Image via CrunchBase

You might have noticed that my last few Blog entries have a small icon at the bottom of each post. The icon is from a service called Zemanta. Zemanta is a really nice new service that will assists you in your blogging.

The program is available as a free Firefox addon, and that is the version I am using. You can also get it as a plug-in for Wordpress. There is no real difference in using the addon version or the plug-in, you have access to the same functions. If you are writing alone on your Blog the add-in works fine and it’s also best if you only want to try it out. Then if you like it you can install the plug-in and the functionality will be there for everyone writing on your Blog.

When you write a Blog post with Zemanta installed you will see a few extra windows. The image window matches your text with images from free photo sites on the internet. All photos are cleared for copyright. To add an image you like into your Blog simply click on the image and you have it there with credits and everything.

Another fine feature is the suggestion window. Here you see a list of other Blog entries with related information to your post. This is really great for research and when you want to add references to your text.

If you are interested in getting more web traffic, and I think you are. You should make sure your blog rss feed is added to the sources Zemanta uses for its suggestions. Then you have a chance of getting your Blog entries suggested to all users of Zemanta. Zemanta today gets its suggestions from Facebook, MyBlogLog and Twitter (and as usual get my traffic tips from yourtraffictips.com ).

I like Zemanta and will likely continue to use it. Sometimes the suggested images are a bit off but, before I mostly did not even bother with images. Now adding a matching image to a post takes about 3 seconds.

Take a visit to http://www.zemanta.com and give it a test. It will save you time and improve your posts.

When you setup your blog I hope you created a list of categories. Make sure your subject matches one of the categories, that it matches your site.

I always start with a title. When you begin it does not have to be really great. Just a title that summaries what I intend to write about. This helps you get started.

I use Word to write my posts but I you can use any word processor or even write directly in Wordpress.

Try to write as quick as possible. Personally I type rather fast and can keep up just writing down my thinking. A technique I know some people use is to record a first draft on tape and then write it down. The important thing is to get into a flow. You can go back later and fix errors. Just write and write as thoughts enter your mind.

When I have completed my writing I check the wordcount, about 300 words are a good length for a blog posts. If it is too long people will not bother reading it and it is better to split it into two posts. Too short and it will have a hard time getting indexed in search engines.

Now go through the text quickly, fix spelling errors, correct sentences and perhaps rearrange it?

Next change the view you use in word. I write in the print layout mode and change to outline mode.

Reread your text.

Changing the layout will cause your brain to see the text in a new way and you will discover new things to improve.

Now is a good time to change the title to something that is compelling and suits the text. Remember that your goal with the title is to get people to read your text.

When I have the title as I want it I print the new entry on paper.

Wait at least two hour and read the paper, its even better if you can have someone else do it. The change of media from computer screen to paper and the wait time will stimulate your brain. You will see even more new things that your eyes were previously blind to.

Make your corrections on the paper and transfer the final corrections to your document.

Now you are finished with your document and can publish it on your blog. The next step is getting traffic to the page. Learn how by subscribing to my free daily traffic tips.

Social bookmarking and web 2.0 sites has made it much faster to get pages indexed than it used to be.

It also takes a while to build incoming links and your need to slowly build the internal link structure. If you suddenly just release a 100 page site search engines will see that as suspicious. There are already way too many sites just created to index and sell adverts. Sites that use ripped duplicate content from other sites. Spam sites using computer generated content created by randomly combining other sources on the internet.

There are even people selling something called Private label right articles, ie article sold for you to use and put your name on. PLR articles can be very cheap, much cheaper than if you had a ghost-writer to create them for you. Let us assume the PLR article is well written, often they are not. When you buy them you do not know since you don’t read the articles before you buy them. The real bad thing with PLR articles is that they are sold and used by many users. The result is that search engines will see them as duplicate content and only index one site that is using the plr article. The engines will pick the site they think is the most credible source of the article, and it will not be a brand new site.

So the sad conclusion is, bite the bullet, and create good content for your site from the start. Once you have the content you can use some of the tips from my daily traffic tips mailings to get more visitors to your content.

I hope you took the time to write your article yesterday. Now is the time to re-read it and fix mistakes.

I always try to do my writing over more than one day or at least do it in two sittings. If you let the text go away from your mind you can look at it in a new way. You discover a lot of strange wordings you did not see first. This is an easy trick that make almost all writing better.

When you write your article let it take its time and focus on quality, make it good. And spend a lot of time on the title. The first three words must get people interested for most to even start reading it. The ultimate goal with your article is to get people to visit your site, but you have to do it step by step.

The title should get people reading the article. The body of the article must give something of value and be so interesting that people actually read it. And read it all the way to the end. Start your article by telling your readers what they will get out of reading the article.

There are software that will help you generate articles by pulling content from the internet and combining it. I try to stay clear of such software. I have yet to see a software package like this worth using. I will keep you posted if I do find one.

When submitting your article, start with ezinearticles.com that is the largest article directory. Read their submission guidelines and follow them. It will take a couple of days to get your article approved or disapproved. If they fail your submission you just have to fix it and resubmit the article again.

When you have your article approved you can see how much interest it draws on the sites and focus on rewriting your top articles and to submit them on other article directories.

Good luck with your articles and getting people to your site. If you want more practical web traffic ideas you can subscribe to my web traffic list.

Article directories are web site that list articles in all kinds of subjects. An author submits his articles to the directories and visitors read the articles there.

The top article directories in themselves drive a lot of visitors. The top directory ezinearticles.com has around 10 million web-visitors each month and there are many more directories than the top one.

Other web site owners can also pull articles from the directories to use on their site. When someone republishes your article you not only get the visitors from the article directory. You also get visitors from all the sites that have used the articles. You get more incoming links to your web site and if high traffic sites use your article you can get a lot of direct traffic as well.

To use the article directories start by writing an article of at least 400 words. The goal of your article is to get people to follow a link to your site when they have read the article.

You have a small area called author resource box, this is where you can put the link to your site. One of the keys to get readers to actually read the box is to make your body text flow into the resource box.

At the end of the body text don’t close the text, don’t put a conclusion there instead put the conclusion in the resource box and write out what you want your readers to do.

Assume you write a review for a photo software. You want people to follow a link to download a trial version. Try to put something like this in your resource box after the body text; .
And now you can try [x] yourself and benefit from [y] by downloading a free trial version from [url].

Now I written enough to get you started. Start writing your article today and continue reading tomorrows post tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will give a few more practical tips in writing your article and submitting them. I hope you have found this text useful. If you want more ideas to draw web traffic to your site you can sign up to my daily web traffic tip list.