How to Increase Your Traffic (Bagaimana Meningkatkan Bilangan Pengunjung Blog Anda)

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that’’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was written by a guest blogger by the name of Yaro Starak who is a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

source : www.eblogtemplates.com/yaro-staraks-10-great-blog-traffic-tips/

Michael Jackson Converts To Islam

LONDON, Nov 21 - Michael Jackson has become a Muslim - and changed his name to Mikaeel. The skint superstar, 50, donned Islamic garb to pledge allegiance to the Quran in a ceremony at a pal’s mansion in Los Angeles.

Jacko sat on the floor wearing a tiny hat after an imam was summoned to officiate - days before the singer is due to appear at London’s High Court where he is being sued by an Arab sheikh.

A source told last night how Jacko, brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, decided to convert as he used a studio at the home of his chum to record a new album.

The star - whose hits include “The Way You Make Me Feel” - was spotted looking “a bit down” by a producer and a songwriter who had both embraced Islam.

The source said: “They began talking to him about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea.

“An imam was summoned from the mosque and Michael went through the shahada, which is the Muslim declaration of belief.”

Mikaeel is the name of one of Allah’s angels.

“Jacko rejected an alternative name, Mustafa - meaning ‘the chosen one’”.

British singer Yousef Islam, 60 - who was called Cat Stevens until he famously converted - turned up to help Jacko celebrate.

It was his pals David Wharnsby - a Canadian songwriter - and producer Phillip Bubal who counselled Jacko.

The pair’s new names are Dawud Wharnsby Ali and Idris Phillips.

Jacko now prays to Mecca after the ceremony at the Hollywood Hills home of Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro, 51, who composed music on the singer’s Thriller album.

Jacko, who rarely ventures out without a mask, is due to give evidence on Monday in a £4.7million (RM25 million) lawsuit brought by Prince Abdulla Al-Khalif of Bahrain.

The sheikh claims he bankrolled the singer’s lavish lifestyle in exchange for an exclusive recording contract. The billionaire sent songs for him to record but claims he was blanked.

He told the court yesterday: “Many times he confirmed to me he would pay me back.” - The Sun

source : hariaruhuba.blogspot.com

Doin' Da'wa, Online

Assalamualaikum and warmest regards,
It has been some time since i last added something to my English section. However, it still seems relevant as in the first posting, i did manage to attract a new audience albeit only a few. Even though some would think that specialization in blog writing is better, since focus could be given to a specific scope, i stick to the idea that touching on life as a whole and on various topics, would serve a larger purpose and give benefit to a wider audience. Choose what you will, leave out the rest!
However, i have been deeply impressed by the efforts of some, i.e Brother Fairuz, on his efforts to specialize, as in what he has done with his renung2fikir2.blogspot.com blog on comparative religion. And the purpose of this posting touches on the matter-what can i do to promote Islam to the many billions out there waiting for guidance? Well, what i have done, and can be followed by others, is simple- i opened links to blogs of Americans and the English mainly, looked up the latest posting, opened up the comment boxes and simply pasted this onto each site;

Warmest regards, just dropping by..
With a question:
Looking for peace?
Feeling empty inside?
Well,
what do you know about Islam?
Ask me, or visit www.linkstoislam.com.
Take the trouble!Thanx!!

Simple, huh? However, no one has responded yet. I guess i'll have to visit a few more hundred or so blogs. No sweat!

Why bloggers? And why the 'whitemen'?
1. Bloggers blog because they have things that they appreciate, things that they would like to share, and a meaning to life. That would make them appreciate life better and more likely to find a meaning to life.
2. Bloggers sometimes use blogs to express their feelings, especially when they are downhearted, and striking up on one such example at the right moment may cause someone to see the light.
3. The English and Americans do not know about Islam as they are rarely exposed. And thankgod, when they are exposed, they tend to study and find out.

InsyaAllah, i plan to set up a blog specially dedicated to acknowledging people about Islam, although are already available. I will keep you posted. Wassalam.

English Section..

Assalamualaikum,

After browsing through a few other blogs i came up with the idea to introduce an English Section in my own blog, as it would reach out to a wider range of readers. It was of course, a trial effort as i know that my readers mainly used the mother tongue. I will try to limit the section to articles that involve a global picture, while that is, in the first place, one of the main reasons of my creating the section. Using English as a medium, whill enhance me to go global, compared to the small spectrum of information and area my writings cover today. I will, without hesitation, be indulged to either translate my articles into Bahasa, or even translate my Bahasa articles to English, upon request by any readers or whenever i deem necessary.

I am sure that no issues concerning the ‘degrading use of Bahasa’, ‘neo-colonialisme of the mind’ and so on will arise. I recall the answer Datuk Idris Haron gave when a new student, if i remember correctly was Safwan, bravely stood up to him during the student-MOHE orientation week, and asked why the MOHE was not moving towards making Bahasa the lingua-franca of the world. Datuk Idris then, before answering, asked the student how many languages he mastered, leaving the student perplexed. He then convincingly addressed the crowd that before hoping to put Bahasa somewhere so high, we first must master other languages, without just hoping that our own will rise to the top. Another student bravely managed to prove the cause a bit later on, when he managed to communicate with Datuk Idris in Bahasa, Arabic, English and Japanese, even tossing in a bit of his mother tongue, Dusun into the deal. That same student today is a rising student leader in the new cabinet of the Students Representative Council.

Thus i formally declare, the launching of the English Section in nurilhakim. Happy reading.