article here