Buying Advertising: The average person can’t afford to buy a massive advertising campaign, but there are a few options that people can afford even on budget.

If you buy banner ads keep in mind that your click-through rate is probably going to be around 1%. That means a million banner ads will probably only bring 10,000 people to your web site. Some have had best success with pop-under ads (on Ebay you can get about 100k of those for around $25). Although they may be annoying, they are also effective. We strongly recommend that you stay away from any type of spamming however. The headaches it’ll cause for you probably aren’t going to be worth the traffic it brings in.

Link Trades: To trade links, you simply find a web page you like, acquire their email address and then email the author of the page asking them if they’d like to trade links. This is an excellent way to increase your traffic because not only will you get more traffic from the link, but it will make the people you link more likely to link things off of your page.

Linking Other Pages: Linking other websites will help you get bigger. That’s because it increases the value of your page to your readers by giving them more content than you alone can provide and because it will get YOU linked. Furthermore, most webmasters check their statistics regularly and if they see a link from a new place they go to check it out and see what was linked. That gets your blog in front of people who are in a position to send you traffic.

Promotional Emails & Link Submittal: Look for pages that link the type of information you have on your page and shoot them an email or submit a link (if they have a way to do that) telling them about articles of interest on your page. As a general rules of thumb you might want to keep the number of promotional emails to two or less per week and you’ll want to make sure the articles you’re promoting are exceptional. Sending people links to mediocre posts is going to annoy them and cause them to tune your emails out.

Search Engines: The only two search engines you can ever get a significant amount of traffic from are Google and Yahoo and both of these Search Engines will find your page even if you do nothing. There are services out there (some are free, some aren’t) that will let you submit your page to various search services but, some are considered to be of dubious value. We would certainly recommend against paying for any service related to search engines.

Top Referrers: Every go to your blog’s statistics tracker, count up top referrers for the previous week, and post the list on your front page. This would help your page to grow and we do believe this will inspire other people to link your main page in order to get that reciprocal link. This is an idea that We strongly recommend because we genuinely believe it can help you grow.

As one of the top fifty affiliate networks in Website Magazine, Logical Media has reached a standard of customer service that many affiliate sites are simply unable to attain. Through the use of excellent placed ads, customer service and daily updates throughout the ads which are placed on the website, there are many reasons that you should consider Logical Media for marketing that can begin to earn you money from the moment you begin using the program.

With the added incentive that bloggers are equipped with, to earn twenty five dollars for signing up for the service, the blogger can begin to make money right away. With many other services, it seems that you are waiting weeks and even months for money to accrue within the account. However, with the instant twenty five dollars, just for signing up – you can begin to see an immediate profit!

With an easy to set-up and user-friendly interface, you can be up and running within a matter of minutes. Through the information which is provided and targeted keywords, ads will be developed that will be suited to your blog, your readers and your genre.

There are many other services which are offered to bloggers, in addition to the paid ad placement that can be taken advantage of throughout the blog. Through the use of valuable referral programs, in which the referrer can earn up to five percent through each referral and the real-time reports which the blogger will have access to, there are many ways that the blogger can learn to better the site – All while getting paid!

There are very few other paid ad placement companies that offer a high sign-up bonus. With the twenty five dollars that is offered to new customers you can begin to see your account move upward, through each click which is made on the ads placed within the blog. Are you seeking a program that enables you to track these movements in real time, while making real money? If this is the kind of program that you think would work for you, consider Logical Media, as the services offered are one of the many reasons more bloggers are choosing the company.

When it is time to get paid, bloggers always get paid on time, and the right amount. Through the use of intricate bookkeeping, bloggers are kept happy with accurate payments, regular payments and a variety of methods which are used to complete payments to bloggers that have signed up for the program. A reliable way to monetize your blog, more and more bloggers are choosing Logical Media.

If you are not convinced, or you cannot see exactly how Twitter can help you gain a wider readership, just take a look at TechCrunch’s example. TechCrunch is already a big name – they must be doing something right, huh? They recently published an article on how Twitter is sending some big time traffic their way. Erick Schonfeld shares:

Over the past few months, TechCrunch has experienced the power of this micro-media firsthand as the percentage of traffic we get from Twitter has grown to the point that it is now our second largest source of outside traffic after Google. In the past 30 days, Twitter accounted for 9.7 percent of all traffic to Techcrunch.com, up from 1.8 percent six months ago. This is out of millions of visits.

And how exactly can you use Twitter to give your blog exposure and get traffic? By tweeting links that point to specific posts;

Twitter is not just about micro-media. The most powerful Tweets are those which point elsewhere. Or to put it another way, the shortened link may just be the most powerful type of micro-media there is. Those retweeted links are turning Twitter into a social broadcast media that rivals any other on the Web.

Maybe you should start putting those retweet buttons. I am certainly going to look into this myself.

Dump a lot of content at the get go.
NEVER ever launch a blog with a single post. Come to think of it, when you do launch your blog, make sure that you have at least 5 posts to offer. And make sure that these posts offer killer content. Give it all that you’ve got and make your visitors keep clamoring for more.

Do not underestimate your About Page.
If there is a single “post” that you should spend the most time on before launching your blog, make it your About Page. Spend a day or more on it if you have to. Make sure that you provide your readers a good insight on who you are, what your background is, and what you are planning on offering them through your blog. Be as descriptive as you wish, as comprehensive as you can.

Work behind the scenes prior to the launch.
Build up anticipation. Make your presence felt in other blogs and web sites. Create some buzz about your new blog. Give teasers and promote your blog by leaving comments. Try guest posting if you find the chance. Do all this before you launch your new blog in order to have people already waiting for the launch.

I am sure that I am not the only one who feels this way but then again, I am also pretty sure that there are a lot of people who disagree. After all, didn’t John Chow and Jeremy Shoemoney – both blog royalty in their own right – use pop-ups to increase their newsletter subscriptions? Let me correct myself – they are using pop-ups to promote their newsletters. So there must be something right about using pop-ups for your site…

Well for those like me who have an aversion to pop-ups, here is what John Chow said about using pop-ups to the advantage of both the blogger AND the reader:

Adding a Lightbox newsletter sign up box is pretty straight forward. I’ve made a screen cast on how to do it. So far, I’ve gotten a few comments about the sign up form but no real complaints because I set the Lightbox to display only once per visitor. In other words, if you’ve been shown the Lightbox, you’ll never see it again unless you delete your cookies.

I set the Lightbox to display only once per visitor – that right there is the key, I believe. Perhaps I will consider using this in the near future. What about you?

Naturally, when people receive an email from this person, they would see the link at the bottom and more often than not, they would be tempted to click on the link to see what it is all about. I am sure that you have encountered such tactics yourself – if it’s not a blog URL then perhaps another web site.

The question in my mind is whether or not this is an effective way of promoting your blog. On the one hand, it does create more exposure for your blog. This is especially true if you send emails to a lot of people. On the other hand, it is not a guarantee that all the people you send emails to would actually click on your link.

Then again, this is basically the same situation when you use other ways of promoting your blog. You can provide the link and whatever information you deem necessary but you are not always guaranteed that people will click on the link to actually visit your blog.

How about you, what do you think of including your blog link in your email signature? Is this an effective means of promoting your blog?

I was reading up on social networks and their implications in blogging. The best thing that I can see here is exposure. More often than not, when one starts a blog, he wants as many people as possible to see and read his blog. I have to admit that there are some who blog for themselves alone but that breed is far and few in between these days. So anyway, if you want to reach out to as many people as possible, using social networks is one of the best ways to do this.

In what way can you use a social network to promote your blog? Let us focus on one – say Facebook. If you have a lot of contacts on Facebook, you can share links in your status message or profile. You can change these links as often as you want to. I think that one good way would be to post a link to an excellent post every now and then. This way, your friends will not be bombarded by links all the time. Each time you post a link, they can be sure to be in for an excellent read. As for you, you would get more visits.

So what social network do you use? Why not promote your blog in it?

Comment all you want.
Commenting is an often discussed topic. We have had so many posts on this, actually. Just remember that when you aim to network for your niche blog, make sure that you target the good blogs within your niche. Also make sure that comment regularly – daily if you can. However, note that your comments should be full of substance and is not akin to spam.

Be informed.
You can comment all you want but it would be more substantial if you know what you are talking about. Stay abreast of the latest developments and happenings in your niche. You can use this information not only in your own posts but when you comment as well. You can do so by reading pertinent publications – both offline and online.

More tips in the next post.

1. Sit down and decide the image you wish you wish to portray – More than just deciding you should put your thoughts to paper so that you can easily look back to determine if you are sticking to the brand’s purpose and goals.

2. Plot your course to attain a solid brand – Before you plot your course note that you need to know your destination. To know your destination refer to #1. Your brand’s goals and purpose will determine the appropriate ways to build your brand. Though I will outline somethings you can do to reinforce branding note that there are times when you can mix together methods and times when you can only use them one at a time. This is where plotting your course/timing will be needed. You don’t want to move to slowly and waste time in brand building but you also don’t want to come on too strong and put off new (even old) readers.

3. Start at once – As soon as you’ve made the important decisions and plotted your course start building your brand. If you keep on putting things off there’s a chance that your blog might develop it’s own reputation without any real conscious effort on your part to build that brand. This is good if you end up with the rep you want but could also end up giving you a rep that is somewhat different (in a bad way) from what you intend to build.

4. Stick to the brand – Again consistency is the key. Just because you don’t see results at once doesn’t mean that you should panic and rewrite your brand goals, strategy, etc. Changing tactics again and again is a sure way to NOT get regular/loyal readers.

So how often should you strive to get come up with a post worthy of the front pages? How often should you churn out linkbait?

According to Randfish only one in twenty to forty posts can be linkbait. That means if you post everyday (not counting weekends…give yourself time to rest!!) you can probably come up with about one great post about once a month or very two months. This doesn’t automatically mean that you WILL get a post in the front page of Digg once a month but that you can at least strive to build up at least one post to achieve this goal. Of course it will be harder for blogs and bloggers with no reputation yet to do this but at least you won’t end up busting your brains pushing yourself each and everyday to come up with great link bait.

So what should you do in between “linkbait” posts?

1. Start thinking/conceptualizing the next innovative linkbait.
2. Keep on writing good solid posts.
3. Spend time on other link building/SEO efforts.