I’m going to wait a few weeks until I decide to make the switch from the previous version to Wordpress 2.6, for various reasons, most of which I’ll delve into below.  A few of you may have already installed Wordpress 2.6 into your blog or website, and if you have then that’s cool, in fact I’d like to hear about your experience with 2.6 via the comments section below.

Me?  Here’s why I’m waiting to made the switch….

Bugs Will (Inevitably) Appear

Whenever a new version of Wordpress is released, it’s always a good idea to hang fire on installing it onto your blog.  With the best will in the world, bugs will appear in the new version of Wordpress, and these will have to be ironed out over time.  It doesn’t matter if you have the best programming team on the planet working on an application, once it goes live there’s always a concern that things may be wrong.  I’m not saying anything catastrophic will happen to your blog by installing Wordpress 2.6, but there will be little, irksome areas of the application which will have to be looked at and patched before the new version is as ‘bugless’ (is that even a word?) as the previous version(s).

Security Loopholes

Every single time Microsoft have released a new version of Windows, security flaws have became apparent fairly quickly, and patches for Windows have been released on a continual basis.  If a company like Microsoft are vulnerable to security loopholes, you can bet your mortgage that the new Wordpress application will be too.  I’m going to wait until the new version of Wordpress has been upgraded in terms of security flaws before I even consider switching to 2.6.

I’m Not An Early Adopter

I have always been a little cautious by nature, and the two reasons above have helped me reinforce my decision not to upgrade to Wordpress 2.6 just yet.  I won’t be waiting too long to upgrade, but I feel it’s prudent to wait for feedback from the Wordpress community before I make the switch.  Once it’s generally accepted that 2.6 is safe, secure, and bug-free (to a very high percentage) that’s when I’ll go ahead and upgrade.  A scaredy-cat approach?  Maybe.  But the best decisions in life are made with a full background of the factors involved, and the fullest information available.  I’ll hang fire until the early adopters are happy with the upgrade, that’s proof enough for me in terms of user feedback.

So that’s my reasons for waiting a wee while until I upgrade to Wordpress 2.6, I’d like to hear your perspective.  Have you already upgraded, or are you hanging on meantime?  What are your reasons for upgrading quickly / hanging back?

Related blog post(s):

Made The Switch To Wordpress!
How To Use Meta Tags With Wordpress

What do I mean by raw blog traffic?  I’m referring to the type of traffic that isn’t necessarily visiting your blog for your content.  In the case of entrecard, people may be visiting my blog for the sole purose of ‘dropping’ their card on my blog to earn credits, which can be used to advertise on other blogs displaying the entrecard widget.

Now, ideally, I’d like to gain the type of visitors that return to my blog over and over again.  But I feel that I can use entrecard to my advantage.  Here’s how…..

Since implementing entrecard on my blog, I’ve seen a big jump in the number of daily unique visitors.  Before I started using entrecard, I was getting around 10 unique visitors a day.  Over the past week, my blog has seen around 400 unique visitors arrive here via entrecard, or other entrecard blogs.

If I can convert even 5% of those visitors into regular visitors by providing great content for them to read, then that’s 20 new readers I’ll have gained.  Not much, I know, but when your blog is relatively new then this would represent a nice jump for my audience figures.  And if I carry on promoting my blog through entrecard (by dropping on other blogs consistently) then I’d expect to receive a good number of visitors to my blog on a weekly basis.

You can also home in on blogs which are specific to your niche.  I am mainly targeting other blogs within my niche (i.e. blog traffic building).  When you log in to entrecard, you can sort through other entrecard-enabled blogs by category.  By dropping on similar or complimenting blogs, you’ll have a higher chance of someone being genuinely interested in what you are blogging about.

So if you are just started out on the blogging road, then I’d like to recommend entrecard as a means of driving raw traffic to your blog.  It’s free to join and only takes minutes to sign up, so there’s really no reason for you not to at least give it a shot.

I’m going to carry on using entrecard as a means of driving raw blog traffic to my blog in the short-term, and I will write a follow-up post in a couple of weeks or so to let you know how my entrecard-traffic-building campaign has developed!

This was my opinion, but now I’d like to hear your opinion on the whole spelling and grammar area of blogging.  How do you feel when you are reading a blog post / article which has spelling and grammar issues?  Does there come a point when you think to yourself “Jesus, this article is so bad I can’t bear to read any more”?

Different people have different opinions on the subject, but for me blog spelling and grammar are areas where you have a real chance to stand out from the rest of the illiterates writing about the same things you are….

Do you rate the actual blog content higher than any grammatical issues?

Would you click the back button when arriving at a poorly written blog, or do you carry on reading regardless?

Do badly written blogs give you an immediate impression as to the overall quality of a blog?

If you read a really good article, is your experience soured / enhanced by the quality of the spelling and grammar?

In my previous post, Rob O left a great comment, and I’d love some more feedback on the subject.  Please go ahead and leave a comment below, I’ll reply to any comments asking me any questions on the subject of blog spelling and grammar!

Related blog post(s):

Blog Spelling And Grammar - My Opinion

In this blog post, I will give my conclusion based on what I’ve spoken about over the last three posts.  You’ve probably picked up on what I’m getting at in my previous posts, but I’m going to extrapolate a little on why there are big differences in the methods I’ve examined for gaining sticky blog traffic.

First off, if you’ve read my posts on the best and worst sources for gaining sticky blog traffic, you’ll have noticed a common theme, which is:

Short-term traffic to your blog based on:

paid for traffic;

entrecard, and;

social media sites;

will not, generally speaking,  bring you sticky blog traffic.  The methods above are great for gaining immediate exposure for your blog, don’t get me wrong.  But in using these methods, you may be in danger of sacrificing the quality of visitors to your blog.  By using these methods, you will, in all likelihood, see an immediate increase in your visitor statistics.  But the chances of these visitors becoming regular visitors are slim in the extreme.

On the flip side, in my best sources for sticky blog traffic post, I outlined three methods, namely:

search engine traffic;

blog commenting, and;

forum traffic.

These three methods for gaining sticky blog traffic are longer-term by nature.  If you have the patience to stick with these methods, you’ll have a far greater chance of gaining long-term sticky blog traffic.  Follow these tactics and your blog will eventually attract an audience which is genuinely interested in what you are saying, i.e. they are primed for your niche, all you have to do is provide an eager audience with what they are looking for.  The best type of traffic to your blog is already primed for the information you are giving.

So, to conclude, I would recommend concentrating your efforts on the longer-term methods of gaining blog traffic.  I am in no way recommending that you only concentrate on the longer term methods.  In fact, I’d say that you have to devote some of your time to getting your blog ‘out there’ regardless of the eventual audience.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am using entrecard as a means of getting raw traffic passing through my blog (the majority are passing through and no more).  But don’t devote a high percentage of your time following the non-sticky route to blog traffic.  Stick to the longer term methods of gaining relevant, hungry and targeted visitors to your blog and you won’t fail to build your audience.

My posts on building your sticky blog traffic are based on my own experience within my own niche, and I’m sure that after reading my series of posts you’ll have an opinion on whether or not they are accurate or not.  I’d love to hear about your own experiences with regards to gaining repeat vistors to your own blog.  Please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear what you think about my posts on methods for gaining sticky blog traffic!

Related blog post(s):

Sticky Blog Traffic - An Introduction
The Best Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic
The Worst Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic

The sources below will, in all likelihood, bring you short-term traffic, and in some cases may even bring repeat visitors.  But the reasons for repeat visits will be less to do with reading your blog, and more to do with visiting your blog for purely personal gains (I’ll explain below)….

Paid For Traffic

There are a lot of companies (loose term) out there who will offer to send “10,000 laser-targeted visitors” to your blog for the princely sum of a few dollars.  Sound too good to be true?  That’s because it is. 

Whatever you do, if you’re looking for sticky blog traffic, do not pay anyone to send visitors your way.  The majority of these companies will use bots to simulate real-life visitors.  Think about it, how many companies actually have the clout to send thousands of relevant people to your blog for a few dollars?  Not many.  Avoid at all costs, keep your hard-earned cash in your pocket, or at least spend it more productively on your blog promotions.  Or give it to me….

Entrecard

Entrecard, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, is a way to advertise on other blogs by way of an Entrecard widget.  By ‘dropping’ on other peoples blogs, you gain credits which you can then use to advertise on other blogs.

I have an Entrecard widget on my blog, as I’ve just started to experiment with ways in which to best utilise this medium.  My experience so far, though, indicates that although the use of Entrecard is driving traffic to my blog, the only reason people are visiting (in the vast majority of cases) is to drop their card on my blog to earn credits.  This is reflected in my bounce rate (which has shot up) and the average time spent on my site (which has plummeted) since I installed the Entrecard widget.

I’m not overly concerned with the fact that the people who are visiting my blog aren’t ‘sticky’.  What I am trying to do is gain some exposure for my blog as it is still in its infancy.  Entrecard enables me to do this without any outlay or too much exertion on my part.  I’ve been dropping my card on around a hundred other blogs a day (on average) and this sends around 50 or so different people to my blog every day.  Even if most of those visitors are only coming here to drop their card, there’s a chance that one or two people may actually read the content of my blog and (hopefully) like it enough that they want to come back again.

For pure blog exposure regardless of the type of reader, Entrecard may be classed as a useful tool.  But if you’re only looking for sticky blog traffic, using Entrecard may the least efficient way to go about it.

Digg / StumbleUpon / Other Social Media Sites

A controversial entry, but in my opinion these social media tools (among others) have little merit for gaining sticky blog traffic.  Gaining steady blog traffic should revolve around great content blog-wide.  Places like Digg and StumbleUpon promote great articles / posts / pictures, and not entire sites.

Now and again, it’s a good idea to submit your best articles / blog posts to social media sites like the two mentioned, because if they really are of high-quality, then you may get a lot of visitors to your blog.  But the likely scenario is that once this traffic has been and gone, you’ll have trouble getting them back to your blog again.

By their very nature, sites like Digg and StumbleUpon allow users to quickly surf the best of the web, as nominated by their peers.  Users are most likely to jump from post to post / article to article / site to site without much thought for your blog.  You may write a fantastic pillar article, and it may attract a brief flurry of visitors, but after that, your traffic levels will, in all likelihood, level out again, and I’m sure that you won’t have gained any sticky blog traffic from the sudden traffic surge.  Though it sure is fun when your traffic stats for the day take a massive jump….

The three different sections listed above may, at some point, send short-term traffic to your blog.  And in the case of the social media sites, you may experience a large daily jump in unique visitors.

But overall, if you are looking to focus on gaining sticky blog traffic for your blog, then it’s probably best if these areas of blog promotion are avoided.  If you’re looking for tips to help you gain more sticky blog traffic, then here are my best sources for sticky blog traffic.

Related blog post(s):

Sticky Blog Traffic - An Introduction
The Best Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic

In my opinion, there are not too many ways to get sticky blog traffic, but once you achieve these you’ll be well on your way to blogging success. Here are the best ways to get sticky blog traffic to your blog:

Search Engine Traffic

Getting search engine traffic to your blog is the number one way to gain a repeat audience. If someone is looking for information within your niche and they find you through the search engines, you have a fantastic opportunity to convert that reader into a repeat visitor. By providing great information within a certain topic for your potential readers, you can ‘showcase’ your ability to engage your readers while at the same time answer their original question.

This highlights the importance of on-page SEO for each of your blog posts, i.e. making sure your keywords for a particular post are relevant and optimally placed. You want your potential audience to find you in the search engines for the phrase your post is tailored for. In this way, you can be sure that your post will be relevant to your readers.

Blog Commenting

Commenting on other blogs can also be a good way to gain a relevant and recurring audience for your own blog. By commenting on other blogs which compliment your own, you have a chance to ‘tap in’ to that particular blogs audience. If someone clicks through to your blog via a comment you left on another blog, there’s a good chance that they are interested in your blog niche.

By leaving thoughtful comments which expand on the original authors article, you’ll have a better chance of his / her readers clicking on the link to your own blog. If I’m reading comments on other blogs, I’m more likely to click on their link back to their own blog if I find the comment informative / interesting / controversial, or all three!

Forum Traffic

I spoke about this method in one of my previous posts. Joining a forum which is relevant to your niche, and participating on a regular basis, can bring a steady flow of sticky traffic to your blog.

The same rule applies here as commenting on other blogs, i.e. be helpful, informative, make your forum posts fun to read and be controversial now and again! This will ensure that you’ll get click-throughs to your own blog through your signature link. And the people who click through will already be interested in your blogs niche, which increases the chances of gaining repeat visitors.

The three methods outlined above are the best sources for gaining long-term, relevant, sticky blog traffic to your own blog.

These three all have one thing in common: whenever potential sticky blog traffic arrives at your blog through these sources, you can pretty much guarantee that they are already interested in your niche. All you have to do to convince them to return in future is to provide great content. Simple!!

Related blog post(s):

Sticky Blog Traffic - An Introduction
The Worst Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic

I said in a previous blog post that I’d rather have one person visit my blog a hundred times, than a hundred people visit my blog once.  If someone keeps on returning to my blog, then I’ve achieved one of my goals for this blog, which is to provide valuable content for my readers on a continuous basis.

So for me, sticky blog traffic is the holy grail, because my ideal scenario for this blog is for people to:

1 - Arrive at my blog (through various different avenues);

2 - Enjoy reading my posts;

3 - Comment on my blog posts (this one’s optional!), and;

3 - Remember my blog, and return in future for more information.

Of course, getting sticky blog traffic is one of the hardest things to achieve.  Only a few percent of blogs on the internet have managed to gain high numbers of sticky traffic.  All of the top bloggers have reached this milestone, I’m sure you’re like me and have favourite blogs you keep on returning to, as their content is both fresh and enjoyable to read.  This, for me, is the factor which makes these blogs successful.

This has been a short introduction to sticky blog traffic, and my perception of what it actually is.  In my next three posts, I’m going to look at the different ways to get traffic to your blog, and explain how different types of blog traffic have differing levels of ’stickiness’.

Related blog post(s):

The Best Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic
The Worst Sources For Sticky Blog Traffic

So I’ve installed the Wordpress plug-in Akismet, which automatically detects and deletes spam comments.  Akismet holds a database of known spammers, and when spam comments are posted to your blog posts, Akismet deletes them.  If you look to the right hand side of this blog post, you’ll see the Akismet widget which shows the number of spam comments deleted so far.  At the time of writing, Akismet has deleted 79 spam comments, and that’s over less than 24 hours.

This is a great time-saver for me, as I no longer need to worry about deleting spam comments every time I log in.  One or two spam comments I can handle, but over 50 a day?  Give me a break.

If you’re using Wordpress as your blogging platform, then go to the Wordpress Plugins page, type in Akismet in the search field and download it to your desktop.  Upload to Wordpress, activate it in your control panel, and you’re good to go!

Before you can use Akismet, you need to have a Wordpress API key in order to activate it.  I didn’t have an API key, but they are easy to obtain, just register with Wordpress.com (with or without the blog option) and your API key will be there waiting for you when you log in to your Wordpress.com control panel.  Copy the API key, and paste it into the box when activating Akismet.

As an interesting aside, the vast majority of spam comments have originated from only 2 or 3 different sources.  That’s an average of around 25 comments per spammer per day!  I’d hate to think how many spam comments would try to wing their way onto my blog if they were coming from 10, 20 or more different sources!  Scary!!  So I’d definitely recommend Akismet as a reliable way to stop spam comments being posted on your blog.

Related blog post(s):

How To Use Meta Tags With Wordpress
Made The Switch To Wordpress!

“How many blog posts do you need before you start to see regular traffic?“

This is an area that I’m interested in hearing peoples different opinions and experiences.  My blog currently has between 50 and 60 blog posts, and I’ve read in various places that in order gain traction for your blog, you need to have around 100 or more blog posts.  By the time you’ve reached this level of blog posts, you will most likely have:

• A good number of incoming links;
• Optimized your blog posts for the search engines;
• Been spidered by the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo and MSN), hence;
• High positions in the search engines for at least a few of your blog post keywords.

There’s another (slightly different) school of thought that says you can gain regular traffic to a blog with as little as a dozen or so blog posts, but those posts would have to be of a really high standard for this to happen.

It’s only in the last week or so that I’ve noticed a jump in the number of people who visit my blog.  This is due to many factors, including the points outlined above, as well as a few of my posts getting Stumbled by other readers.  This may only be a temporary traffic spike, but at the very least my blog is gaining some much-needed exposure.  I’m fairly confident that my traffic levels will settle somewhere above my previous daily figures.  It’s a great feeling to know that my efforts are appreciated by others!

I’d like to think that by the time I reach the magical milestone of 100 blog posts, I’ll have a steady stream (or trickle!) of traffic converging on my blog.  All I can do to make that happen is to carry on writing fresh content, and continue with my promotional efforts (whether internal or external).

So I’d like to open the floor to you, my dear reader, and ask you to provide a little insight into the question I have asked.  Whether it’s your opinion on how many blog posts it takes, or it’s your experience with your own blog, I’d love to hear from you!  So please leave a comment below, I’d love to hear about your own experiences and perceptions!

The advantages of using forums as a means of blog promotion include exposure for your blog, the chance to add your signature to each forum comment you make (backlinks), as well as getting your name ‘out there’ within your field of interest.

However, these promotional advantages for your blog will not bear much fruit unless you concentrate on building forum trust.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen people comment on forums with the sole intention of whoring their blog or website, without any input to the threads within the forum.  If you really want to harness the power of forums as a promotional tool for your blog, here are 5 things you must do:

Provide Genuine Input To Forum Threads

Forums are a great place to pick up a lot of knowledge within your niche.  But if you see a thread where someone is asking a question you can answer, then go ahead and give a great answer!  Take your time to fully understand the question asked, and provide a detailed response.  This is a great way to gain kudos within the forum community.  If you can help anyone out with a query, then they will be more likely to click on your signature which points towards your blog.

Be Courteous To Others

Forums can sometimes attract the type of people who revel in an argumentative environment, and some folk will go out of their way to be nasty.  If this ever happens to you, rise above it and always post in a courteous manner.  Believe me, you’ll get more respect from the decent forum members (who will make up the majority of the forum community) who are reading your comments if you don’t rise to the bait.

Before Asking A Question, Check If You’re The First

If you have a question about anything related to your niche, check to see if someone has already asked the same question in the recent past.  There’s a good chance that your question has already been answered in a past thread.  Have a quick look over recent thread headings before asking, as some forum members will not enjoy having to answer the same questions over and over again.  It also makes you look kinda stupid if you start a thread along the lines of ”How Do I Use Meta Tags?”, only to find that someone has asked the same question (which has already been answered) half an hour ago!!

Give Thanks To Your Fellow Forum Members

A lot of forums have a system in place whereby other members can give you ‘reputation’ points based on the quality of your posts.  Digital Point uses this system, and it certainly encourages me to become more helpful.  If someone helps you out in a forum (whether directly or indirectly) it’s a good idea to give them reputation points.  Acknowledging someone elses forum post quality is a good way of giving thanks, and the goodwill gesture on your behalf will be well received.  This also encourages a better community spirit within the forum.

Building A Forum Reputation Takes Time

This is probably the hardest thing to be aware of (it is for me, I expect everyone to bow down to my greatness immediately…) but it’s a valid point.  Building your forum trust and reputation will not happen overnight, it takes time for you to become an established and well regarded forum member.  I’m sure that everyone in a forum give someone more respect if they have hundreds (or thousands) of previous forum posts.  The more informative, helpful and engaging posts you make, the higher your stock will rise within the forum.

Building forum trust does take a little bit of time, but will eventually lead to more visits to your blog through your signature link.  By being helpful to others, you’re raising the profile of both yourself and your blog.

Related blog post(s):

Digital Point Forums - A Great Blogging Resource