I’ve worked pretty much full time on this site for just over two years. In addition to that, I’ve also worked for an ecommerce company, a web development training company and done a lot of small freelance web gigs. In that time, I’ve become fairly proficient at not only putting together websites, but more importantly, getting people to come to them. And I know how to do it on a shoe-string budget – or even on no budget.

Though it’s not strictly related to the field of “Pop Occulture” I thought it would be worthwhile to put together some of the techniques I’ve used in the past for people who are either new to this kind of thinking, or want to enhance what they’re already doing. I’d also like to get new suggestions from readers, as far as techniques or online resources go. So if you’ve done anything that’s worked, or know a good place to learn more, please add it into the comments in this post.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my 21 Tips (not in any particular order):

1. Start a blog

This one’s easy: blogs are popular. Personally, I spend as much or more time reading blogs than I do mainstream media sources. Why? Because I have a collection of bloggers who I know and trust to publish good information and useful commentary. Good bloggers help you focus your internet time so that you get the most out of it. They find things that you’ll like so you don’t have to find them yourself. And once you start writing a blog, that’s a simple rule of thumb to operate according to. Find things people want to read, but might not find on their own.

From a traffic and search ranking perspective, there’s nothing better you could do (that I know of) than starting a blog. Search engines are still better at indexing text content than anything else. So if you want to be at the top of search results, then you’ve got to produce lots of quality text.

2.Publish every day

As a blogger, you want to publish at least one item each and every day. This establishes a pattern which search engines will recognize and will begin visiting you on a regular basis for fresh content. It doesn’t need to be super-long - a few paragraphs will suffice. At least 500 words is a good amount to shoot for. Personally, I post on average about 5 separate items a day, when my schedule allows. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

3. Be predictable and reliable

Being predictable in your publishing schedule isn’t just good for search engines either. It’s also good for developing loyal readers. If they know that you’re going to post X number of things at a particular time of day, they will come back regularly and look for it. Once you get into that pattern, it’s important to maintain it to a degree in order to keep up your readership. You don’t need to be obsessive about it or anything, but if you go a week without publishing anything, with no explanation as to why or when you’ll be back to your regular schedule, you will lose readers. Nobody wants to go to a site over and over again and be disappointed that there’s nothing new there.

Maybe this goes without saying, but also have a reliable quality of information. That is, it’s better to be focused and consistent than to be all over the map. By all means, always post new things, but try to keep a consistent theme, style or approach. Too much bouncing around may alienate segments of your audience who like your stuff for a particular reason.

4. For You Or For Them?

That said, you need to decide early on whether you’re writing for yourself or for an audience. If you’re writing for yourself, why do you feel like you need to share it with other people? How much feedback do you really want? Are your feelings going to be hurt if people don’t like your work? If you’re writing for an audience, what’s your goal? Are you trying to become a better writer? Are you trying to get feedback? Are you trying to make money or promote a business? Are you trying to develop a name for yourself and a big audience?

In my experience as a blogger and reader of blogs, this is one of the biggest issues I see people get hung up on - especially in the early stages. People will start blogs and will suddenly undergo a crisis because either they realize they don’t always like reader feedback or they don’t quite know what they’re doing and why. Some of these issues you can only work out by actually just blogging through them and see what happens. Sometimes though, you might want to just sit down by yourself and figure out your goals and expectations out of all this. Then you’ll be able to mentally & emotionally free yourself up to increase your traffic and search rankings.

5. Invest In Your Own Domain

Having your own domain name simply makes you look more professional. It just makes you look more serious than somebody who is using a Blogspot.com address. And it’s not that expensive either. You can find places that will give you domain name registration and hosting for well under fifty bucks, sometimes closer to $10. I use a company called Doteasy myself. Been using them for a few years, and have hosted several sites with them. The reason I like them is because their customer service is awesome. They have a really great email system with fast response, and very thorough explanations, and no tricks.

I’ve experimented with various super-cheap hosting companies over the years, and I always end up getting screwed by them. Usually they are automated to such a degree that it’s next to impossible to get a real person to help you. And you’ll very frequently get screwed over by their contracts if you’re not careful. For example, I bought one a while back with an Australian company that I didn’t realize charges me fifty bucks to terminate my contract with them! Pain in the ass! So be careful who you sign up with. Cheaper is not always better - especially if you’re new to this.

6. Customize your template

Does your blog look exactly like a million other blogs? If it does, you may be broadcasting subconsciously that your content is also totally generic. Now, you don’t need to create a template from scratch, nor do you necessarily need to spend hours learning HTML & CSS (although that never hurt anybody!). But do whatever you can to make your blog somehow visually unique. Also remember that your template and visual presentation essentially craft a sort of “identity” for your writing. It’s not going to totally override your content, but it will subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) influence how people perceive and remember your work. So put some time into it.

7. Use Wordpress

Yes, I know Blogger is free. And I know LiveJournal appeals to certain people (for god only knows what reason), but simply put WordPress is better. Especially if you’re in this for the long haul. TypePad offers a lot of similar features, sure, but it also costs money. The WordPress software itself is free. And even better than that, it’s open source. This means there is an absolutely rabid community of very knowledgeable users who you can go to for help. They also offer free plugins, themes and other customizations. It’s really awesome, and I think it’s a great way to learn more about web development and how web applications work (assuming that appeals to you).

If you set up WordPress though, you’re going to need a server with MySQL and PHP. But, since you already bought your own domain name, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Again, you can find a really cheap host for these services, but I use and heartily recommend Doteasy. They have a few different options under a hundred dollars which should work out just fine. Of course, you may find a host that works better for you.

8. Make Good Categories

WordPress also kicks Bloggers ass a million times over by the simple addition of the ability to categorize posts. You’ve probably seen my post categories here. They are a handy way to navigate through to articles that are related topically. Categories are also cool because they create a permament URL to send to people. For example, if you want to read every interview I’ve ever published on my site, they’re all automatically collected here.

9. Enable post pages

If you do end up using Blogger because you’re either a cheapskate or a newbie, then for the love of god, do yourself a favor and go into your Settings > Archiving and set “Enable Post Pages” equal to yes. What this does is it turns every post you create into its own separate HTML page (WordPress does something similar and better automatically). The reason this is important is that it enables you to zero in quickly on a particular piece of information, if people are linking to your site.

An example of a site that doesn’t seem to have post pages enabled is the conspiracy news site, Cryptogon. They have great content, but if I want to create a link from my blog to a post on theirs, I have to use a horrendous URL that looks like this: cryptogon.com/2004_09_12_blogarchive.html#109530095404249824. The pound (#) sign in the middle indicates an HTML target. This is a way of directing a link to a specific part of a page. (You’ll see it used in FAQ’s all the time). What this means for us web browsers though is that if you click on that link, you’ll have to go and wait for any number of chronological posts to load, while its loading up your specifically targeted post. With post pages enabled (or just using WordPress), you’ll be able to have a nice neat permanent link to the individual posts you want. I think this is critical for encouraging people to spread links to your work.

10. Use Search-Friendly URL’s

When you first install WordPress and publish a post, your URL’s will look something like this: http://www.timboucher.com/journal/?p=932. The part with a question mark and numbers is called a querystring. You use it in web programming. It’s fine, but WordPress allows us a simple feature to make it even better. Go to your dashboard: Options > Permalink. It gives you some examples of how to set up WordPress to use search-friendly URL’s. What this means is that if your URL has some actual text in it which reflects the content of the page, you’re likely to get a better ranking. Remember the URL I just posted above? This is what it looks like when I enable this feature:

http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/10/27/baby-prisons/

See, it contains the title of the post, which itself contains important keywords (which we’ll talk about in a moment). I personally just recommend using the default permalink structure they recommend: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/. You could change it around if you want, but be careful that you don’t accidentally introduce the possibility of duplicate entries with the same URL. One of my favorite websites, Fantastic Planet, actually has a link structure which could illustrate the potential danger here. The URL for one of Jeremy’s posts is:

http://www.snant.com/fp/archives/gnostic-map/

This means his permalink structure probably looks like /archives/%postname%/. This is fine unless in the future he happens to title another post “Gnostic Maps”. I’d have to look up how WordPress handles this conflict, then there’s a danger of having two posts with the same URL. Introducing date information into your permalink structure decreases your chances of doing this - since it’s much less likely you’ll name two posts the same thing in the same day.

11. Write Keyword-Rich Page Titles.

For most blogging platforms, the titles that you give to a post end up inserted into the tags in your HTML. This tag is vitally important, because it’s (1) what appears at the top of your browser window when viewing that page, and (2) generally what appears when your page is listed in search results.

When you write an article for a magazine or give a title to a book, the normal order of things is that you make up something that’s kind of clever or literary-sounding. This gives a nicer “feel” to what you’re doing and establishes a certain kind of credibility to your readers. With writing on the internet though, you have to balance this desire for cleverness with the way search engines work. Search engines don’t give a crap how clever you are. They are just algorithms designed to look for and reward keywords.

This means that certain types of keyword-rich titles are going to perform tremendously better than others. For example, say you’re blogging a review of a book. I often see people use titles like “Best Book Ever!” Now, this might reflect how you feel about the book, or perhaps influence your readers’ opinions, but it doesn’t do much of anything for a search engine. A more effective title in this case would simply be to give the name of your book, along with the author and the word “review” somewhere in it: “A Review of the Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram.” This way, the search engines know what book you’re talking about, and the author, and understand that it’s a review of that book.

People searching for books by that author and reviews will also eventually stumble across your review. Remember, that the more precise you can be with your keywords isn’t just good for the search engines - it’s also going to get people to click on your link when they are using the search engine. If you’re looking for a review of this particular book, are you more likely to click on a link that says “Best Book Ever” or one that says it’s a review of the book you’re looking for?

Also, with at least Blogger & WordPress (the two blogging platforms I have the most experience in), the file name that’s developed for your post typically is automatically created from the title you give to your post/page. So if you call it “Best Book Ever” then the title turns out to be “best-book-ever.html”. Certain search engines scan not only the text of a page, but also look at the actual filename of your page in their ranking of results. So if you have the keywords in your title, there’s a good chance you’ll also be rewarded for having it in your filename.

PS. If you have nothing in your tages or have only the name of your blog, without also the name of your post, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. (Zac, I’m looking at you!)

12. Use “alt” text in images.

All this talk of good naming also applies to any images that you upload and feature in your blog. If you upload a picture of a german shepherd puppy outside, then for chrissake don’t just call the file “dog.jpg”. Name it as specific as you can get: “german_shepherd_puppy_outdoors.jpg”. You’d be surprised how many hits you can get to your website from a well-named image. If you’ve ever used Google or another image search, you’ll know what I mean. Aside from good keyword-rich filenames, also make sure you insert text into the alt="" field inside your image tag. This is what controls the text that appears when you hover over an image with your mouse. Just give it a simple keyword-rich description.

13. Don’t go crazy with keywords.

Several years ago on the internet, you used to encounter pages with some normal written content, and then a huge list of keywords, separated by commas. Back before search engines were very sophisticated, this was a pretty common technique to draw in lots of extra hits. People used it so much though that more often than not, it won’t work anymore. If you just put together a page of keywords and sit back and wait for great search rankings, you’re going to wait a long long time. Search engines will weed this stuff out of their results, and may even penalize your site’s rankings in the long run. So, while you’re busy writing keyword-rich titles, filenames and image descriptions - don’t go overboard. Remember that even though you want good search ranking and the resulting traffic, at the end of the day, you’re still writing for people. And people aren’t interested in reading nonsensical strings of keywords.

14. Set up an RSS feed.

Without going into technical mumbo-jumbo, RSS is a way to syndicate your content. Take a look at one of my RSS feeds so you can see what the files look like. RSS feeds allow your website to communicate with other websites using a common language. The most common use of an RSS feed is that somebody will find your feed, and add it into a news aggregator program or web application. An aggregator collects items posted at a variety of websites and puts them into a common format and location, so that they can be read all at once, rather than going from website to website to find it all.

I know some people are going to think “Oh, but I want them to come to my site directly!” For example, if you run ads, then this may be a valid concern (although I hear there are new techniques to put adds into RSS feeds, but I won’t get into that here). There’s a way around that though: simply offer content which isn’t available in your RSS feed, which will draw people to the actual site itself. For example, on my site, I also have commenting options, an interactive forum, and other items. All of these give people an incentive to come and spend time on my actual site, rather than remotely reading via an RSS feed.

More important than that though, simply having an RSS feed ensures that you will have a much higher regular readership. An increasing number of web users only use news aggregators for blog posts and other topical or news-related web reading. If you don’t offer the service, you’re missing out on a huge potential audience.

15. Submit Your Feed

And even more important than that: if you have an RSS feed, then you can submit your RSS feed far and wide online. There are many many websites which are built entirely out of RSS feeds from various sources. You can be one of those sources. Here is an excellent listing of sites which accept RSS feeds along with submission instructions. Submit your feed to as many of these sites as appropriate. Even if nobody ends up actually reading your feed through any of these sites, it can do wonders for increasing your PageRank. PageRank is a calculation Google uses to measure the “authority” of your site. Part of what it does is analyzes how many sites link to yours. More are better, but high quality and relevant sites are even better.

16. Submit to blog directories.

Also included in that link above are several of the bigger blog directories around. Submit your site to as many of these as are appropriate, and always be sure to add your site to the relevant category as listed by that site. These sites get hundreds of submissions, and you want to do everything you can to streamline and speed up the acceptance process by following their directions.

Note: Many directories you submit your blog (or other) URL to ask for a reciprocal link (in other words a link from your site back to them). Often this is optional, and sometimes they say it’s required. It’s of course up to you whether or not you actually do it. I’m not going to advocate you ignore the terms of service of any site you use, but it’s been my experience that some never actually check, and the ones that do are usually lenient enough to allow you to add in a link back to them later on if you forgot.

Blog directories may or may not bring you much traffic to your site, but more important than that at this point is that they help you build PageRank by having sites link to you.

17. Post useful relevant comments on other people’s blogs.

We’ve all seen the annoying spam comments left by companies selling viagra, online poker and other stuff. What these marketers are trying to do is take advantage of the commenting features installed on most blogging platforms to increase their PageRank. They are trying to artificially inflate the number of sites which link back to their site, and in so doing increase the authority of their site. Often these spam attacks are automated, and depending on your platform, there are a variety of ways to combat this phenomenon.

We won’t get into those here though. The reason I bring it up though is that commenting on other people’s sites on a regular basis is a crucial means of developing your own readership and traffic. What I mean by that is if you’re writing in a particular subject area, find other people who are writing in it as well. Read what they write and engage them in useful, intelligent and heartfelt conversation about it. People always respond to that sort of thing, and it’s important to get to know what other people in your “industry” are up to. It may turn into useful partnerships in the future, or simply very strong friendships.

If nothing else, it’s a way to share ideas… and also readers. When you leave a comment on a site, most sites give you the ability to leave your own site URL. If you’ve got one, by all means add it. This way, people who are intrigued by your comments know where to go if they want to read more by you.

Just be careful not to be the equivalent of the viagra/poker comment spammers though. Just because you’re writing in the same subject matter, don’t sit there and constantly plug your own work. It’s cool if you want to leave a link or two to something relevant you wrote here and there, but it becomes extremely transparent (and generally unwelcome) when you’re obviously just out to promote yourself and your work. Again, the general rule of thumb is just engage people in interesting conversations, and the readers and relationships will follow.

18. Write about other people’s blog posts

Another great way to arouse the interest of somebody online is to write about their work. Maybe they haven’t been responding to your comments. Maybe they get so many comments they don’t notice yours. Often, you can catch somebody’s interest simply by intelligently discussing something they wrote on your own blog. Put up a link to it, of course. Sure, you’re helping them increase their PageRank by doing so - but you’re opening a public dialogue. And more than anything, people are vain. When they look at their traffic referrals and find your site, more often than not, they will come back and read what you wrote about them and their work. They may or may not admit it, but they do. If you write something which piques their interest or which they feel deserves a response, then they may even link back to you. If they’re a lot bigger blog than your’s, this could mean a big payoff in readers also.

Beware: if you use this technique to start blog-vs-blog fights, be ready to deal with the negative consequences. You might suddenly get a bunch of people reading your site. But they might simply be pissed off at you. It’s very easy to (intentionally or accidentally) bring down a swarm of regular readers from a site who will descend on your humble blog and make your life miserable for a few days.

19. Encourage feedback and conversation

If you do find yourself in the middle of a heated conversation on your site, go with it. Not only does drama sometimes increase the overall intensity of interaction for people, but it can build a lot of creative energy for new ideas and directions. I’ve seen bloggers time and again crack under the pressure of negative feedback or less than wonderful comments left by visitors. Usually, this is when people will go back to number 4 above, and re-evaluate just who it is they are writing for, and what they hope to accomplish. Many bloggers will close of shop at the first sign of danger.

This is a huge mistake. Probably one of the biggest.

If your work can weather the storm, then you will grow as a writer and you’ll only increase your audience over time. You’ll also over time learn better how to handle online arguments when they do arise in a constructive manner that’s beneficial for everybody.

The key thing to remember is that really, probably half the reason most people read any particular blog day in and day out is that it not only is interesting to read, but they have great conversations in the comments and with other readers via email, etc. This is one of the things that I think my site is a great example of. I’m constantly astounded by the depth and intelligence and honesty that comes out in the comments to my posts. Frequently, the conversations that develop in response to something I wrote turn out to be even better and more exciting than what I actually wrote. If you don’t encourage or don’t allow full user interaction, than you’ll never benefit from any of that.

20. Write great content!

Maybe this should be first on the list. But I find that it’s probably the hardest to do out of anything on this list. Being a great writer takes time, patience, and an openness to learning and growing. There’s no shortcut to it except to write all the time. Write like crazy. Write so much that you question how much time you spend writing and if it’s really even worth it or if it’s ever going to go anywhere. Once you get to that point, push ten times as hard. Write ten times as much.

And don’t forget, all that writing will pay off for search engines and content creates traffic no matter what. Don’t worry about being the greatest write when you start out. It’s a process. It’s not instant perfection. Don’t be afraid to screw up or say something stupid. Sometimes the mistakes you make along the way are what really turn you on to new possibilities and ways of approaching things.

21. Create content people need.

This post is, of course, a perfect example. Everybody who runs a website or blog needs and wants more traffic on it and wants to know how to get better search results. So figure out common needs and wants, and then figure out how you can help people achieve them. It’s a really simply formula, but it really works. Identifying needs and offering good solutions can make all the difference in the world when it comes to traffic.

Other ideas might be: write tutorials. Do you know how to do something specific really well? It may be something so simple to you that you take it for granted. Chances are, other people out there don’t. They want to learn more about it. Identify what you’re good at and what you know, and write about that. Also, is there something you’ve always wanted to know, but can’t find anything about it online? Well find out everything you can about it, and then be the first one to publish about it through your blog. Chances are, you’re not the only person who’s been wanting more information about it.

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Anyway, hopefully you found something useful here. If you know of some other good techniques that I may have missed, or want to argue with me on anything I included here, dive into the comments and let me know. Thanks!

advice, blogs, internet, search engines, tips, traffic, web