This is a guest post by Adam from Dorm Room Cash.

If traffic is what you want, then it is time that you go and get it. Link building, social media, guest blogging, article marketing, email marketing and blog posts are not enough, you need to add something different to get more traffic.

The problem that so many bloggers have is they don’t stand out from the crowd. Do yourself a favor and give your readers something different that will help you stand out.

What can you do to stand out of the crowd?

Have you ever thought about using strange article titles to lure in new readers and shock the readers you already have? When something is dead such as a heart (you blog), you will need to shock it back to life (strange article titles).

This works because people are not expecting it and other readers will soon wonder what that article is about too.

Let me ask you something, which article would you rather read;
101 Ways To Make Money Quickly Online
OR
Crazy, Stupid And Genius Ways Gurus Make Money Online – 101 Ways To Be Exact

If you ask me this same question I would have to say the second article. The first article seems like it has what I want to know about but the second article seems like it will have something a little different.

When it comes to what people like, it is always something a little different. The key here is to give the reader what they want to read but at the same time give you article a title that screams, READ ME!

Below you will find 4 examples of article titles that talk about the same thing but have a different personality in them. The first article title is the basic one and the second one is the one that sounds a little strange and will most likely get more traffic.

Strange Article Titles

Easy Dog Training Tricks That You Can Teach Your Pet
OR
Teach Even 3 Legged Dog To Do These Simple Tricks

What You Might Not Know Regarding Article Marketing
OR
Hey Stupid – Do You Have A Question About Article Marketing

How I Lost 10 Pounds In 30 Days
OR
How I Went From Mr. Chuba-waba To Mr. Universe In Only 30 Days

How To Get Your Girlfriend Back Today
OR
Your Antics Drove Her Away – See What You Need To Do And Swoop Her Off Her Feet Tonight

Do you see why the latter of the two titles would work better to get you more traffic? People like something that is different and with all the people talking about making money online and other things like that, you need to do something to stand out of the crowd.

I am not saying that you need to insult your audience all the time, but it works best to give your readers something different to read from time to time.

When it comes to getting traffic to your website you need to start with what is actually on your site because that is the easiest. Trust me, you will be much better off writing better articles titles than going back to building countless backlinks and spending hours messing with social media sites.

About The Author:

Adam Snyder is the author of this post and he teaches people different ways to earn money online directly from his website, DormRoomCash.com. If you want to stay connected to Adam and everything that is going on over at DormRoomCash.com, then make sure you follow DormRoomCash On Facebook.

Photo by laszlo-photo

This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas from IdentityTheft.net.

The web thrives on obscurity. Even if you think you’ve chosen the most out-there niche for your blog, you’ll likely run into at least a dozen bloggers competing for a top Google ranking in the same subject.

Every person has a passion; those web savvy and industrious enough about their passions blog about them. What was once so novel about blogging has become all too ubiquitous—in essence, blogs are a dime a dozen.

It’s always been about the content

If you want your blog to gain notoriety (and make money!) then you need to put effort into all aspects of your blog. Most self-help blogs offer tips on how to link build, network, utilize SEO, and present the reader with an aesthetically pleasing site. A blog’s content is its most important component, but oftentimes the discussion of strong and proper content gets lost amid the discussion of a blog’s lesser elements.

You can pull all the SEO tricks in the book to drive people to your blog, but once they’re at your homepage you need to grab them with some strong content or they’ll move over to the next entry in Google. So how do you keep them interested?

Write for others

Okay this might sound hokey, but as a blogger you should be vigilant about writing content that newcomers to your blog would find appealing. You might think that everything you write is worthwhile for potential readers, but think again. Time and time again bloggers looking to build a readership make the mistake of writing what they want to read, forgetting that they’re writing for everyone but themselves.

It’s a matter of separating yourself from the subject. Unless you’re blogging about yourself in a very intimate way—blogging about your progress on a particular diet, blogging about your experience with a new product, and so on—you should distance yourself from your content as much as possible.

It’s a harsh but real truth that most readers don’t have time to indulge bloggers in their personal anecdotes or autobiographical asides. Readers are at your blog to hear about the latest rumors about the next big tablet, or they’re looking for reliable links to the best auto insurance companies.

If you have the skill to cultivate a dynamic personality among your readers, by all means do so. But you’d be amazed at your success if you just stuck to the central theme or your blog, relating information as quickly and densely as possible.

When you’re stuck, press on and shift perspective

Bloggers have a lot to get jaded about: endless competition, variable trends, SEO statistics, their blog’s Google ranking, constant content generation—the list goes on. What separates successful blogging veterans from everyone else is their ability to continue producing content despite harrowing odds, and changing the perspective of their blog when their approach isn’t working.

Let me give you an example. Say you started writing a blog targeting readers of sci-fi novels, with the intent to market your own published work in the same genre. You write for a few months, being careful to craft keyword-rich posts and abide by all the SEO basics, but still you only amass a handful of followers.

Rather than shut down the blog and call it a day, I’d advise you to think of a new trajectory for the same blog. Maybe you could incorporate topical works in the fantasy or horror genres into your posts in an effort to reach out to a more inclusive readership. Or you could offer reviews of best-selling (and trending) novels as a means to capture a wider swath of the general sci-fi readership. Even if you don’t like the primary topic material, you don’t have to compromise your blogging ethics. You could write a scathing review of a blockbuster fantasy series that you just can’t stand, and readers will flock to your site just because you mentioned the name. If they happen to agree with your stance, they just might stick around to check out what else you have to say.

The point is that you have to be ready to adapt to anything when your blogging, whether that may be trending topics, current events, or even the newest celebrity gossip. If you want your blog to successful, you must be prepared to accommodate the tastes of potential readers. If you can do so without losing your voice in the process, then you have a winning blog on your hands.

About the Author

This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas. Jacelyn writes about identity theft for IdentityTheft.net. She can be reached at: jacelyn.thomas @ gmail.com.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

We all know that if you want traffic you have to craft great content on a regular basis for your blog. But how do you go about doing this?

Chris Brogan is a popular blogger and wrote A Simple Blogging Formula.

I then read a follow-up post by Jason Cohen where he explains how he does the opposite of what Chris recommends.

So who is right?

I think they both have good points but what you really need to do is figure out what works best for you.

What works best for you?

Some of the things that work best for me are:

• Getting up at 5 AM every day to work on my site, reply to comments, and respond to emails
• Post something new every day
• Try to keep my posts focus to traffic related topics

What works best for you?

Reading stuff online is very different than reading printing material.  Online we have a tendency to skim through a blog post rather than reading every word from head to toe.

This is due in part to the fact that there is so much to read and so little time. Another contributing factor is that reading online is actually harder on our eyes and so we try not to spend too much time doing it.

That’s nice but how does it affect how much traffic I get?

Blog posts with long paragraphs that span half a screen-length or more are going to annoy readers because it’s too hard to skim.

Annoyed readers leave before finishing your post and so they’ll never see your the social media buttons/badges that we all love to put at the bottom of our posts.

Here is an example of paragraph that is just too long (taken from A Look at How People Share Content on the Web):

Annoyed readers don’t come back and don’t tell their friends about your site.  They won’t subscribe to your RSS feed, ReTweet your posts, or Stumble your stuff.

Your blog posts shouldn’t resemble your crammed notes for that Trigonometry test:

A rule of thumb

A good rule of thumb is to limit your paragraphs to 3 sentences or less.  This will make it easier for readers to skim and make them happy less annoyed.

And if you’re lucky they will come back, tell their friends, and ReTweet your stuff.

Too often I come across a blog post that looks very interesting but can’t finish it because the grammar is so poor.  Often I can’t read more than a sentence or two.

So please, if you write like a redneck, get some help.

I wrote about some of the most common and heinous grammar crimes I come across in:
How Poor Grammar Is Killing Your Traffic

Today I came across an excellent list of tools and resources for improving your grammar and writing ability.

Read: Tools and Resources for Grammar, Copywriting, Spelling and More

Photo by crsan

I just read a great post about a site that’s about a year old and it gets 5,000,000 unique visitors every month.

While there is some luck to getting of traffic and going viral, there’s a bit of a science to it too.  Much of it comes down to the topic you choose and how you present it.

Read: The Oatmeal Guide to Getting 5 Million Unique Visitors a Month

Photo by moonsheep

We all want traffic but did you know that poor grammar can seriously hinder your ability to get traffic?

When people read what you’ve written they start making judgments about you within a few seconds. If your writing is riddled with grammatical errors you will immediately lose credibility with the reader.

Where do I find these mistakes?

I find them all over.

Sometimes it will be when I read a blog post and I am so overwhelmed with the number of mistakes I encounter I have trouble focusing on the message of the blog post.

And I usually don’t finish reading it or come back to visit the blog. And I certainly won’t tell my friends about it.

Other times I get joint venture requests like this,
hi i like yur stuff and i wrote ebook fur you sells, yur peeps reelly like it, what you think.

When I read something as poorly written as that I try to imagine what the e-book will look like. Will it be 27 pages of the same type of writing?

Joint ventures can be a great way to get traffic but you will never get any joint ventures with poor grammar.

Sometimes people will e-mail me with questions and after several minutes of trying to decipher their text I still have no idea what they are really asking. More than once I have replied with, “I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you’re asking. How can I help?”

Guest blogging is another good way to jump start your traffic but no one is going to accept a guest blog post if it is riddled grammatical errors.

Grammar is complicated

I realize that grammar is a complicated subject and not all grammatical errors are created equal; mistakes in grammar can be categorized as lesser sins and greater sins.

Lesser sins of grammar

There are quite a few things that are technically wrong with your grammar but most people won’t really care that much.

Examples of this are: incorrectly using who & whom, ending a sentence with a preposition, and mixing up the words less and few.

These mistakes are quite common on the Internet and in the blogosphere and are usually forgivable.

Greater sins of grammar

On the other hand there are several serious grammatical mistakes that I come across every day.

If you want to improve your grammar than focus on the items below.

Homophones

Homophones are words that sound very similar but have different spellings and meanings.

Common Examples:

• to, two, too
• they’re, their, there
• your, you’re
• it’s, its

It’s critical that you know the difference between these words and use them correctly. Check out a longer list of homophones here.

Lack of capitalization

You need to capitalize the beginning of sentences and proper nouns.  (What is a proper noun?)

Also whenever you use the word “I” make sure you capitalize it i.e. I like ice cream NOT i like ice cream.

End questions with a question mark

I find it strange that so many people are ending questions without a question mark. This causes confusion for me. I will be reading what looks like a question and then it ends with a period which makes me go back and read it again to make sure it’s really a question.

Example:  You can help me with my website. Your help is appreciated.

I think this guy is asking for help with his website but he also may be simply stating that I have the ability to help them.

This is not instant messaging, texting, or even twitter

To a large extent instant messaging, texting, and Twitter have corrupted our ability to write a complete sentence.

If you’re going to publish content on your blog or website then take the time to think about what you’re going to say and use complete sentences.

And when you write please don’t use unnecessary abbreviations (i.e. OMG, BTW, BFF) like you would when texting.

Beware of voice recognition software

Voice recognition software can be of great benefit to us but it sometimes makes mistakes.

For example I wrote most of this blog post with Dragon Speak and while dictating this particular section I said, “Beware of voice recognition software” and the program typed “You wear a voice recognition software”.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony here.

One of the biggest problems with voice recognition software is that when it makes mistakes they will not be caught by a spellchecker; even though it chose the wrong words it still spells everything correctly.

Get a proofreader

Yah, you already know this.  Find a native-speaking friend to proofread your stuff and give you honest feedback.

It doesn’t have to be perfect

Unless you have been writing for a long time you are going to make mistakes and that’s okay.  No one will begrudge a mistake or two in a blog post.

It’s when have 15 or 20 mistakes that people start getting annoyed.

I struggle with grammar

In school I excelled in math & science and struggled in English class (especially writing).  I know my writing is no where near perfect and I would appreciate any suggestions you have on how to improve.

Making screencasts (short informative videos) is a great way to get traffic to your site and promote you ebook or product.

Roger C. Parker has put together a list of 10 ways authors can profit from instant screencasts for Twitter they create for free

This is part of my 30 Days To More Traffic Video Series

Introduction

To say that quality content receives more traffic is an understatement. The truth is that quality content generates way more traffic. Some of my best blog posts have received a thousand times the amount of traffic as my average ones.

Here is why quality content gets so much more traffic.

1. Quality Is Rare

Believe it or not quality is rare. For every fantastic blog post you may read there are a hundred average ones published. It may not seem like it because you never hear about those average ones. In fact no one hears about them and they receive little or no traffic.

Even though there are millions of blogs out there I only visit 10 on a regular basis.  I visit only the ones that consistently provide quality in the areas I am interested.

People have a tendency to find blogs that have high quality content and ignore everything else.

2. People will bookmark and retweet your stuff

Quality content is bookmarked by others and tweeted about on Twitter. It is submitted to Digg & StumbleUpon. All of these things generate massive amounts of traffic.

But the real magic is that quality content turns readers into people into spreaders. If I come across a great blog post I will often Stumble it and tweet a link to it. This results in more readers which in turn means more people are spreading the word.

It is this snowball effect, sometimes called ‘going viral’, that creates large amounts of traffic.

A few weeks ago I wrote a high-quality post called “How To Build Back Links Super Fast” and I submitted it to StumbleUpon. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of traffic the post received from StumbleUpon. It received 3 times as much traffic as any other post I had written.

If your content is average or mediocre none of this will happen.

3. People will subscribe to your RSS

Consistent quality can help you build up your RSS readership. And the more traffic you get the faster your RSS readership will grow.

Looking at the readership of Problogger we can see that there are well over 120,000 readers!

This readership rivals many newspapers in the United States. But unlike many newspapers Problogger has only been around a few years. This was accomplished with quality content.

And every time a new post appears over 120,000 people are notified.  This results in tons of traffic!

4. Quality Means More Page Views & More Money

The average person will visit many more pages on a blog with quality content. And they will be more likely to revisit it later.

If you make money off of Google AdSense or other advertising then more page views means more money in your pocket.

In my experience quality content can generate 10 to 20 times as many page views.

5. Product Recommendations Have Credibility

Many people try to make money on the Internet by promoting different products. Some have gone as far as to actually buy the product and write a review of it.

But all of these people have trouble with credibility. How is someone going to trust what you have to say?

If you have a blog with quality content then you’ve already built a relationship of trust with your readers. If readers are impressed by what you give away for free then they are more likely to trust you and purchase recommended products.

This means more money in your pocket.

6. Building An Email List Is Easy

I believe the best way to build long-term traffic is to create an email newsletter that you send out periodically to your subscribers. Inside of each newsletter are links to different blog posts on your website.

But how do you get people to give you their email address and join your newsletter?

If you have a lot of quality content then this is easy.

Simply take some of your best work and create a short PDF that solves a common problem your readers have. 3-10 pages is all you need.   The PDF should have a good title that promises the reader to solve a problem they have.

And anyone can get a free copy of the PDF when they join your email newsletter.

If you have quality content then your readers will trust you with their email address and join your newsletter.

Welcome to Day 19 of 30 Days to More Traffic!

Introduction

In order to get streams of traffic coming into your site, you need to have a quality site with quality content.

Quality content means having interesting and unique content. In order to make the content unique, some has to write the content. If you are one of the many who struggle with writing, you have to come up with a solution.

You are not alone. For most people writing is tedious and even painful.

The best solution to this predicament is outsourcing the content writing for your sites and newsletters. Finding a good writer to do this work for you can be a tremendous help.

Of course, this solution comes at a cost.

Before you hire some one to write content for you, you have to consider this cost. Part of the cost is financial. Part of it is getting the kind of writing that you want.

These 4 tips for hiring writers will help you get what you want.

1. Know what you want.

In providing the writer with instructions on the content, be sure to answer these questions. This is necessary information for the writer but the process also helps you focus on your own target and goals.

• Where is your content going to be used?
• How many words would you like it to be?
• Who is your audience (e.g. are they electrical engineers or stay at home moms or 17 year old girls)?

Provide the writer with examples of the type of content that you want and examples of how you want it to be formatted. (e.g., short paragraphs, provided to you in text format)

Give the writer a working title of the article you want written (e.g., 10 Ways to increase your AdSense revenue).

The bottom line is that you have to give the writer as much specific guidance as possible. E.g., don’t say, “write about bears” say “I want an article with this title: Top 10 Foods that Grizzly Bears Eat.”

2. Be clear about your terms

Assume nothing. Even if it seems so obvious to you that you think it should not be mentioned, mention it anyway.

Make it very clear that you are requesting “work for hire” so that the writer understands that you will be the sole copyright owner of the work and can do with it as you wish.

This also means that the writer cannot write the same article for someone else.

State the price and the number of revisions you are expect to be included in the price.

Tell writers they must have a full command of the English language.

Arrange in advance how you are going to pay the writer and when you are going to pay the writer. For projects under $50, I always pay half up front and half upon completion.

For a larger project it is a good idea to pay a small sum up front, in the $25-$100 range. When the writer turns in the first piece, pay for that piece.

Continue paying as the writer finishes each piece until the entire project is finished.

Paying as you go gives writers the confidence that they will get paid for their work.

3. Don’t take the first bid or the lowest bid for your project.

You are in a hurry to get on with the job. However, it is important that you are not impulsive and accept the first offer that rolls in.

Don’t accept the cheapest bid either until you do your research. The cheapest bid could come from a really good writer trying to break into the business. It could also come from someone who cannot write a sensible word.

Do your homework! Check out the feedback the bidders have received. On some sites such as Elance checking feedback is easy.

On the Warriors Forum, it’s a different situation. The best bet on WF is not to advertise for a writer but ask who has hired a good writer in the past.

Finding someone who has had experience with this writer is the best way to learn the facts about the writer’s performance.

You should also ask the writer for three references and actually check the references.

Always ask the references the following:

• What was the size or scope of the project?
• Were deadlines met?
• How was the quality of the final product?
• How many revisions did it take?
• Would you hire this writer again?

Another must is to ask for examples of the writer’s work so you can see for yourself the quality of the product the writer turns out.

4. Build a relationship of trust

Finding a good writer can take a lot of time. At first it might seem like you have hundreds to choose from but the reality is that out of 100, only 2 or 3 are good.

I recommend when trying someone for the first time to start small. One article with a short deadline lets you see how the writer handles the task. A 500-word article and a deadline of one to four days will show how well the writer handles things.

If the short project is successful, don’t pile on a lot of work but gradually give them more responsibility as they perform well on smaller projects.

For instance, when doing a bigger project such as a 30-page ebook, don’t give it all to the writer at once. Break it into sections or chapters and ask for one section to be delivered before they receive the next one.

By assigning one piece at a time and only giving the writer the instructions for that piece, you can see how well the writer performed before going to far into the project.

If you set a short deadline for a simple section, you keep the writer focused and the writer is not too overwhelmed by a big project.

Because the writer has just the instructions for that piece, the writer will be able to create a more thorough document because all the attention is on just that one element of the overall project.

A real benefit of this approach is if the writer is not satisfactory, you can just end the relationship and move on to the next selected writer. Also the writer does not have all your good project thoughts in his or her possession. All the writer has is just the information for the one small section.

If you find a good writer, nurture the relationship. If you can build a relationship of trust with a writer, you will save a ton of time in the long run.

Over time the writer will get to know you and understand your projects. This means the writer will need fewer specifics about future projects.

Don’t be tempted to switch to someone else to save a buck.

What are your tips for hiring writers?