There is a very lightweight way to do this. Once you have decided what to write about and have a written or mental outline, then go to the Adwords keyword tool. Spend just a few minutes running "exact phase" trial keywords related to the subject of your post. Then, favor the higher frequency search terms, when you write.

After writing a post, I keep my quick-and-dirty keyword list visible during final editing. In many cases, I have found that the descriptive phrases that I use naturally when I write are not optimal. For example, I write a lot about investment costs, and I instinctively use the descriptive phrase "low cost mutual funds" when I write. However, this is a suboptimal choice from a keyword perspective, because 10 times as many Google users will be searching for "no load mutual funds". So during final edit, I just change "low cost" to "no load" a few places in the post, and this significantly increases my potential exposure to SE traffic.

Financial Samurai said:

One thing I recommend folks do is try and write one Whale Post a month that becomes your landmark post.  Once you have the Whale Post in place, you can highlight a couple other good posts from your archives and it becomes a virtuous circle.  Over the course of a year, you'll then develop 12 really well-written posts and create a lot of traction.

The other part of the equation is just time.  It's really after the 1-1.5 year mark where I've noticed a consistent jump in traffic.  Imagine what you can do if you stick with it for 5-10 years!  Treat blogging like brushing your teeth.  Gotta do it regularly everyday, and it just becomes second nature.

Best, Sam

 

 

Time is a huge factor. I personally know the owner of Universe Today – one of the biggest astronomy blogs. 3 years ago he averaged 3,500 visitors per day. Today he is well over 100,000 per day.

Wow, it's hard to even contemplate 100,000 per day. That's an awesome example. I appreciate you sharing it. BTW , imagine if HE sold 3 years ago for the going rate then.

One thing I recommend folks do is try and write one Whale Post a month that becomes your landmark post.  Once you have the Whale Post in place, you can highlight a couple other good posts from your archives and it becomes a virtuous circle.  Over the course of a year, you'll then develop 12 really well-written posts and create a lot of traction.

The other part of the equation is just time.  It's really after the 1-1.5 year mark where I've noticed a consistent jump in traffic.  Imagine what you can do if you stick with it for 5-10 years!  Treat blogging like brushing your teeth.  Gotta do it regularly everyday, and it just becomes second nature.

Best, Sam

 

 

Time is a huge factor. I personally know the owner of Universe Today - one of the biggest astronomy blogs. 3 years ago he averaged 3,500 visitors per day. Today he is well over 100,000 per day.

The other part of the equation is just time.  It's really after the 1-1.5 year mark where I've noticed a consistent jump in traffic.  Imagine what you can do if you stick with it for 5-10 years!  Treat blogging like brushing your teeth.  Gotta do it regularly everyday, and it just becomes second nature.

Best, Sam

Glen Craig – Free From Broke said:

 Do you have a sitemap? Are you finding any errors on G Webmaster tools?

For some reason, it seems like the number of pages indexed doesn't even compare to sites that have been around half as long as mine (even though I write at the same frequency if not more). I am trying to switch themes, but I am waiting on a new logo. *sigh* I think I might wait until after the next pr update so as not to ruin anything as well.

Do you have a sitemap? Are you finding any errors on G Webmaster tools?

2.  Socialize your blog.  Post every article to tip'd, reddit, old dogg, stumble upon, facebok, squidoo, etc etc

Be careful here.  This can also be seen as spam. Sites like Reddit and SU are quick to ban.

Better to build up a social community and share useful articles that you find. Then you can submit a few of your best articles without it looking like spam.

And please, don't submit your roundups. (pet peeve of mine).

2.  Socialize your blog.  Post every article to tip'd, reddit, old dogg, stumble upon, facebok, squidoo, etc etc

Are there tools/plugins to do this on an automated basis or is it a manual process? 

1)  Quality always beats quantity.  Leave the kind of comment you would want someone to leave you.

2)  If you leave a comment, hit the subscribe to comments button.  I leave a comment to open a dialogue.  What's the point of leaving a comment if you have no vested interest in it?  (I don't think any blogger is going to hate you for putting more content on their site.) Don't want a billion emails?  Make a comment-only email address.

3) If you're outsourcing your commenting, then just skip humans all together.  Get a VPS, install a comment spamming script and go to town.  No one cares about representing you more than you do.  Thus, save the $x per hour/per comment and just automate the living hell out of it.  If quantity is your focus, then there's no reason not to maximize your investment, right?

Writing my own comments has worked pretty well for me.  I comment on no more than 10-15 articles a week (probably less) but get at least 50 referral visits per day from comments.  Pretty simple, really.  That's 18,000 people a year coming to my site just because I took the time to share an opinion on another site. It adds up.

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....g-traffic/

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....c-plateau/

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....perplexed/

Have you tried the breadcrumbs plugin. Evan mentioned something about the Yoast guide that I've been putting into place little by little. I'll try to find that thread too.

Yeah, I figured I would try to consolidate the discussion around previous threads as well. lol Especially after that rant! haha

Also found some good threads here

 

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....c-shot-up/

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....t-a-month/

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog.....e-traffic/

Holy shiiiiiiiiiz I love you FSYA.. the threads you linked too are great.  Maybe I should add .. "Use forum search function to identify problems" to that list I made.