Seth’s Blog: How to get traffic for your blog.One of the things every blogger thinks they want is a lot of traffic. However, traffic, for traffic’s sake won’t help you grow your business- unless you are part of some google adsense pyramid scheme.

So- Seth Godin, the mack daddy of bloggers, has this post with “54 ways to build traffic to your blog” listed. Take a look- and of course realize that it’s really only 27 since almost everything he lists- also lists the opposite.

From my experience, the most important thing is to be quick to write about a subject that is fresh. Be the first, break the news, provide insight on something that just hit big in the media. For political bloggers- this is easy- for those of you writing about the latest news in local video production- it’s a little harder.

Always, stay on topic- and if you are using WordPress, think hard about your categories and use them (making sure you give each category description text in your manage/categories screen) on every post. Each post should fall into several categories.

Also- always make sure you alt tag your images- and links- with descriptions that blind people and search bots can understand. One site with content everyone was looking for was getting no hits- all because they didn’t have alt tags on their photos describing what the photos showed.

Seth is always interesting- too bad he’s closed comments and trackbacks- so I won’t get any hits from his traffic- oh, yeah- that’s another way to build traffic.

Since the Dayton Daily News doesn’t allow open access to stories forever- here is the complete text of the story about the Blogosopher seminar. Note- this was so easy to do- it was posted on the morning it appeared. Which begs to ask: Can your web site do that?

‘Blogosopher’ sings praises of blogs as marketing tools

David Esrati says businesses can craft Web sites that will lure attention through search engines like the Web giant Google.

By Leigh Allan

Staff Writer

Believe it or not, a blog need not be minute-by-minute updates of mindless self-centered blather. Or pompous political posturing. Or miles and miles of teenage angst.

So says David Esrati of The Next Wave advertising agency of Dayton — yes, the same David Esrati who a few years back was better known as a regular candidate for city offices and a thorn in the side of the city commission.

Esrati is known more these days as the Blogosopher, host of blogosopher.com and leader of seminars on how to use small blogs to beat the big guys and make big bucks.

So far, 100 people have taken Esrati’s 3½ hour course on why blogs are the best way to attract the attention of major search engines, and how a business can use that to its advantage.

Esrati says he spent years learning how major search engines work, especially 800-pound gorilla Google. He touts simple, inexpensive ways to beat the expensive, intricate attempts of major corporations to get to the top of search results.

He says he has been so successful at his own company’s site (thenextwave.biz) that searches for rival Ohio ad agencies often lead to him.

“I’m not doing that to disrespect them,” Esrati says, “I’m just getting people to take a look.”

Kris Oser, director of strategic communications for eMarketer market researcher, says the Blogosophy strategies should work to attract search engines, and thus attention, especially the constant updating.

But she says the story for blogs is the story of using the Web for advertising in general — it’s very much niche marketing, because “people who read blogs are trying to connect with people with similar interests.”

Esrati isn’t just Blogosophizing these days. He’s also involved with a local Veteran Owned Business group (vob108.org) that helps vets seek government contracts, and he has revived his old political Web site: esrati.com.

Blogging tips

Avoid Flash: Major search engines are Flash phobic. The blogs’ simplicity is search engine-friendly.

Change is good: When updating their data banks, search engines seek out changes. Blogs are the easiest and cheapest way to continually change your site.

It’s easy: Open-source WordPress software provides a simple way to produce a business-quality blog.

RapattoniMLS-Access-Instructions.pdf (application/pdf Object)

One of the things we stress in the Blogosopher course is adherence to W3C standards- and especially, accessibility for the blind. The main reason is that search engines act just like blind people on the web- they can’ t go where they don’t know where they are going.

Part of web standards is using code that everyone understands- not any proprietary systems- like the one Rappattoni uses to build their Multiple Listing Service (MLS) sites.

Apparently they require Microsoft Internet Explorer to work with their site- and Microsoft abandoned the program for the Apple Macintosh in January of 2006- mostly because they were having a hard enough time updating Explorer for the PC (which is still not RSS aware).

I found the link above – with instructions for installing some software for a Mac so you can view their site. But, this is a reminder to companies that decide to build sites based on proprietary standards or software technology- you may be shutting out some of your best customers without knowing it.