1) Everyday Experiences Can Save Your Blog

Even if your blog isn’t a personal journal, there are numerous experiences each day pertaining to your blog’s theme you can draw on. When facing those “what do I write now” moments, use those experiences to create a post. Get creative if you have too, but your blog posts will get done and likely be more interesting too!

2) Use the Search Engines (“Google It”) to Flush Ideas Out!

Why not Google or the other search engines and search the main topic of your blog? Do not just copy material from other blogs, but use there posts and ideas for inspiration. Spend some time and read blogs in your or even outside your niche and see what they’re discussing. These can serve either as inspiration for your own posts or write a response post building on what’s already in cyberspace.

3) Check the Keywords People Are Searching to Find Your Site

Almost all analytics programs report the search terms people are using to arrive at your site. Scan the keyword phrases folks are searching to find your posts. Often times the search engines provide traffic from long-tail keywords you haven’t fully discussed yet. Simply use those keywords as seeds for your next blog posts?

4) Survey Your Readers for Ideas

What better way of coming up with content that your readers will enjoy than to invite them to ask questions? Write up a quick post one day asking them what they want to know, then post a follow up a few days later with all the answers. This last method is also an excellent way to connect with your audience.

5) Head to YouTube

Some of my favorite avenues for new post ideas are the video sharing sites like YouTube and Viddler. Given the huge number of videos uploaded each hour, there is always a nice selection of related material to draw ideas and inspiration from

Using almost any of these five cures for writers block will keep the ideas flowing and posts streaming steadily to your blog.

Here is a video with the details of performing a WordPress blog transfer between hosting accounts using the Cpanel interface …

I hope you find the info useful! (Note the original two videos were updated and are now consolidated into the one video below (as of late 2010):

One of the basic puzzle pieces pertaining to building Internet traffic revolves around links (a.k.a. backlinks) and link building strategies.  But before you even have to worry about link building, you really need to understand the fundamentals of backlinks.

In order to provide access to some phenomenal insight regarding backlinks and linking strategy, a series of fives videos prepared by Allyn Hane of Blogging Illustrated is provided below.

Through this video series, Allyn masterfully weaves a path starting with the basics of backlinks and anchored links then onto links and site authority and relevance finally ending on a video discussing the perfect link!

Really great stuff (IMHO at least)!

So get ready to watch this five-part video series and grab a beverage, pull up a chair, strap-on the headphones then enjoy the show for the next 20 minutes or so …

One other suggestion … keep a notepad and pen handy, you’ll likely need them …

Allyn Discusses Link Basics

What Is Anchor Text?

Next … Links and Site Authority

What Is Site Relevance?

The Finale – Discovering A Perfect Backlink …

Thank you to Allyn Hane of Blogger Illustrated (dot net) and his Viddler site for a video series on links and link strategies that is 100% pure educational content and an absolute boon for understanding basics of search engines and building traffic …

When you combine a continual flow of value-oriented content with SEO optimized software such as WordPress, the stage is set to gain excellent page position on the search engines. Though this process often takes time to create enough content such that the search engines provide decent page rank, it can often be shortened by creating social buzz via content syndication.

The use of effective blog commenting is another tool often allowing you to add a little tidbit of valuable information to someone’s blog and draw increased traffic from the blog owner and their readers.

Does that mean you can just surf over to any related blog, make a comment and expect an instantaneous surge in traffic to your site?

Only on rare occasions!

Though there are times when you comment on a blog post generating a significant amount of comment buzz and a short-term increase may occur; these instances are somewhat rare (though cool when they happen). Most often this process takes some time, so be patient.

A few other pointers to keep in mind to help use effective blog commenting to increase traffic back to your blog include:

• Search out bloggers in your niche with a quality blog, lots of readers, a steady stream of useful content and readers comments;
• Always post an honest comment by building on the original post and previous comments and by being authentic and insightful. Never be superficial;
• Become a regular reader and comment frequently on the blog; not only on the new posts but repeat comments on posts that you already posted on to help keep the “blog’s conversation” alive (I have personally used this approach to be social and it has also delivered more visitors to my blogs);
• Always be respectful when leaving comments even when expressing a different viewpoint from the blogger or their readers; and
• Don’t fret the fact the blog may be “no-follow” (the default for WordPress for example) rather than “do-follow”. Even though you may not get the back-link credit, you still have an active link to your blog which is a direct path not just another small SEO enhancement.

Always keep in mind that blogs are another of the social media platforms and should be treated as such. When you take the time to be social while offering value oriented comments, those comments will be more effective and result in increased blog traffic over time!

If you are in need of assistance with setting up a WordPress blog or enhancing your post’s search engine page position using social buzz and content syndication, feel free to complete the contact form at the top of the page for assistance.

The basics behind the RSS feed technology involves two fundamental parts:

1. An RSS Reader (such as the Google Reader site) where content updates are posted after subscribing to your favorite sites or blogs.
2. Subscribing to the RSS feed on your favorite blog or web site assuming they are RSS enabled.

Following is a short video describing the basic reasons to be along with the process for subscribing to RSS feeds that was borrowed from Lee LeFever’s (CommonCraft) You Tube channel:

Really Simple Syndication or RSS offers your reader an great tool to monitor changes to your web site or blog and therefore increasing traffic.

Also note that some sites or blogs not only offer RSS feeds but also offer an option for subscribing via email (which this site does in the top two areas of the right sidebar). This can also be an important addition since some people (like me) prefer to receive email notifications rather than play with RSS readers.

Enhancing your blog and blog posts by adding videos is a fairly simple process once you know the steps involved.

The following video tutorial demonstrates the steps necessary to embed a video in a blog post so that anyone unfamiliar with the process can quickly start enhancing their blog posts with video:

Though this video shows the steps required in a WordPress powered blog, the same basic procedure can be used with most blogs and many other websites as well.

So the next time you happen across a video you want to blog about, don’t just write about it … add the video as well (so long as it is on a video sharing site that is!).

Embedding videos in your blog posts ends up not only enhancing the blog but can also help drive more traffic to your blog site.

The following video provides click by click instruction showing the steps required to add three text widgets (a straight text widget; a contact form widget and a banner graphic widget) to the sidebar of a “widgetized” WordPress theme.

If you are the type of person who would prefer to read about the steps to customize your WordPress blog with widgets, I have an older article on Hub Pages that also contains a link to an older version of the video provided above.

Click on the following link to access my Hub Page profile with the link to the Hub:

Jim’s Hub Pages Profile

If you found the post and video helpful, please let me know by adding your comments in the box below.

I will also be adding another WordPress-oriented post with video within the next few days showing the steps to embed the video provided above.  The video for the forthcoming post was created as this post was being readied for publication.

Subscribe to the RSS feed or fill out the contact form if you would like to be notified upon publication of the next WordPress tutorial about embedding videos in posts.