Today I want to talk about creating quality. There are so many blogs in every possible niche, you may be focusing on how to get traffic to your blog. If that is your focus, you may want to read some of my other blog posts such as, Ten Ways to Promote Your Blog, and Weekly Wrap-Up: Link Building.

But today I want to focus on how to create a following on your blog and how to keep folks on your blog longer, reading what you have worked on so hard to express. Obviously there are many reasons why you want your visitors to visit often and to stay on your site longer. One factor that I have noticed over the past six weeks of testing, is that my Alexa ranking (which is a rough estimate of how popular your blog is) seems to be more directly impacted by how long folks stay on my blog than how many visitors I have. And how do you get visitors to stay on your blog longer? You give them quality; you answer the questions they have come looking for, you entertain. By doing this you create posts of interests, post that others will Digg or Twitter, creating more visitors, more repeat visitors and visitors that stick around longer to see what else you have written.

This week I would like to recommend several blog posts that speak to the importance of writing quality blog posts. The first is from, as you probably know by now, one of my favorite bloggers and internet marketers, Kim Roach. Her blog post, Case Study – 1 Article = 7,640 Visitors takes you step by step through the process she took to write a blog post that attracted visitors like crazy.

In her blog post Kim says,

The first thing I did was actually write the article. This is actually THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the process because the quality of your article is going to determine how far it will spread and how much traffic it will end up attracting. Promoting the article is definitely a critical piece of the puzzle but you MUST start by creating a truly exceptional article.

I love this paragraph because it makes two thing crystal clear! You must first WRITE, and second, what you write must be quality.

The second blog post that I found that speaks to this issue is Seth’s blog post, The Importance of Writing Good Content, where he talks about “Pillar Articles,” which are a set of articles that bring a constant flow of traffic to your blog. His take on quality blog posts are similar to Kim’s in which he says:

Well written content is linked to, twittered about and Digged by online users because it is useful, funny, insightful or maybe even odd. Good content increases the value of your blog and likelihood that visitors will return to see your next article.

My third recommendation from this week is Daniel Scocco’s post titled, Checklist for Writing a Quality Blog Post. As the name suggests, he outlines a list of what is necessary to make a blog post top quality. One of his check points specifically is the quality of the content. Says Daniel:

This is one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself. Will your content actually create value for the reader? Is it original and unique? …

People want to learn new things, solve problems, become more productive. They want to know how stuff works. Practical tips. Tutorials. Reviews. Can you help them with that?

It takes time to create quality, but I have found that it is much more important to blog less and write high quality then to blog more and create posts of lesser quality.

Have you done any testing about this yourself? Have you ever been surprised by posts that you wrote that were extremely well received or not well-received? I know that I have found that those posts that I feel most connected to seem to attract the most traffic.

Until next time,

~Norene

Greetings All,
I apologize for missing a weekly wrap-up last weekend. The swine flu finally caught up with my family and we were down and out for the count. But here we are again, with another weekend upon us!

This week I would like to talk about Twitter. I find that most folks on the internet either love or totally dismiss Twitter. I have to admit that I was one to totally dismiss it. I certainly saw the value of it, both personally and in my business, but I felt like I just didn’t have the time to “twitter away” my day. After finally jumping on board, I have found how truly fun and valuable Twitter can be.

One post that I came across that I really loved was Steve Wakefield’s blog article called, “My Top 10 Twitter Tools and Then Some.” If you are new to twitter, or not, you will find his list really compelling.

Of the ten tools that Steve lists, I have to say that I liked Twitter Packs the best. Twitter Packs, according to Steve, is a “useful directory of twitter users sorted into specific categories so that you can find people who are interested in the same things as you. You can also add yourself to the directory so that people can find and follow you.” Take a moment to read Steve’s blog post. If you love twitter, you will be glad that you did.

As happens quite often in the world of the internet, once you find a product that you love, another comes along to rival it. Such was the case with me this week. I literally stumbled upon Sokule (pronounced So Cool).
Sokule is a free product, or you can upgrade to obtain more features. You’ll find all the applications you need to make your business hum in one convenient location. You can even choose the applications you want. Applications like Adding your Bio, Edit Posts, Live Profile Links, Auto Welcome, Scheduled Posts, Video Ads, Autoresponder Messages, ClickBank plugin, Sokwall, and lots more.

One of the things that makes Sokule so cool is that when you post on Sokule, your post will automatically show up on Twitter just like magic. Sokule’s website states that they will soon be adding 40 other social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Giblink, Friend Feed and many more.

Follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/nbroyton or on sokule at http://www.sokule.com/postit/Norene My sokule page is just beginning to be built — hopefully by the end of this week there will be more to show.

Until next time,

~Norene

This past week I came across several blog posts about link building. On seomoz.org Rob Ousbey recently wrote a blog post called A Link Building Rule to Cut Out and Keep about how to get a website ranked higher in Google. He speaks of advice that he gives to all who ask. It is simply:

“The most valuable links you can get, are those which your competitors will never be able to have.”

He goes on to explain how to tap into links by discovering what your blog or website has to offer that is unique. By being proactive in this regard, you will find links that others will not even be looking for. You can read more about this interesting prospective by checking out his blog post.

Another great blog, also posted on seomoz.org was by Jennita. The post was called Followed Links From Four Unexpected Sources and it discusses how social networking from sites such as Panoramio and Zillow can provide links to your site.

Finally, I know that motivation is always a big issue with folks in the internet marketing business. I found this blog post that I really enjoyed. It was written by one of my favorite bloggers, Paul Norwine and is called Eliminating Self Doubt and Beating the Bogeyman at His Own Game. Paul talks about three strategies that he uses to keep himself motivated: Focusing on the Present, Taking Action and Fail Forward and to Condition Yourself. It is a great read, and very sound advice!

If you have come across any great posts dealing with Link Building or Motivation, leave a comment below!

I hope you have a great week — Keep Moving Forward!

Greetings, All!

Another week is behind us. I hope it has been a productive one for you. If you have been journaling, you can look back and see what you have done this week that has worked and what has not. Most importantly you can see all that you have achieved and pat yourself on the back!

This week I finally finished my first ecourse titled: Joint Venture Secrets. It is a five part course that explains what a Joint Venture Partner is, how to go about finding these partners and creating the partnership. Sign up in the box at the top right and tell me what you think of it. I will be writing a blog about this new ecourse in greater detail later this week.

Creating this ecourse was a big achievement for me and I am happy to have completed it. The only reason this happened was because I had put it on the top of my to-do list last Sunday, and committed to it on Alex Jeffrey’s forum. I had been putting it off, doing other things, but finally I said enough. Once it was on the top of my to-do list, and I had publicly committed to it, I just had to stop procrastinating and get it done.

In this week’s Weekly Wrap-Up, in keeping with the productivity theme, I would like to mention David Walker’s blog post titled, Why You Never Get Anything Done. David’s blog is fantastic, filled with easy to understand, yet very informative pieces that will propel your internet marketing efforts forward. David has also written a very good blogging ebook titled, Stop Slogging Start Blogging. I have downloaded it and read it several times over. His ebook is free, but I have found it to be priceless. It is filled with tips about how to become a successful blogger and internet marketer through blogging. This ebook can also be found on David’s blog.

My second find this week was a video create by Joe Vitale on the subject of productivity. It was put on youtube two years ago, but I felt that it was very relevant to me right now, and I hope that you find it to be so as well. It is only 2 minutes long, and it is quite a little gem.

I hope that you continue to be productive and having fun in your internet marketing pursuits!

Until next time,

~Norene

Inspiration
I think we all need inspiration to keep us going when we are feeling down or lost and even when we are feeling like all is going well. A pick-me-up can do wonders to propel us forward. In Rod MacBeth’s blog post The Mayonnaise Jar and Two Cups of Coffee, he shares a wonderful story about setting priorities and remembering what is most important in your life.

Fabulous Tools/Resources
This week I came across two blogs that shared tools that I found helpful. The first is from Adam Sicinski who posted an amazing mindmap and blog post about Twitter called How to Twitter: A Beginner’s Guide. It is so complete it could have easily been an ebook. For those of you who twitter and/or market with twitter, you don’t want to miss Adam’s post.

Paul Hooper blogs about a free Squeeze Page Generator in his post called Create a Squeeze Page Using Instant Squeeze Page Generator. This is a great post if you are looking for an easy and free way to create squeeze pages.

Alexa Ranking

If you are interested in lowering your Alexa ranking, there are several excellent posts that I have come across this week. Rob Canyon wrote a blog that started me on my journey to creating a better blog that would help my Alexa rank drop. It is called How to Get Your Alexa Ranking to Drop Like a Rock to Increase Your Popularity.

Tom Burke wrote a fabulous post about how to use Alexa to determine how interesting your blog is in his post Alexa Engagometer. He also blogged about increasing your ranking in a post called Secrets to Boost Alexa Ranking.

Finally, Paul Lear has written a wonderful post about how to lower your alexa ranking in Top 10 Tips to Increase Alexa Rank.

I started tracking my Alexa ranking on September 26 and in 24 days I was able to lower my Alexa ranking from 2.8 million to ~750,000 using some of the tips that Rob, Tom and Paul speak about. Great stuff!

Finally, to end this weekly wrap-up, I’d like to mention a wonderful free ebook called Failing Forward By Design. This ebook was written by Heine Wentzel and it speaks about how to use failures to propel your success. It is an incredibly inspirational ebook and well worth the read.

I hope you enjoy these posts as much as I did! Let me know what some of your favorite blogs have been this week!