If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Advertising to draw visitors to your blog need not be expensive. In fact the authors of Becoming a Better Blogger say that you can get a sizable amount of traffic by spending just $5.

Buy a $5 StumbleUpon advertising campaign for your best post. $5 buys roughly 300 visitors. If some of those StumbleUpon visitors end up adding more votes to your article, the result could be a traffic snowball much larger than the one you paid for!

More on BABB Day 24 - Mini Advertising Campaign

The month of March is flying by. Here it is, day 23 of the Becoming a Better Blogger project. I feel that my blog is in much better shape and I have a much clearer to do list of things to finish. Today’s task is about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, for your blog.

Do some SEO on your blog. SEO can be tricky, but if you know a little bit about it, set aside a day to revise and tweak your blog’s SEO.

More on BABB Day 23 - SEO

Day 22 of Becoming a Better Blogger talks about a great way to add fresh content to your blog while possible bringing in new readers as well:

Ask someone to guest-post on your own blog. If you’re friendly with another blogger, invite them to write on your own blog. If your blog is more popular than theirs you’ll have a better chance of being accepted. A guest-poster can inject a bit of freshness into your blog and, most importantly, allow you to focus on tasks other than content creation for a day.

More on BABB Day 22 - Find a Guest Blogger

Statistics can be a useful tool and one that should never be overlooked. The authors of 31 Days to Becoming a Better Blogger agree:

Day 21. Sit down and analyze your stats for the last month. Statistics can tell you a lot about what worked and what didn’t. Analyzing stats over an extended period can reveal visitor trends, popular posts and which of the promotional activities you undertook were worth doing.

More on BABB Day 21 - Analyze Your Stats

From the Becoming a Better Blogger Series:

Create strong, alpha-neumeric passwords for all your accounts. If any of your blogging related passwords are single, Dictionary words or letters only, it would be quite easy for a determined hacker to break into one of your accounts. Set aside this day to strengthen your passwords by using combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation that exceed 8 characters in length. Make sure to keep your new passwords written down somewhere in a safe place (and write them down carefully).

More on BABB Day 20 - Create Strong Passwords

Keeping your blog software up to date is a very important thing. The authors of Becoming a Better Blogger say this is very important to keep hackers out and to make sure there are no bugs in the software. This can seem like a very scary task and one that people may put off for too long. If your webhost offers Fantistico in your Cpanel, then upgrading your Wordpress software can be a piece of cake. I just upgraded mine this morning by clicking one button. Visit the provider of your blogging software to see if they have any directions for upgrading or you may want to hire it out to someone if you feel it is not a do it yourself type job.

Most people blog in the hopes that someone out there is reading and finding their posts helpful and entertaining. It is important to reach out to those readers and tell them Thank you. It can be a simple as two words or a bit more complex by offering a thank you gift. Gifts could include a free report or offering a free service. Here are some other great thank you ideas.

Today I say Thank you to my readers. I hope to have something bigger planned for you in the future.

Today’s task for Becoming a Better Blogger is to brainstorm 20 ideas for future blog posts. That way you will have a list of topics to write about to work from. They even offer 52 post ideas if you don’t have the time to brainstorm. This would also be a great time to come up with a series of ideas on topic for your blog.

Like the old adage “never place all of your eggs in one basket” you should never rely on one income stream when working from home. What works this week may not next and a program that is paying out today may not tomorrow. Today’s task is about adding another stream of income to your blog. There are a few ways to do this. You could add another form of advertising to your blog, you could start selling something of your own on your blog, or you could do product reviews for items with affiliate programs.

I have been hesitant to add Google Adsense to my blog, but I think I will do so today and see how it does. Another important part of adding a new stream of income is to test and track how your current income stream is doing and make changes. Don’t keep something up if it is not working for you. It will just make your blog cluttered and hard to use.

Becoming a Better Blogger on Day 15 suggests that you should write a 10-page report or ebook and distribute it for free to your feed readers. This can be a great way to get people to subscribe to your feed. It would also work as a free giveaway when people sign up for your newsletter. The report should be on the same topic as your blog. It should also be informational and not packed with affiliate links. It should be something that has the potential to be passed around the web bringing people back to your blog.