Starting a blog is very easy. All you need to do is get a free account at Blogger or WordPress, choose a name, pick a theme and start posting. But making that blog popular and driving traffic to it is the most difficult part. Yet if done properly, it is not that complicated to create a popular blog. What you need to remember is that every blog needs good content. Do not expect to receive thousand of organic traffic to your blog if you do not have something useful to offer to your viewers. Remember, visitors need a reason(s) to come to your blog.

So what should you do to make your blog popular?

1. Add Meta Tags - use an automatic online meta tag generator to create some good meta description and tag code for your blog. Paste that code into your blog so that search engines can know what your blog is about.
2. Link Building - get a lot of backlinks for your blog. But make sure that most of these backlinks are from relevant sites. Do not go looking for links from medicine sites when your blog is about movies.
3. Social Bookmarking Sites - whenever you publish a new post on your blog, make sure to submit it to major bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc. These sites can drive a lot of traffic!
4. Forums - they are a great way to get involved into direct marketing. Communicate with other members and promote your blog on different forums (but don't spam!).
5. Blog Comments - Commenting is still a popular way to increase popularity. It helps you in getting backlinks, building relationships with other bloggers and driving traffic.

These were some very basic tips to make your blog popular. There are other tips as well that can be more effective but beginners need to start with these first.

Posted by Dan at SEO for Blogging.
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Google recently had another PageRank update few days ago. The update turned out to be quite pleasing for many webmasters while disappointing for others. Those webmasters whose sites gained PageRank are dancing while the others are working hard to figure out what went wrong. I decided to write about how webmasters should handle Google's PageRank update. In two upcoming posts, I will tell you guys what you should do after a PageRank update. However, the actions that you take depend on whether your websites lost PageRank or gained PageRank. This post is for webmasters whose sites lost PageRank. There will be another part to this post for the webmasters whose sites gained PageRank.

What to do after a PageRank update?

First of all, don't blame yourself too much for losing PageRank. There are good chances that you have not done permanent damage so you can still get it back. It's just that you need to work harder this time and follow the tips mentioned below!

1. Bookmarking - If you haven't been bookmarking your articles and submitting them to social bookmarking websites such as Digg, Reddit and Stumble Upon, then I strongly suggest that you start doing so. Not only can you get a lot of traffic but also a lot of backlinks for your site from bookmarking.


2. Link Development - Start working more on getting backlinks. Remember that PageRank is hilghly determined by the amount of (strong) backlinks you have. I am not going to talk too much about link exchanges here because Google doesn't like it but I will just say that it is an option.
   


3. Leave Comments on Other Blogs - There are several DoFollow blogs on the internet that have inner pagerank. Go these blogs and leave a comment or two and get free backlink. Don't waste your time commenting on posts with no PageRank. Right now you need backlinks and leaving comments on high PR blog is a great way to do so.


4. Write Better Articles - You need to look for ways to improve your articles. Write interesting articles with catchy titles. Try to get people to read your posts and get them to link to your blog. This is the ideal way of getting backlinks.


5. Build Relations - Life is so much easier when you are working in a group. Join forums, social bookmarking sites and social networks and connect with people with same passion as yours and make friends. May be they will link to your blog and visit your blog regularly.
   


6. Don't Worry - Don't stress yourself too much. Sometimes PageRank fluctuates a lot. One of my blogs lost its PageRank in the last update from 4 to 1 and now its back to 3. Just don't worry too much about PageRank and don't give up.
   

Posted by Dan at SEO for Blogging.
If you liked this post, then please subscribe to my RSS Feed or subscribe via email. Thanks.

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Useful Links
Browse what the world is saying on Blog Search - Google Blog
Tip: Read your mail without touching your mouse - Gmail Blog
Maximizing avenue by exposing your channels to the right advertisers - Adsense Blog Read the rest of this entry >>

Nowadays, I have been seeing a lot of posts on different forums about DoFollow forums, blogs, directories and social bookmarking sites. You will see a lot of SEO blogs with some sort of collection of links of Dofollow websites where you can leave comments with your website's URL and thus get a backlink to improve your PageRank.

I am sure a lot of bloggers, use these types of lists to leave some comments there. As you already know, leaving useless and spammy comments will not get you anywhere and will only hurt your reputation. Keeping this in mind, you probably go out there and try your best to leave comments that the admins will like but when it is at midnight and you are extremely tired, you will definitely leave comments like "nice post". And this also happens when you are trying to leave comments on a number of blogs at the same time. You simply don't have the time and will to leave so many comments.


Leave Comments On Blogs You Like
Don't worry about DoFollow and NoFollow. If you like a blog post, then just leave a comment to appreciate the blogger's work. Let him know that you liked the post and also include some suggestions. A lot of popular blogs are not DoFollow but still there are some great posts on blogs like ProBlogger and if you like them then leave a comment. Remember, leaving comments should not be something that you HAVE to do. Leave comments only when you want to.

Are DoFollow Backlinks From Blogs, Directories and Forums Worth Much?
So you have heard from several SEO experts that getting DoFollow backlinks from blogs, directories, social bookmarking sites and forums is a good idea to boost your PageRank. I am sure I have said this before as well. But sometimes I think whether it is actually worth all the trouble (in terms of PageRank, not traffic). I mean forums and directories have thousands of outgoing links and thus backlinks hardly have any value there. However, doesn't every little thing matter? Yes it does but sometimes you have to be manage your time carefully. Posting all day on a DoFollow forum to get some backlinks is probably not a good idea when you can do other stuff to get backlinks and obtain better results.

Finally, I would just like to say that don't comment on blogs and other sites just to get backlinks. Stay up to date with some of your favorite blogs and subscribe to their RSS feeds. Read them regularly and comment on any posts that you like. Talk to the blogger through your comments and build a strong relationship.

Of course, don't forget about DoFollow blogs, forums etc. They are useful too but don't spend a lot of time leaving comments there.

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Useful Links:
Little things that matter - Gmail Blog
Search experiments, large and small - Google Blog
Make money on YouTube with Content ID - Google Blog
Empowering users to map their worlds - Google Blog Read the rest of this entry >>

One of the most common mistakes that webmasters and bloggers make is linking to link farms is due to lack of knowledge about what a link farm is and how to detect one. Adding a link to link farm on your website or blog can cost you a lot and thus you always have to be careful about which websites you link to. But what exactly is a link farm and how in the world can you detect one?

What is a link farm?
Link farms are websites that have tons of inbound links to increase their search rankings and PageRank. Such sites contain lots of links to unrelated websites. Sometimes there are also networks of link farm sites that link to each other.

Search engines are very strict to link farms. Most of them ban such sites completely from being indexed and displayed in search results. Furthermore, they will also lose their pagerank if they get banned by Google.


But that's not the worse part! Who cares if link farms get banned? The problem is that if your site links to link farms then it can get banned too or at least lose its PageRank! Yup that's right and that is why it is extremely important that you know what a link farm is and know how to properly identify one so that you do not link your website to it.

How to identify a link farm?
If you have not been serious about the sites that you link to then you really need to start doing so because they can have a great impact on your site's ranking. You must always review the site closely before adding a link to it. Here are some tips to help you identify a link farm:

• Site has lots of links - If you go to a site and see that it has tons and tons of links then you should immediately understand that it is a link farm.
  
• Low PageRank - Usually link farms get penalized by Google and thus lose their pagerank. Thus, you should be careful when you link to sites with PR 0. I am not saying that PR 0 sites are link farms but there is a higher possibility.
• Little or no content - Owners of link farms do not care about content. All they want is inbound links to increase ranking. Thus, don't link to a site if you don't find much content on the site.
  
• Poorly maintained - Link farm webmasters don't manage their sites very well. As mentioned earlier, links matter most to them and thus they don't spend much time organizing their sites.

Also remember that if a site seems like a link farm but has a good PageRank, then you should probably not link to it. Maybe the site just turned into a link farm and might lose its PageRank completely in the next update and also hurt your website's PageRank.

Remember, you never want your website to be linked to a bad neighborhood just like you don't want your kid to be playing in a bad neighborhood!

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Some Useful Links:
Video units more widely available - Inside Adsense
Get your Google Calendar in 38 languages - Gmail Blog
Model your campus in Mexico using SketchUp - Google Blog
Where is Georgia on Google Maps? - Google Blog
Translations on your iPhone - Google Blog
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets! - Blogger Buzz
Keeping tabs on spam and viruses - Google Blog Read the rest of this entry >>

Some of you might not know this but Google also give a PageRank value to inner pages besides the home page. For example, a popular site like Digg may have PageRank of 8 for its homepage but PageRank of its inner pages can vary a lot. Usually smaller sites and less popular blogs do not get PageRank values for their innerpages, but sometimes it can happen.

Having PageRank for inner pages is very important as it means that your website is doing very well. There is also a very high demand for links on inner pages and thus you can even sell links on such pages. However, how do you find those pages with PageRank if you have a lot of inner pages? You can't just check the PageRank value of each page individually because that can take hours.

Recently, I discovered a great SEO tool called Google PageRank Inspector which lets you see the PageRank of all your inner pages. All you have to do is enter the URL of your site/blog and wait for the tool to display the results. You can also choose to see the PR of the sites that have their link on your site.

Once all the pages have been analyzed and the results have been displayed, you can choose to download the entire report for later use.

I hope you liked this tool. If you still have not tried it then I strongly suggest that you do. Let me know what you think of it.

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Some Useful Links:
New enhancements on the Google content network - Google Blog
Tackling information overload, 10 million documents at a time - Google Blog
Seeing New Orleans through street view - Google Blog
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
Read the rest of this entry >>

Today, I found a great post on Digital Point (DP) Forums about some great link building techniques. The title quickly grabbed my attention and I decided to read the content. I was really delighted to read the entire post as it not just outlined but also explained in detail some great link building techniques. I quickly decided to share some of the most important points explained in the post with you.

First of all, as most of you know backlinks are very important if you want to get a good PageRank. Backlinks is probably the most important factor in determining PageRank. The more the amount of backlinks your website has, the greater your PageRank will be. But how do you get those backlinks? Those who have tried to get them know that is is certainly not an easy task.

Today, I will point out 10 most important link building techniques that will definitely help you get more backlinks if followed correctly.

1. Link Exchange
Exchanging liks is a common practice where webmasters exchange links to gain backlinks to their sites. Search Engines do not like this method but it is one of the most common ones. Remember that reciprocal link exchange (two way) may not be worth a lot sometimes but three way link exchange is a great idea to boost PageRank.

2. Paying for Links
There is always the option of buying links on high PageRank websites to get backlinks but you have to be careful about it. Google is always ready to penalize webmasters who buy links but still a lot of webmasters do it because it is an easy way to get high PageRank. The links are one way and thus hold a lot of value.

3. Social Bookmarking sites
Using social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon and others is a great idea to not only get backlinks but also huge amount of traffic. You are basically sharing your website and content with others and thus it increases your chances of others linking their site to your site.

4. Submitting to Directories
This is a common way to get backlinks. Just submit your blog and sites to reputed directories and wait to get approved. However, just like forums, directories also have a lot of outgoing links and thus the backlinks are not worth much. Furthermore, most directories may have their hompage with high PageRank but the inner pages (where you link will be displayed) do not have any PR.

5. Commenting on Blogs
It is always a good idea to comment on relevant blogs and leave some useful and detailed comments. However, remember that most of the blogs have NoFollow attribute and thus will not boost your PageRank. However, there are a lot of lists on the Internet that can help you find some DoFollow blogs to leave a comment on. Make sure that your comments are relevant, helpful and not spammy.

6. Marketing your Articles
If you have written an interesting article then you should definitely submit it to article sites with a link to your own site. That way you will gain a lot of backlinks. Furthermore, if your article is really nice then other people will link to it as well and thus provide you with more backlinks and traffic!

7. Posting on Forums and Signatures
Posts and signatures on forums are a great way to backlinks but the problem is that due to a lot of outgoing links, value of backlinks is not significant. However, it is still a great way to get some valuable traffic and some backlinks.

8. Press Release
There are a lot of websites online where you can post press releases with a link to your own blog/website and gain backlinks. This is considered a great way to get backlinks by Google. However, the problem is that it is very hard to write posts about press releases and it is impossible to do for some niches.

9. Using Link Bait and Widgets
You may have seen several popular websites offer their own customized widgets that link to their own site. This a nice way to get a lot of backlinks but most of the times, your website has to be popular enough to convince other webmasters to place your widget on their blog/site. Link Bait is also another trick. Basically, it involves writing a "controverisal" or maybe offending article that may provoke response from others. But you have to be careful when writing such articles because it might damge your reputation.

10. Talking to Others
The simplest and least used way to get backlinks and gain popularity is to talk to others about your website. Just try to mention is every now and then to people who you think might be interested in visiting your website. However, be careful about it! You don't want to be talking to everyone about your website all the time. It may offend some people and other may find it annoying. :)

This is it guys. I hope you liked the post. I would also like to share with you the original post where you can find more detailed information about each of these link building techniques.

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Some useful links:
Google in your language - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
Back to school with more than 1 million users worldwide - Google Blog
Hello from A2 - Google Blog
We Knew The Web Was Big - Google Blog
Knol Is Open to Everyone - Google Blog
Updates and Fixes for July 18th - Blogger Buzz
Read the rest of this entry >>