12 LinkedIn Secrets To Supercharge Your Network!

1. How to remove a connection

Want to ditch a connection? Sometimes you need to give someone the boot. Maybe it’s a colleague, a competitor, an ex, or just someone you don’t want to be associated with. Getting rid of them is easy as pie. Even better, they won’t know you’ve given them the heave-ho.

How to wield this magic?

When you’re logged into LinkedIn, Select Contacts in the main navigation bar. At the far right, you’ll see two options: Add connections and Remove connections. Click Remove connections, check the box next to the contact’s name and click OK.

2. Hide your status updates

Sometimes it makes sense to operate in stealth mode. If you’re connecting with new business prospects or making changes to your profile in preparation for job seeking, you may not want to broadcast that activity to your network.

Click the drop-down menu under your name in the top right corner of the page, then select Settings. In the profile section, click Turn on/off your activity broadcasts under Privacy Controls. Uncheck the box that appears in the pop-up window and click Save Settings. Easy as can be and now you’re flying below the radar.

One tip: Remember to turn this setting back on as soon as you’re done, otherwise, you’ll be invisible on LinkedIn and that kind of negates the whole point.

3. Privacy matter to you? Opt out of ads

There was a big brouhaha about LinkedIn and privacy a few months back when it was discovered that a default setting called “social sharing” allows LinkedIn to pair an advertiser’s message with the social content from a LinkedIn user’s network.

If you don’t want your info showing up in random ads, opt out. Click Settings under your name, then click Account. Under Privacy Controls, select Manage Advertising Preferences. If you don’t want to see ads, uncheck the box that appears in the pop-up window and click Save Settings. You can also read more about each type of advertising, if you want to learn more.

4. Get a custom URL

It’s much easier to publicize your LinkedIn profile with a customized URL, rather than the clunky combination of numbers that LinkedIn automatically assigns when you sign up. Plus, if you use a consistent name across all of your social networks (and you should), this is a great way to boost your own “brand awareness.”

Laugh if you will, but it’s an important part of networking. And when it comes to networking, do you really want anything less than a custom URL on your business card? We think not.

How to get your own custom URL? Log in. Click Profile > Edit Profile in the main nav bar. At the bottom of the gray window that shows your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.

5. Make yourself anonymous

If you’re gearing up for some serious LinkedIn stalking, whether for competitive research, new business prospecting, or job hunting, you may want to switch your profile setting to anonymous so that individuals and companies can’t tell that you’ve been looking at their profiles.

To make your profile anonymous, choose Settings > Privacy Controls > Select what others can see when you’ve viewed their profile. From there, you have three options: Display your name and headline; Display an anonymous profile with some characteristics identified such as industry and title, or totally anonymous.

Once you’re done with your sleuthing, be sure to switch your settings back— remaining anonymous on LinkedIn for a long period of time won’t do you much good when it comes to networking and lead generation.

6. Customize a link to your website

When you set up your profile, LinkedIn lets you display links to up to three URLs. And although LinkedIn provides several choices when identifying the website content to which you’re linking (personal website, company website, blog, RSS feed, etc.), it’s better to customize those. For instance, mine says: The V3 Website, The V3 Blog, Shelly Kramer’s Facebook (which is where I’d like to send people if they want to know more about me).

To customize the URLs on your LinkedIn profile, select Edit Profile from the Profile menu in the main nav bar. In the gray box that includes your photo, select Edit next to Websites. From there, choose Other from the drop-down menu. A new box will appear that lets you name the website and enter the URL. When you’re done, click Save Changes.

7. Add your blog feed

If you have a WordPress blog, we highly recommend feeding your blog into your LinkedIn profile (unless, of course, the content isn’t appropriate for a LinkedIn page.) To enable this setting, select More in the main nav bar and select Applications. From there, choose the WordPress application and enter the link to your feed. The blog will then appear in your profile and will update each time a new post is added.

Want to move where that blog application is appearing in your profile? Easy. Click Profile > Edit Profile and hover over the application title. Your cursor will change into a hand, and you can “grab” the element and move it to a different spot on the page. You can also use the BlogLink application if your blog isn’t a WordPress site.

8. Hide a recommendation

Ever get a recommendation you didn’t ask for? Or one that isn’t something you’d want to showcase on your LinkedIn profile?

If you get a recommendation that’s poorly written or is unsolicited and don’t feel comfortable reaching out to the writer and asking for some revisions, no biggie. You can easily hide the recommendation. Select Profile > Edit Profile and go to the position with which the recommendation is associated. Click Manage. Uncheck the box next to the recommendation that you want to hide, and click Save Changes.

9. Add to your connection base

Duh. (Sorry, that just slipped out). A social networking site doesn’t do you much good if you don’t focus on building a network and adding to your connection base.

If you’ve mined your email contacts for possible connections and have exhausted LinkedIn’s People You Should Know recommendations, there’s an easy way to expand your network—stalking. Yeah, I said stalking.

Simply go to a friend or colleague’s profile and click Connections in the main profile box. From there, you’ll see an alphabetized list of connections, and before long you’ll probably be saying to yourself: “Oh, I know her. And him. And I can’t believe I’m not connected to that guy.” And you can quickly and easily send invitations to connect.

For me, this is one of the easiest ways to build LinkedIn connections—and candidly, I also get a little thrill out of stalking.

One last reminder: Don’t forget to customize the invitation before you send it. Nothing’s worse than getting the default, “I’d like to add you to my connections,” email for telling someone “you’re so unimportant to me that I can’t take the 20 seconds it would require to send you a personal note.” Just. Don’t. Do. It.

10. Block connections and group activities from competitors

If you’re using LinkedIn for new business development (or job seeking), it’s probably a good idea to slip into stealth mode again when you’re focused on this kind of work. In some cases, it makes sense that you’ll want to keep competitors (or current employers, if you’re job hunting) from seeing your new connections and group activity.

It’s easy to do. Select Settings > Account > Customize the updates you see on your homepage. In the pop-up window under General, uncheck the box that says New Connections in your network. Scroll down and, under Groups, uncheck the box next to Groups your connections have joined or created. Click Save Changes and you’re set.

11. Get LinkedIn updates in an RSS feed

Want an easy button when it comes to LinkedIn Updates? If so, you can add LinkedIn updates to your feed reader. This is especially good when you’re focused on new business development. And when doing this, you can choose from the public feed and your personal feed, which contains private information from your network.

To add a feed to your reader, go to LinkedIn’s RSS feeds page. You can turn on the feed for network updates and add it to your reader using one of the reader buttons or by copying the link. Additionally, you can add an RSS feed of a LinkedIn Answers category, a great way to stay up-to-date on discussion about a particular industry or subject.

Before you add a personal feed to your reader, be warned that some Web-based readers will publish your feed URLs, meaning that information could show up in search results. If you want to avoid that disclosure, make sure your feed reader guarantees that your feeds are kept private (sorry, Google Reader fans).

12. Beef up your experience with projects

This is a relatively new LinkedIn feature and it is über cool!. You’ve probably listed a summary of your career experience, as well as individual jobs, to your LinkedIn profile, but Projects take it to a whole new level. It gives enables you to further showcase specific skills. Plus, you can add a relevant URL to each project and, if your team members are also on LinkedIn, you can connect them (by name and by link to profile) to the project as well.

Want to add this to your profile? Click Profile > Edit Profile. Under the primary gray box of your profile, you’ll see a new Add Sections feature on a blue background. Click Add sections, Projects and enter a project description. You may want to add other sections, too, depending on their relevance.

http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/12_LinkedIn_secrets_to_supercharge_your_social_net_11246.aspx

21 Awesome Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2013

Social media networks were a novelty 5 years ago and today they are no longer debated around the dinner party table.21 Awesome Social Media Facts Figures and Statistics for 2013. Facebook is now part of most people’s web lives, Twitter is where a lot of people are reading the breaking news and if you want to be entertained then just dial into YouTube. Despite it’s minimal mindshare, media profile and awareness Google+ has woven its way into our consciousness and is now the second largest social network. As if these social networks aren’t enough to distract us then we also have Pinterest and Instagram to add to the online temptations. The social web is the modern version of Alice in Wonderland, where we are following not one but many rabbits down innumerable rabbit holes.

What are two key factors driving the social web in 2013?

According to a Global Web Index study it is:

• Mobile – with the number of people accessing the internet via a mobile phone increasing by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years.
• Older users adoption – On Twitter the 55-64 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic at 79% since 2012. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook’s and Google+’s networks are the 45 to 54 year age bracket at 46% and 56% respectively.

These 2 key factors are keeping the social web bubbling along. So maybe the reason your grandparents aren’t turning up to that dinner party is that they have now discovered Facebook and Twitter!
So let’s look at some of the fact, figures and statistics for the major social networks.

Facebook

Facebook continues to grow and work out how to make money from its ads and mobile users.
Here are the latest facts and figures from its earnings call for the first quarter of 2013

• Daily active users have reached 665 million
• Monthly active users have passed 1.1 billion for the first time
• 751 million mobile users access Facebook every month
• Mobile only active users total 189 million
• Mobile now generates 30% of its ad revenue up from 23% at the end of 2012

Twitter

Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the world by active users according to a Global Web Index Study.
So how does that translate to hard numbers?

• 44% growth from June 2012 to March 2013
• 288 million monthly active users
• That means that 21% of the world’s internet population are using Twitter every month
• Over 500 million registered accounts
• Twitter’s fastest growing age demographic is 55 to 64 year olds, registering an increase in active users of 79%

YouTube

When you wanted to watch a video it used to be VCR, then it became a DVD player, then we moved onto cable networks and now it is YouTube.
These numbers from YouTube’s own blog put some perspective on it penetration into our culture and time.

• 1 billion unique monthly visitors
• 6 billion hours of videos are watched every month
• This means that 50% more hours of video are watched in March 2013 compared to last August when it was 4 billion hours a month and last May when it was 3 billion.
• YouTube reaches more U.S. adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

Google+

Google+ is making an impact on the social media universe and is now the second largest social network.
What are some of the numbers on Google’s social network built to protect it from Facebook’s growth and data capture to ensure it remains relevant?
It is Google’s social layer that enhances it’s other online assets.

• 359 million monthly active users according to a Global Web Index study
• Its active users base grew by 33% from June 2012 through to March 2013

LinkedIn

The largest professional business network on the planet continues to grow but not at the pace of Twitter or Google+
Here are some numbers from Visual.ly.

• Over 200 million users
• 2 new users join it every second
• 64% of users are outside the USA

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/21-awesome-social-media-facts-figures-statistics-2013-231748416.html

Easy Steps To Get More LinkedIn Connections Now! Fast & Free (2013)

LinkedIn: Why your profile never gets views, and how you can fix it (case study)

Summary: Do you ever wonder why your finely-crafted LinkedIn profile never yields results or views? In this post, I explain exactly why this happens and what you can do to start seeing real results on LinkedIn.

Recently, I've set my sights on LinkedIn to study a little more in-depth how their search algorithm works, and what I've found so far is a bit disappointing: it's simply not enough to have a well-put-together profile. If you hope to come up in someone's search for keywords related to your profile, you either need to essentially spam your profile with those keywords, be in a LinkedIn group related to those keywords, or you had better be connected with someone the person searching is connected to. Long story short, LinkedIn appears to favor networks of connected people, LinkedIn groups, and profiles chock-full of the same keyword(s). If you're not engaging in one or more of those facets, then you can count on your profile almost never being seen in LinkedIn searches, no matter how qualified you are. First and foremost, what I've found thus far has convinced me to start being proactive with adding anyone and everyone I can -- even if they're people in completely unrelated industries to me who I would have no reason to otherwise connect with. Also, I will soon be revising my profile (again) and seeking out (over the course of time; not immediately) as many LinkedIn groups as I can to join.

On one hand, favoritism of networked people is a great thing. I mean, if someone you know happens to know someone else that fits the bill for what you're searching for in a job candidate, then you can inquire about the candidate with the person you're directly connected to who knows them. On the other hand, what if they don't know them at all? What if there are other FAR more qualified candidates who are connected to no one you know? The problem there is that LinkedIn (like any custom-built search solution) uses an algorithm to determine relevance, but how does an algorithm determine who is "better" than someone else in the same market? The answer to that for LinkedIn is simple: it doesn't. Sure, initial search results are filtered by something they call "relevance," but there is simply no accounting for human logic, deduction, and reasoning -- especially with something like searching for the right candidate for a job (be it an employee or employer you're seeking). Instead of using crazy parameters and algorithmic magic to produce the "most qualified" candidate(s), LinkedIn favors networks of people. That is a completely logical thing to do for the type of site they are, but it's not the most evenhanded or apparent. On top of that, LinkedIn favors high keyword density (keyword stuffing, basically). That means that currently, it's REALLY EASY to game LinkedIn by stuffing your profile full of the same keyword(s) you want to show up in search results for. If you want a prime example of this working, fire up LinkedIn right now, log in to your profile, then do a search for "sports" (without the quotes). Most likely, you're going to see this guy on the first page of results -- if not right at the top. As it happens, that guy has a whole course about how to take advantage of LinkedIn and rank at the top of keyword searches. The proof is painfully obvious by the fact that he ranks as high as he does for all the people I've had search for "sports." But what are his qualifications? Why is he the best result for "sports?" 

 The thing about his profile is not only is he stuffing it full of the keyword "sports," but he also has TONS of connections. LinkedIn only says "500+" for people with over 500 connections, but the actual number is far greater in his case -- so great, as a matter of fact, that there's a good chance you'll see a "2nd," "3rd," or "GROUP" next to his name in your profile. That's because he's either connected with someone you're connected to, connected to someone who is connected to someone that you're connected to, or in a group that you are also in. In the following example, I show evidence that stuffing your profile full of a particular keyword is the one thing that can help you outrank connected networks of people.

To start, when I search for "freelance writer" (without quotes) on LinkedIn, this is what I see. If you will notice, every single person there is 2nd, 3rd, or in a group that I'm in... except for one person: the very top result! I am not connected to them in any way, shape, or form, yet they're beating out everyone that I AM somehow connected to. Taking a look at their profile, it becomes pretty obvious. Look at how filled it is with "freelance writer" in every possible field you can manually enter text in. That person only has 108 connections, too; far less than the 500+ the second result in the search yields.

Speaking of the second result from my search, let's have a look at his LinkedIn page. Good grief, I can tell right off the bat that he probably ranks on the first page for "social media" searches. But we're interested in "freelance writer." Scrolling down (and down and down and down) that infinitely ginormous profile, you see numerous references to "freelance writer" peppered throughout. Now, although he has it about as many times as (if not more than) the first profile we looked at and has far more connections, he doesn't have it in every field you can populate! He does with "social media," though, so try a search for "social media" (without quotes) on LinkedIn and see if he pops up for you.

So, as you can see, having your main keyword in as many places as possible seems to make a huge difference in your visibility; however, this isn't a holistic conclusion. Certain fields might hold more weight than others. Past that, some combination of your main keyword and number of connections seems to be at play. Whatever the case may be, here are some actionable steps you can take to better your performance on LinkedIn: 

If you're seeking an employee:

1: When performing keyword searches relevant to your industry, use the search filters on the left-hand side. For instance, selecting "3rd + Everyone Else" will filter out a lot of the connected networks of people, but you will still have to take the time to dig deeper than just the first page or three of results.

2: Consider paying for a business account (~$30 per month). Doing so will allow you to see profiles from individuals not in your network. It will also give you access to more advanced search filters, as well as show you who has been viewing your profile (potential candidates you seek who may not have been able to contact you, or were hesitant to for one reason or another).

3: Consider searching for candidates of interest in Google using information from their LinkedIn profile. This can not only allow you to gather more information about them, but if you can find their resume, portfolio, or Web site, then you can reach out to them via email instead of wasting one of your small handful of InMail credits you receive each month with a paid business account.

 

If you're seeking a job:

1: Make connections with people and join LinkedIn groups until the cows come home! If you see someone you're not connected with, try adding them no matter who they are. As we've seen, it's not about who you know; it's about others knowing you and people who are searching for your talents!

2: Figure out how to walk a fine line between stuffing keywords in your profile and not making it look spammy. Put simply, LinkedIn's algorithm doesn't care if you did work for Bill Gates or Sergey Brin; it cares about who/how many people you're connected to and how many times you mention "search" (or whatever) throughout multiple sections of your profile. It's not fair, but in a time when people are fighting for jobs, this is how you get the upper hand on LinkedIn in your industry.

3: Consider paying for a business account (~$30 per month). Doing so will allow you to contact recruiters and executives via "InMail" that may otherwise have no contact credentials elsewhere. It's an amazing benefit if you seriously have your heart set on contacting specific individuals within companies to make your impression.

4: The aforementioned steps are useless if your profile doesn't provide value to those who see it. Just remember that the steps above are tools in your toolkit; you still need to accurately represent yourself after you successfully attract eyeballs. In other words, a spammy profile looks like a spammy profile.

 

And with that, I'll wrap this up. I hope you've found this post enlightening and/or informative. It's a bit disappointing to me that LinkedIn operates like this, especially after all the effort I've put into my profile in the past; but when I take a second to think about it, LinkedIn's search features do make sense for the type of site they are -- though, with that said, keyword stuffing is so 1999 and LinkedIn should seriously consider algorithmic tweaks to combat its current effectiveness. Thanks for reading and good luck with your LinkedIn endeavors! 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/seo/linkedin-why-your-profile-never-gets-views-and-how-you-can-fix-it-case-study/4866 

http://www.linkedin.com/    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn

https://twitter.com/LinkedIn

 

 

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012)

#1 - Target Your Content to an Audience Likely to Share

When strategizing about who you're writing for, consider that audience's ability to help spread the word. Some readers will naturally be more or less active in evangelizing the work you do, but particular communities, topics, writing styles and content types regularly play better than others on the web. For example, great infographics that strike a chord, beautiful videos that tell a story and remarkable collections of facts that challenge common assumptions are all targeted at audiences likely to share (geeks with facial hair, those interested in weight loss and those with political thoughts about macroeconomics respectively).

 

If you can identify groups that have high concentrations of the blue and orange circles in the diagram above, you dramatically improve the chances of reaching larger audiences and growing your traffic numbers. Targeting blog content at less-share-likely groups may not be a terrible decision (particularly if that's where you passion or your target audience lies), but it will decrease the propensity for your blog's work to spread like wildfire across the web.

#2 - Participate in the Communities Where Your Audience Already Gathers

Advertisers on Madison Avenue have spent billions researching and determining where consumers with various characteristics gather and what they spend their time doing so they can better target their messages. They do it because reaching a group of 65+ year old women with commercials for extreme sports equipment is known to be a waste of money, while reaching an 18-30 year old male demographic that attends rock-climbing gyms is likely to have a much higher ROI.

Thankfully, you don't need to spend a dime to figure out where a large portion of your audience can be found on the web. In fact, you probably already know a few blogs, forums, websites and social media communities where discussions and content are being posted on your topic (and if you don't a Google search will take you much of the way). From that list, you can do some easy expansion using a web-based tool like DoubleClick's Ad Planner:

Once you've determined the communities where your soon-to-be-readers gather, you can start participating. Create an account, read what others have written and don't jump in the conversation until you've got a good feel for what's appropriate and what's not. I've written a post here about rules for comment marketing, and all of them apply. Be a good web citizen and you'll be rewarded with traffic, trust and fans. Link-drop, spam or troll and you'll get a quick boot, or worse, a reputation as a blogger no one wants to associate with.

#3 - Make Your Blog's Content SEO-Friendly

Search engines are a massive opportunity for traffic, yet many bloggers ignore this channel for a variety of reasons that usually have more to do with fear and misunderstanding than true problems. As I've written before, "SEO, when done right, should never interfere with great writing." In 2011, Google received over 3 billion daily searches from around the world, and that number is only growing:

sources: Comscore + Google

Taking advantage of this massive traffic opportunity is of tremendous value to bloggers, who often find that much of the business side of blogging, from inquiries for advertising to guest posting opportunities to press and discovery by major media entities comes via search.

SEO for blogs is both simple and easy to set up, particularly if you're using an SEO-friendly platform like Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla.

Don't let bad press or poor experiences with spammers (spam is not SEO) taint the amazing power and valuable contributions SEO can make to your blog's traffic and overall success. 20% of the effort and tactics to make your content optimized for search engines will yield 80% of the value possible; embrace it and thousands of visitors seeking exactly what you've posted will be the reward.

#4 - Use Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to Share Your Posts & Find New Connections

Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Google+ has nearly 100 million. LinkedIn is over 130 million. Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the "content distributors" description above, meaning they're likely to help spread the word about your blog.

Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, study, attention to changes by the social sites and consideration in what content to share and how to do it. My advice is to use the following process:

• If you haven't already, register a personal account and a brand account at each of the following - Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn (those links will take you directly to the registration pages for brand pages).
• Fill out each of those profiles to the fullest possible extent - use photos, write compelling descriptions and make each one as useful and credible as possible. Research shows that profiles with more information have a significant correlation with more successful accounts (and there's a lot of common sense here, too, given that spammy profiles frequently feature little to no profile work).
• Connect with users on those sites with whom you already share a personal or professional relationships, and start following industry luminaries, influencers and connectors. Services like FollowerWonk and FindPeopleonPlus can be incredible for this:

• Start sharing content - your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who've impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go "viral" and earn sharing from others.
• Interact with the community - use hash tags, searches and those you follow to find interesting conversations and content and jump in! Social networks are amazing environment for building a brand, familiarizing yourself with a topic and the people around it, and earning the trust of others through high quality, authentic participation and sharing

If you consistently employ a strategy of participation, share great stuff and make a positive, memorable impression on those who see your interactions on these sites, your followers and fans will grow and your ability to drive traffic back to your blog by sharing content will be tremendous. For many bloggers, social media is the single largest source of traffic, particularly in the early months after launch, when SEO is a less consistent driver.

#5 - Install Analytics and Pay Attention to the Results

At the very least, I'd recommend most bloggers install Google Analytics (which is free), and watch to see where visits originate, which sources drive quality traffic and what others might be saying about you and your content when they link over.

Here's a screenshot from the analytics of my wife's travel blog, the Everywhereist:

As you can see, there's all sorts of great insights to be gleaned by looking at where visits originate, analyzing how they were earned and trying to repeat the successes, focus on the high quality and high traffic sources and put less effort into marketing paths that may not be effective. In this example, it's pretty clear that Facebook and Twitter are both excellent channels. StumbleUpon sends a lot of traffic, but they don't stay very long (averaging only 36 seconds vs. the general average of 4 minutes!).

Employing analytics is critical to knowing where you're succeeding, and where you have more opportunity. Don't ignore it, or you'll be doomed to never learn from mistakes or execute on potential.

#6 - Add Graphics, Photos and Illustrations (with link-back licensing)

If you're someone who can produce graphics, take photos, illustrate or even just create funny doodles in MS Paint, you should leverage that talent on your blog. By uploading and hosting images (or using a third-party service like Flickr to embed your images with licensing requirements on that site), you create another traffic source for yourself via Image Search, and often massively improve the engagement and enjoyment of your visitors.

When using images, I highly recommend creating a way for others to use them on their own sites legally and with permission, but in such a way that benefits you as the content creator. For example, you could have a consistent notice under your images indicating that re-using is fine, but that those who do should link back to this post. You can also post that as a sidebar link, include it in your terms of use, or note it however you think will get the most adoption.

Some people will use your images without linking back, which sucks. However, you can find them by employing the Image Search function of "similar images," shown below:

Clicking the "similar" link on any given image will show you other images that Google thinks look alike, which can often uncover new sources of traffic. Just reach out and ask if you can get a link, nicely. Much of the time, you'll not only get your link, but make a valuable contact or new friend, too!

#7 - Conduct Keyword Research While Writing Your Posts

Not surprisingly, a big part of showing up in search engines is targeting the terms and phrases your audience are actually typing into a search engine. It's hard to know what these words will be unless you do some research, and luckily, there's a free tool from Google to help called the AdWords Keyword Tool.

Type some words at the top, hit search and AdWords will show you phrases that match the intent and/or terms you've employed. There's lots to play around with here, but watch out in particular for the "match types" options I've highlighted below:

When you choose "exact match" AdWords will show you only the quantity of searches estimated for that precise phrase. If you use broad match, they'll include any search phrases that use related/similar words in a pattern they think could have overlap with your keyword intent (which can get pretty darn broad). "Phrase match" will give you only those phrases that include the word or words in your search - still fairly wide-ranging, but between "exact" and "broad."

When you're writing a blog post, keyword research is best utilized for the title and headline of the post. For example, if I wanted to write a post here on Moz about how to generate good ideas for bloggers, I might craft something that uses the phrase "blog post ideas" or "blogging ideas" near the front of my title and headline, as in "Blog Post Ideas for When You're Truly Stuck," or "Blogging Ideas that Will Help You Clear Writer's Block."

Optimizing a post to target a specific keyword isn't nearly as hard as it sounds. 80% of the value comes from merely using the phrase effectively in the title of the blog post, and writing high quality content about the subject. If you're interested in more, read Perfecting Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization (a slightly older resource, but just as relevant today as when it was written).

#8 - Frequently Reference Your Own Posts and Those of Others

The web was not made for static, text-only content! Readers appreciate links, as do other bloggers, site owners and even search engines. When you reference your own material in-context and in a way that's not manipulative (watch out for over-optimizing by linking to a category, post or page every time a phrase is used - this is almost certainly discounted by search engines and looks terrible to those who want to read your posts), you potentially draw visitors to your other content AND give search engines a nice signal about those previous posts.

Perhaps even more valuable is referencing the content of others. The biblical expression "give and ye shall receive," perfectly applies on the web. Other site owners will often receive Google Alerts or look through their incoming referrers (as I showed above in tip #5) to see who's talking about them and what they're saying. Linking out is a direct line to earning links, social mentions, friendly emails and new relationships with those you reference. In its early days, this tactic was one of the best ways we earned recognition and traffic with the SEOmoz blog and the power continues to this day.

#9 - Participate in Social Sharing Communities Like Reddit + StumbleUpon

The major social networking sites aren't alone in their power to send traffic to a blog. Social community sites like Reddit (which now receives more than 2 billion! with a "B"! views each month), StumbleUpon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Care2 (for nonprofits and causes), GoodReads (books), Ravelry (knitting), Newsvine (news/politics) and many, many more

Each of these sites have different rules, formats and ways of participating and sharing content. As with participation in blog or forum communities described above in tactic #2, you need to add value to these communities to see value back. Simply drive-by spamming or leaving your link won't get you very far, and could even cause a backlash. Instead, learn the ropes, engage authentically and you'll find that fans, links and traffic can develop.

These communities are also excellent sources of inspiration for posts on your blog. By observing what performs well and earns recognition, you can tailor your content to meet those guidelines and reap the rewards in visits and awareness. My top recommendation for most bloggers is to at least check whether there's an appropriate subreddit in which you should be participating. Subreddits and their search function can help with that.

#10 - Guest Blog (and Accept the Guest Posts of Others)

When you're first starting out, it can be tough to convince other bloggers to allow you to post on their sites OR have an audience large enough to inspire others to want to contribute to your site. This is when friends and professional connections are critical. When you don't have a compelling marketing message, leverage your relationships - find the folks who know you, like you and trust you and ask those who have blog to let you take a shot at authoring something, then ask them to return the favor.

Guest blogging is a fantastic way to spread your brand to new folks who've never seen your work before, and it can be useful in earning early links and references back to your site, which will drive direct traffic and help your search rankings (diverse, external links are a key part of how search engines rank sites and pages). Several recommendations for those who engage in guest blogging:

• Find sites that have a relevant audience - it sucks to pour your time into writing a post, only to see it fizzle because the readers weren't interested. Spend a bit more time researching the posts that succeed on your target site, the makeup of the audience, what types of comments they leave and you'll earn a much higher return with each post.
• Don't be discouraged if you ask and get a "no" or a "no response." As your profile grows in your niche, you'll have more opportunities, requests and an easier time getting a "yes," so don't take early rejections too hard and watch out - in many marketing practices, persistence pays, but pestering a blogger to write for them is not one of these (and may get your email address permanently banned from their inbox).
• When pitching your guest post make it as easy as possible for the other party. When requesting to post, have a phenomenal piece of writing all set to publish that's never been shared before and give them the ability to read it. These requests get far more "yes" replies than asking for the chance to write with no evidence of what you'll contribute. At the very least, make an outline and write a title + snippet.
• Likewise, when requesting a contribution, especially from someone with a significant industry profile, asking for a very specific piece of writing is much easier than getting them to write an entire piece from scratch of their own design. You should also present statistics that highlight the value of posting on your site - traffic data, social followers, RSS subscribers, etc. can all be very persuasive to a skeptical writer.

A great tool for frequent guest bloggers is Ann Smarty's MyBlogGuest, which offers the ability to connect writers with those seeking guest contributions (and the reverse).

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are also great places to find guest blogging opportunities. In particular, check out the profiles of those you're connected with to see if they run blogs of their own that might be a good fit. Google's Blog Search function and Google Reader's Search are also solid tools for discovery.

#11 - Incorporate Great Design Into Your Site

The power of beautiful, usable, professional design can't be overstated. When readers look at a blog, the first thing they judge is how it "feels" from a design and UX perspective. Sites that use default templates or have horrifying, 1990's design will receive less trust, a lower time-on-page, fewer pages per visit and a lower likelihood of being shared. Those that feature stunning design that clearly indicates quality work will experience the reverse - and reap amazing benefits.

These threads - 1, 2, 3 and 4 - feature some remarkable blog designs for inspiration

If you're looking for a designer to help upgrade the quality of your blog, there's a few resources I recommend:

• Dribbble - great for finding high quality professional designers
• Forrst - another excellent design profile community
• Behance - featuring galleries from a wide range of visual professionals
• Sortfolio - an awesome tool to ID designers by region, skill and budget
• 99 Designs - a controversial site that provides designs on spec via contests (I have mixed feelings on this one, but many people find it useful, particularly for budget-conscious projects)

This is one area where budgeting a couple thousand dollars (if you can afford it) or even a few hundred (if you're low on cash) can make a big difference in the traffic, sharing and viral-impact of every post you write.

#12 - Interact on Other Blogs' Comments

As bloggers, we see a lot of comments. Many are spam, only a few add real value, and even fewer are truly fascinating and remarkable. If you can be in this final category consistently, in ways that make a blogger sit up and think "man, I wish that person commented here more often!" you can achieve great things for your own site's visibility through participation in the comments of other blogs.

Combine the tools presented in #10 (particularly Google Reader/Blog Search) and #4 (especially FollowerWonk) for discovery. The feed subscriber counts in Google Reader can be particularly helpful for identifying good blogs for participation. Then apply the principles covered in this post on comment marketing.

Do be conscious of the name you use when commenting and the URL(s) you point back to. Consistency matters, particularly on naming, and linking to internal pages or using a name that's clearly made for keyword-spamming rather than true conversation will kill your efforts before they begin.

#13 - Participate in Q+A Sites

Every day, thousands of people ask questions on the web. Popular services like Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com, Quora, StackExchange, Formspring and more serve those hungry for information whose web searches couldn't track down the responses they needed.

The best strategy I've seen for engaging on Q+A sites isn't to answer every question that comes along, but rather, to strategically provide high value to a Q+A community by engaging in those places where:

• The question quality is high, and responses thus far have been thin
• The question receives high visibility (either by ranking well for search queries, being featured on the site or getting social traffic/referrals). Most of the Q+A sites will show some stats around the traffic of a question
• The question is something you can answer in a way that provides remarkable value to anyone who's curious and drops by

I also find great value in answering a few questions in-depth by producing an actual blog post to tackle them, then linking back. This is also a way I personally find blog post topics - if people are interested in the answer on a Q+A site, chances are good that lots of folks would want to read it on my blog, too!

Just be authentic in your answer, particularly if you're linking. If you'd like to see some examples, I answer a lot of questions at Quora, frequently include relevant links, but am rarely accused of spamming or link dropping because it's clearly about providing relevant value, not just getting a link for SEO (links on most user-contributed sites are "nofollow" anyway, meaning they shouldn't pass search-engine value). There's a dangerous line to walk here, but if you do so with tact and candor, you can earn a great audience from your participation.

#14 - Enable Subscriptions via Feed + Email (and track them!)

If someone drops by your site, has a good experience and thinks "I should come back here and check this out again when they have more posts," chances are pretty high (I'd estimate 90%+) that you'll never see them again. That sucks! It shouldn't be the case, but we have busy lives and the Internet's filled with animated gifs of cats.

In order to pull back some of these would-be fans, I highly recommend creating an RSS feed using Feedburner and putting visible buttons on the sidebar, top or bottom of your blog posts encouraging those who enjoy your content to sign up (either via feed, or via email, both of which are popular options).

If you're using Wordpress, there's some easy plugins for this, too.

Once you've set things up, visit every few weeks and check on your subscribers - are they clicking on posts? If so, which ones? Learning what plays well for those who subscribe to your content can help make you a better blogger, and earn more visits from RSS, too.

#15 - Attend and Host Events

Despite the immense power of the web to connect us all regardless of geography, in-person meetings are still remarkably useful for bloggers seeking to grow their traffic and influence. The people you meet and connect with in real-world settings are far more likely to naturally lead to discussions about your blog and ways you can help each other. This yields guest posts, links, tweets, shares, blogroll inclusion and general business development like nothing else.

I'm a big advocate of Lanyrd, an event directory service that connects with your social networks to see who among your contacts will be at which events in which geographies. This can be phenomenally useful for identifying which meetups, conferences or gatherings are worth attending (and who you can carpool with).

The founder of Lanyrd also contributed this great answer on Quora about other search engines/directories for events (which makes me like them even more).

#16 - Use Your Email Connections (and Signature) to Promote Your Blog

As a blogger, you're likely to be sending a lot of email out to others who use the web and have the power to help spread your work. Make sure you're not ignoring email as a channel, one-to-one though it may be. When given an opportunity in a conversation that's relevant, feel free to bring up your blog, a specific post or a topic you've written about. I find myself using blogging as a way to scalably answer questions - if I receive the same question many times, I'll try to make a blog post that answers it so I can simply link to that in the future.

I also like to use my email signature to promote the content I share online. If I was really sharp, I'd do link tracking using a service like Bit.ly so I could see how many clicks email footers really earn. I suspect it's not high, but it's also not 0.

#17 - Survey Your Readers

Web surveys are easy to run and often produce high engagement and great topics for conversation. If there's a subject or discussion that's particularly contested, or where you suspect showing the distribution of beliefs, usage or opinions can be revealing, check out a tool like SurveyMonkey (they have a small free version) or PollDaddy. Google Docs also offers a survey tool that's totally free, but not yet great in my view.

#18 - Add Value to a Popular Conversation

Numerous niches in the blogosphere have a few "big sites" where key issues arise, get discussed and spawn conversations on other blogs and sites. Getting into the fray can be a great way to present your point-of-view, earn attention from those interested in the discussion and potentially get links and traffic from the industry leaders as part of the process.

You can see me trying this out with Fred Wilson's AVC blog last year (an incredibly popular and well-respected blog in the VC world). Fred wrote a post about Marketing that I disagreed with strongly and publicly and a day later, he wrote a follow-up where he included a graphic I made AND a link to my post.

If you're seeking sources to find these "popular conversations," Alltop, Topsy, Techmeme (in the tech world) and their sister sites MediaGazer, Memeorandum and WeSmirch, as well as PopURLs can all be useful.

#19 - Aggregate the Best of Your Niche

Bloggers, publishers and site owners of every variety in the web world love and hate to be compared and ranked against one another. It incites endless intrigue, discussion, methodology arguments and competitive behavior - but, it's amazing for earning attention. When a blogger publishes a list of "the best X" or "the top X" in their field, most everyone who's ranked highly praises the list, shares it and links to it. Here's an example from the world of marketing itself:

That's a screenshot of the AdAge Power 150, a list that's been maintained for years in the marketing world and receives an endless amount of discussion by those listed (and not listed). For example, why is SEOmoz's Twitter score only a "13" when we have so many more followers, interactions and retweets than many of those with higher scores? Who knows. But I know it's good for AdAge. :-)

Now, obviously, I would encourage anyone building something like this to be as transparent, accurate and authentic as possible. A high quality resource that lists a "best and brightest" in your niche - be they blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, individual posts, people, conferences or whatever else you can think to rank - is an excellent piece of content for earning traffic and becoming a known quantity in your field.

Oh, and once you do produce it - make sure to let those featured know they've been listed. Tweeting at them with a link is a good way to do this, but if you have email addresses, by all means, reach out. It can often be the start of a great relationship!

#20 - Connect Your Web Profiles and Content to Your Blog

Many of you likely have profiles on services like YouTube, Slideshare, Yahoo!, DeviantArt and dozens of other social and Web 1.0 sites. You might be uploading content to Flickr, to Facebook, to Picasa or even something more esoteric like Prezi. Whatever you're producing on the web and wherever you're doing it, tie it back to your blog.

Including your blog's link on your actual profile pages is among the most obvious, but it's also incredibly valuable. On any service where interaction takes place, those interested in who you are and what you have to share will follow those links, and if they lead back to your blog, they become opportunities for capturing a loyal visitor or earning a share (or both!). But don't just do this with profiles - do it with content, too! If you've created a video for YouTube, make your blog's URL appear at the start or end of the video. Include it in the description of the video and on the uploading profile's page. If you're sharing photos on any of the dozens of photo services, use a watermark or even just some text with your domain name so interested users can find you.

If you're having trouble finding and updating all those old profiles (or figuring out where you might want to create/share some new ones), KnowEm is a great tool for discovering your own profiles (by searching for your name or pseudonyms you've used) and claiming profiles on sites you may not yet have participated in.

I'd also strongly recommend leveraging Google's relatively new protocol for rel=author. The benefit for bloggers who do build large enough audiences to gain Google's trust is earning your profile photo next to all the content you author - a powerful markup advantage that likely drives extra clicks from the search results and creates great, memorable branding, too.

#21 - Uncover the Links of Your Fellow Bloggers (and Nab 'em!)

If other blogs in your niche have earned references from sites around the web, there's a decent chance that they'll link to you as well. Conducting competitive link research can also show you what content from your competition has performed well and the strategies they may be using to market their work. To uncover these links, you'll need to use some tools.

OpenSiteExplorer is my favorite, but I'm biased (it's made by Moz). However, it is free to use - if you create a registered account here, you can get unlimited use of the tool showing up to 1,000 links per page or site in perpetuity.

There are other good tools for link research as well, including Blekko, Majestic, Ahrefs and, I've heard that in the near-future, SearchMetrics.

Finding a link is great, but it's through the exhaustive research of looking through dozens or hundreds that you can identify patterns and strategies. You're also likely to find a lot of guest blogging opportunities and other chances for outreach. If you maintain a great persona and brand in your niche, your ability to earn these will rise dramatically.

Bonus #22 - Be Consistent and Don't Give Up

If there's one piece of advice I wish I could share with every blogger, it's this:

The above image comes from Everywhereist's analytics. Geraldine could have given up 18 months into her daily blogging. After all, she was putting in 3-5 hours each day writing content, taking photos, visiting sites, coming up with topics, trying to guest blog and grow her Twitter followers and never doing any SEO (don't ask, it's a running joke between us). And then, almost two years after her blog began, and more than 500 posts in, things finally got going. She got some nice guest blogging gigs, had some posts of hers go "hot" in the social sphere, earned mentions on some bigger sites, then got really big press from Time's Best Blogs of 2011.

I'd guess there's hundreds of new bloggers on the web each day who have all the opportunity Geraldine had, but after months (maybe only weeks) of slogging away, they give up.

When I started the SEOmoz blog in 2004, I had some advantages (mostly a good deal of marketing and SEO knowledge), but it was nearly 2 years before the blog could be called anything like a success. Earning traffic isn't rocket science, but it does take time, perseverance and consistency. Don't give up. Stick to your schedule. Remember that everyone has a few posts that suck, and it's only by writing and publishing those sucky posts that you get into the habit necessary to eventually transform your blog into something remarkable.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/21-tactics-to-increase-blog-traffic-2012