Many people who publish blogs also have FaceBook pages - and one of the easiest ways to get traffic, to the blog, is to share the blog to a FaceBook page.
Some people want money for publishing their blogs. AdSense is a very popular way to earn from publishing. AdSense produces the best results, with lots of readers to read the blog, click on the ads, and buy the products and services advertised.
FaceBook, and similar social network sharing services, is not the best choice for advertising a blog that uses AdSense ads.
You can share your blog through social networks like FaceBook, if you wish.
If you emphasise social network sharing when advertising your blog, you will have a large, unfocused following population. Many people who follow you won't be interested in the advertisements on the blog - and won't buy the products and services advertised.
FaceBook and Twitter can provide traffic - but is it the right traffic?
Some people will use social sharing, and urge their friends to
Read my blog - and Like my FaceBook page!
This will simply send a lot of traffic to the blog, to have people "Like" their FaceBook page. AdSense calls this invalid / low quality traffic - and rejects such blogs from their programme.
Social networking, used to share a blog, sends lots of traffic to the blog - but is the traffic useful?.
Google+, and the search engines, can provide relevant traffic.
To develop a focused reader audience, publish informative, interesting, relevant, and unique posts. That encourages search engine activity - and gets search related traffic. If you emphasise search related traffic, you spend less time using FaceBook, and asking people to "Like" your blog.
Search related traffic targets the blog subject - and the ads provided by AdSense are relevant to the blog subject. This produces readers who are interested in the blog subject, and in the ads - and who will click on the ads, read about the products and services, and buy the products and services advertised.
With relevant traffic, the ad managers who provide the ads, for their company, are paid well - and AdSense can charge more for their ads, as the premium ad hosting service.
You can encourage your readers to share your blog, as they like.
This blog provides sharing to FaceBook, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter - using two sharing toolbars. The native Blogger toolbar is linked from the "Share" caption, at the bottom of each post.
I added the Blogger toolbar to this blog, using the "Show Share Buttons" selection in the "Configure Blog Posts" wizard. Later, I added my personal AddThis toolbar, that floats in the left edge of each display.
Having added the toolbars, you have 8+ icons to choose from, to share this post and others.
I routinely share new posts in this blog, to FaceBook, Google+, and Twitter. If this post, or any other, interests you, you are welcome to share to any of 4 social networks (linked from the Blogger toolbar), or any of 200 (linked from the AddThis toolbar).
You can encourage sharing by your readers - if you include the AddThis, Blogger, and other third party sharing toolbars, in your blog.
Use the social sharing buttons, if you wish - selectively.
Both search engines and social sharing have their advantages - and disadvantages. You can get readers for your blog, using social networks - but try to get the right readers too.
To get readers who click on the ads and buy the services and products advertised, publish quality content - and get the blog indexed by the search engines with good position. Spend less time getting readers to "Like" your FaceBook page.
It's fun to advertise a #Blogger blog using social networking, like FaceBook - but if AdSense is part of the blog, you will get better results by publishing relevant and unique posts, and focusing on search engine indexing.
Making a blog searchable is the first step in getting search traffic, and readers, for our blogs - when we want them visible to the public.
Not all blog owners want their blogs visible to everybody. Complementing the ability to publish a blog, and have it visible only to invited readers, Blogger gives us the ability to make the blog invisible, to the search engines.
If we want readers for a blog, and do not have a private reader audience in mind, we first make it visible to the search engines.
The Privacy wizard, on the Blogger dashboard, lets us choose whether to make a blog visible to the search engines.
Start with the dashboard Settings - Basic page, and Edit the Privacy setting.
Select "Yes" for both options - if you want the blog indexed.
Select "Yes" for both options, if you want the blog indexed. This is how you start getting search traffic, and readers, for your blog.
- Add your blog to our listings?
- Let search engines find your blog?
And click "Save changes".
Having made the blog visible to the search engines, continue by publishing lots of informative, interesting, and unique content. Make it a blog that people will read - and that search engines will index.
If you prefer the blog to be invisible or private, on the other hand, select "No" for both options. Then continue by developing your private audience, as you like.
There are more settings - for owners who want to fine tune search engine access. Both the Blogger dashboard Settings - "Search preferences" page, and the "Google Search console" (previously known as "Webmaster Tools"), have a rich collection of settings, complementing "Privacy".
If you really want to fine tune these settings, look at the Settings - "Search preferences" page, and the "Crawlers and indexing" section - but read and heed the serious advice.
Warning! Use with caution. Incorrect use of these features can result in your blog being ignored by search engines.
You can read more advice in Blogger: Help people find your blog on search engines - and Webmasters: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide. And you'll find Webmaster Central: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking and Webmaster Central: Search Console useful for personal advice, complementing Blogger Help Forum.
Since Webmaster Forums supports owners of static websites, as well as owners of Blogger blogs (and other blogs), not all Search Console / Webmaster advice and tools will be useful for Blogger blogs. Be selective when considering Webmaster instructions - and ask questions in Blogger Help Forum, any time you feel the need.
The "Privacy" wizard is where you start - and similarly where some blog owners should stop.
The Blogger "Privacy" wizard, on the "Basic" Settings page, provides the start to getting a blog indexed by the search engines - when we want a blog indexed. Not all blog owners want their blog indexed - and that need makes the "Privacy" settings relevant.
Some blog owners do not understand why ads do not display, on their blogs.
We see a frequent complaint, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger, YouTube, Partner sites.
I installed ads to my blog - but the ads are not showing. It has been several months already - and I have received no feedback, from AdSense.
Too frequently, the blogs in question turn out to be computer / tech blogs - many offering free downloads of various commercial products.
Many computer / tech blogs do not get AdSense ads, even if approved - for several good reasons.
- Too many blogs, applying for AdSense, are tech blogs.
- Too many tech blogs copy content from other blogs and websites.
- Too many tech blogs offer downloads, and provide possible copyright violations.
- Too many tech blogs offer code examples, and similar details that nobody knows.
Too many blogs, applying for AdSense, are tech blogs.
There's no market for more tech blogs, because there are too many tech blogs, already.
AdSense puts ads on blogs and websites that are relevant to the product being advertised. Relevant blogs and websites bring relevant traffic - and customers - to the ads displayed, and sell more product.
To get ads, a blog needs informative, interesting, and unique content. With the marketplace for tech blogs saturated, it is unlikely that any relevant blog will have content that is significantly more informative, interesting, and unique than the general population.
Even if approved to host ads, that does not guarantee that any blog will show ads at any time - or on all pages. Ads are placed when available, on the best blogs to host them.
Too many tech blogs copy content from other blogs and websites.
Content copied from other blogs and websites produces little traffic - and sells less product.
AdSense is going to put ads on blogs and websites with unique content, because blogs and websites with unique content get more traffic. And blogs and websites with more traffic sell more product.
Too many tech blogs offer downloads, and provide possible copyright violations.
AdSense won't put ads on blogs and websites which present possible DMCA violations. There is no system, right now, to identify what content, offered for download, is being offered by the content producer - so downloadable content, in general, is suspicious.
If AdSense was to place ads on a blog which offers downloads as significant portions of blog content, they would be placing Google in potential legal jeopardy, for content which is a problem with DMCA action.
Too many tech blogs offer code examples, and similar details that nobody knows.
People who need the code examples won't know the code, and won't search for the code - and your blog won't get search traffic that you need. Without search traffic, your ads won't produce money, for you or for the ad managers who would pay you to host their ads.
Your posts need details that people know, and can search for - as well as the code itself. Typically, this would be discussion about the purpose of the code, how to use the code, what is needed besides the code - and similar details, that people would know and could use in a search.
The bottom line.
In short, if you publish a computer / tech blog, you may have to come up with an imaginative twist to your content, if you hope to host AdSense content.
Some owners of #Blogger blogs which deal with computer / technical subjects don't understand why their blogs - even having been approved for #AdSense ads - don't show ad content. They don't understand that ads are not always available, for all approved blogs.
One sign of confusion, in AdSense Help Forum: Blogger / Host Partners, involves new blog publishers, who want to immediately add ads, after starting their blogs - and need reassurance, about how soon they will be seeing income.What is the actual qualification level, for AdSense?
This is a question, from somebody who probably does not understand the AdSense approval process.
If AdSense is run properly, final approval is not based on any fixed minimum. There are too many different blog / website subjects, and advertising targets, to have a consistent minimum across all product lines.
I've seen too many blogs with very little content - significantly below the often stated "minimum" of 50 posts, 100 - 200 words / post, showing ads - to believe that there really is one common minimum qualification level.
Advertising and other paid promotional material added to your pages should not exceed your content. Furthermore, the content you provide should add value and be the focal point for users visiting your page.
Some of the experienced helpers in the forum seem to suggest a very restrictive "qualification level".
100 posts, 500 to 1,000 words / post.
There are more blogs that will never get ads - even after being given approval.
Qualification is based on supply vs demand, for each blog subject.
My suspicion is that the qualification level is based on what ads are being sold (by the ad managers) vs what blogs and websites are being offered for ads (by the owners).
It would make no sense to qualify a blog about automobiles, based on current standards for selling ads about bicycles.
- At any time, these may be more blogs about bicycles, than about automobiles.
- Automobiles cost more than bicycles, so it's likely that one automobile ad click is worth more than one bicycle ad click.
- Next month, there may be more advertisers selling ads about bicycles (in San Francisco), than about automobiles (in Los Angeles).
Approval is based on blog and post size - ads are sold, based on a variety of details.
Qualification is based on a combination of details.
At minimum, I would bet eligibility for ads is based on a combination of metrics - including current demand.
- Post count.
- Post length.
- Post subject.
- Blog language.
- Blog location.
- Demand for ads of a given language, location, and subject.
If a given ad manager is prepared to pay for 5 blogs about automobiles in Los Angeles, the best 5 blogs, based on current metrics, will be "qualified". This week, some blogs with 50 posts may be chosen to host ads.
Next month, with the Tour de France scheduled for San Francisco, there will be more market for ads about bicycles there. With more ad managers paying for ads about bicycles in San Francisco, blogs about automobiles in Los Angeles will have less demand.
Automotive blogs may be chosen based on 75 posts / blog and 200 words average / post - and some blogs about bicycling in San Francisco, being more in demand, may be chosen with 25 posts / blog and 100 words average / post.
Work on your blog more - and your blog will host ads sooner.
To anybody asking
What post count, post length, traffic level is required, for qualification?
I would suggest a different approach.
Work on your blog - and don't spend time asking about qualification level.
What you need, to make serious bucks, is going to be more that mere qualification level. And ad managers want to pay for ads hosted on blogs that will be in business longer, and deliver relevant traffic consistently - because that's where more paying customers originate.
And blogs that make more money have owners who are better motivated to publish more - and stay in business longer.
Better / more content --> More earnings --> Better future --> Preferred for ads
That's your qualification levels.
Some #Blogger blog owners want to host AdSense ads on their blogs - with their blogs immature, and lacking content. They ask about qualification levels, rather than look at how valuable their blog may be (or not) for hosting ads of a given subject.
They ignore the concept of supply and demand - even though that's very likely as important as blog subject - or size.
One of the more intriguing questions, that we see in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, involves the Blogger / WordPress dichotomy.Should I migrate my blog to WordPress, where they provide SEO optimized themes, and various plugins?
My answer to that question starts with the suggestion, that the blog owner should ask himselfWhy do I publish a blog?
This question has many possible answers - but I will focus on two possibilities.
To me, the choice of Blogger vs WordPress starts with asking why the blog is being published.
Blogger blogs are personal websites - and provide the best results when published with informative, interesting, and unique content. People read Blogger blogs, because they are written by people, who have something to say - and the readers provide the SEO activity.
WordPress offers a cornucopia of SEO enhancements, from clever themes, to plugins - and support groups that encourage the novice owner to develop a blog with little to no content or planning.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I'll suggest that, if you wish to publish a blog with little to no original content, you should move the blog to WordPress - and make use of their SEO optimized themes, and various plugins. Leave Blogger blogs to people who actually have something to say.
But, that suggestion has a downside.
One day, Google will take the next step beyond Panda, and further emphasise content over clever marketing schemes, and traffic enhancement techniques. As that happens, people who build blogs and websites based on themes and plugins will find their blogs and websites getting less traffic from actual people.
As actual people tire of reading cleverly marketed blogs with no content or focus, the owners of these blogs will turn to more innovative techniques for getting traffic. Hopefully, the WordPress Support forums will be more sympathetic to the novice spammers who askWhy was my blog deleted by WordPress?
orWhy does my blog not appear at the top of the search list?
Blogger blog owners can organise their blogs, dynamically - based on how they want to present the content, and how their readers can choose to read the content.
Help Blogger to encourage the spammers to move to WordPress - and the people who have something to say can continue publishing Blogger blogs.
Similar to starting a blog and immediately focusing on making money, we sometimes see people who start a blog, and immediately start designing the template, with custom features.
A beautiful, shiny design is useless, if your readers don't like it. Different blogs will attract different reader populations, who will respond to different designs.
Every Blogger blog is unique, because you are unique - and because you (hopefully) publish blogs that are all different from each other.
Different reader populations will respond to different features.
Depending upon what your readers are, they will respond to various unique features of any given blog. Find out who your readers are, and what they like, before you design your blog.
Start with any standard Blogger template, and with content, to attract readers. Work on getting traffic, from content indexed by the search engines.
Develop content, and get the blog indexed. Content leads to search reputation.
Publish informative, interesting, and unique content - and advertise the blog responsibly. And be patient. There are an infinite number of techniques which will give you better results.
Look at blogs with similar content, and see what works.
As your blog gets traffic, you'll learn of other blogs similar to yours - some of which are published by your readers. See what designs, features, and layouts interest your readers - and learn how to use those techniques.
A well designed blog can have a new template added, any convenient time.
You can modify your blog, including the design, without losing content or readers, any time it pleases you. That's the beauty of online, progressive publishing.
Start with content - and focus on getting readers. Work on the blog design, after you have content and readers.
We've known of resourceful scammerspammers, for years.
One long known scam, popular with home / small business blog owners, has been to award a badge for a "Most Excellent Blog" - and encourage the badge recipient to award the badge to friends with "Most Excellent Blogs".
The recipients of the "award" would proudly display the badge on their blogs. The "Most Excellent Blog" badge, of course, contained a link back to the scammers blog.
Recently, a spammer in a foreign country hosted an "SEO Contest" for other blog owners, where everybody participating was again, encouraged to put the "SEO Contest" badge on his blog or website. Again, the badge lead back to the spammers website.
Both examples of deviousness lead to mazes of interconnected blogs and websites, all of dubious relationship to each other.
Randomly connected blogs and websites are purposeless.
The blogs and websites involved had no real reason for interconnection - other than each being owned by a gullible contest entrant, or "award" winner. Meanwhile, the spammer sat there, watching his website swell with the readers, coming in search of informative and interesting content - and seeing more spam.
The former blog owners, participants in the "SEO Contest", later report.Blogger deleted my blog! I need my blog, to make a little extra money!!
But there is no encouragement here, your blog is gone. Blogger Policy Review can't distinguish the spammers from the victims - that would require determination of motive. To them, it is all one big spam blog farm, in an ingenious affiliate marketing scheme.
Long ago, we had web rings. Now, blog hops and traffic exchanges.
Long ago, when the Internet was just a geeks paradise, one guy convinced half a dozen of his friends to link their websites to each other, sequentially, backwards and forwards.Website A linked to Website B which linked to Website C ... which linked back to Website A.
The theory was that you could start from any point in the ring, surf in either direction, and view each website in the ring.
When other participants joined, they would break and insert into the middle of any convenient link pair.Website A linked to Website AA which linked to Website B ... (and Website B linked to Website AA which linked to Website A ...)
This technique was called a website ring. My first website was linked into a ring, called by its creators, "The Ring Around The World". Now, we have "blog hops" and "traffic exchanges".
Blogger / Google has "Next Blog".
Google's version of a webring started as the well known "Next Blog". As the number of blogs and websites grew to approximate the world population, people decided that they would prefer to only view other websites that resembled their own - and Google tweaked "Next Blog", to link the current blog to other blogs of the same subject.
Blogs which derive traffic from schemes such as "Badges" and "SEO Contests" (and send their readers to the creators of the schemes) become yet one more type of righteous spam classification.
None of these schemes are useful, long term.
Folks, there is no legitimate free traffic scheme. You get traffic to your blog, from publishing informative, interesting, and unique content - and from improved search engine indexing.
Don't lose your blog, from following bogus advice.
Too many blog owners start their first blog - and the first step is to drop into the nearest online publishing forum - such as Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger, and ask the question of the typical marketing expert.I want to start a blog. What should I write about, to make the most money?
And there is where many spam blogs start.
People who are making money, are busy making money. They do not hang out in forums, waiting for you to ask how to make money, so they can tell you how to make money - probably, some of the money that they want to be making.
Too many people who start out their blog, and base the subject of the blog upon advice from other people, will have nothing to say.
Writing, when you have nothing to say, gives your readers nothing to read.
- The blog will become dormant, and stale - and nobody will read it. And they will make no money.
- They will end up having to copy content from other blogs - most of which are about the same subject, and are written by other people who have nothing to say. They will have readers who are not interested in learning anything - and who will subscribe to hundreds of blogs, just looking for something interesting and useful.
This is similar to choosing a blog hosting service, according to what SEO friendly accessories and templates are available - or to publishing an AdSense ready blog, based on the minimum standards.
If you have nothing to say, you may try to get traffic, with clever, empty features.
In an effort to get more readers, and make more money, the unhappy blog owner will try other, imaginative techniques to increase traffic - in a subject that other blog owners are doing the same. Eventually, the blog will be deleted by Blogger - and the owner will be clueless.My blog was just deleted, as a spam host! I need the money, to feed my family!! Please, Mr Blogger Helper, restore my blog!
And the former blog owner will not appreciate the advice, that will surely follow.
Blogger "One button" publishing is a personal website publishing service. Very few people are completely unique. Many people share interests with other people - and very few people know everything, about any given subject. Write about what you know, and share what you know.
No matter what you choose to write about, you will get various responses.
- Nobody is interested in that!
- Everybody already knows that!
- I never knew that! Thank you for telling me!
- I already knew that - but your posts helped me understand it better! Thank you for explaining it to me!
The trick is to write about what gives you more of the latter two responses - and write in a way to give you less of the first two responses.
Write about what you know - and people who need your expertise will benefit.
Write about what you know - and focus your efforts on the people who are interested in what you know - and write more about what you know.
There you have better chances of reaching people, who want to read what you know - and who learn from what you write, and who tell other people about someone who writes what interests them. And there is your reader audience.
Too many blog owners have been listening to spammers, who tell them lies, and encourage dodgy publishing practice.You can make lots of money - just start a blog, scrape content from other blogs and websites, and add ads!
This is wrong, for many reasons.
Blogger gives us the basic definition of what is not allowed, in Blogger Help: Spam, phishing, or malware on Blogger.
Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.
I summarise this definition, by advising you to publish blogs that are informative, interesting, and unique.
Until you have lots of friends, and regular readers, who read your blog - and return later, to read some more - you will need traffic, from the search engines.
AdSense requires original content.
AdSense explicitly forbids copied content, on blogs that will show paid ads.
Fact: We don’t allow sites with auto-generated or otherwise unoriginal content to participate in the AdSense program. This is to ensure that our users are benefiting from a unique online experience and that our advertisers are partnering with useful and relevant sites.
To get search traffic, your blog needs unique content.
You don't get traffic from the search engines, without unique content, that causes your blog to be listed, in good position, in a Search Engine Results Page - aka SERP. And, you don't get return reader traffic, without informative or interesting content.
The recently deployed (March 2017) Google search engine update, colloquially named "Fred", targets low value content blogs and web sites. Many blog owners have observed an abrupt loss of search rank - and of search originated traffic - in their ad driven blogs.
Nobody is going to search for details - because they don't know the details.
Blogs which contain only lists of details, such as "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers", will not contain indexable material.
- They won't contain key phrases or words, that people might use, when searching for blogs to read.
- Their content won't be unique.
Since people don't know the answers to the exams, they won't be typing the key phrases or words, that lead to your blog - if your blog contains "Answers from Professor X's exams". And even if you spend a week, copying the names and addresses of each truck driving school, what you copy won't be unique.
If your blog contains only details, it will appear lower in the SERPs.
If your blog only contains lists of details, copied from various blogs and websites, your blog will have a lower SERP position than the sources of your content. Your blog will be vulnerable to spam classification - and will later fail review.
Websites which contain only "Answers from Professor X's exams", "Best truck driving schools in Southern India", or "Free Proxy Servers" may be allowed outside Blogger. Since Blogger is a personal website platform, you should try to write about things which you, personally, are familiar with - and host your lists, and other scraped content, outside Blogger.
Occasionally, we see a report in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, that reflects on the reader audience - not necessarily only the blog content.Why is my blog behind a Content Warning?Some readers of this blog have contacted Google because they believe this blog's content is objectionable.
Occasionally, a quick eyeballing of the blog in question may turn up some dodgy content, which may be suggested, in the forum, as problematic.
This story may not end immediately.But, I've had that picture gallery, for years! Why did I just get the Content Warning?
Here, the blog owner is not considering changing standards - or the possibility that the blog, becoming more popular, may be adding readers who don't appreciate a photo gallery started years ago.
As your blog matures - and when you are successful at encouraging reader and search engine reputation - your reader audience should be increasing.
If your reader population expands, some readers may be less tolerant.
If you are now advertising your blog to a more selective audience, some folks in that audience may object to some blog content, enjoyed or ignored by your earlier audience.
If you spend time perusing your visitor logs - and if you have a more robust visitor log than Stats, you may find some interesting clues. StatCounter (not SiteMeter) shows, among other details, the "Exit Click" for each visitor. If you see any one post abnormally represented, among the "Exit Click" inventory, you may be looking at content that's possibly not appreciated by some portion of the reader community.
Here, I'll note that you won't necessarily see any statistics for a post that is posted entirely on the main page. If your main page is a significant portion of the blog, you may wish to add Jump Break to your posts, to encourage your readers to click to the individual post pages, and read each individual post.
Be aware of your reader population - and consider their needs.
Whatever your strategy for advertising your blog, be aware of changing visitor interest. Don't "spice up" your blog with "eye candy", and expect to remain free of a Content Warning, forever.
Encourage your readers, with informative, interesting, and unique content. Don't abuse them with eye candy, then demand removal of the Content Warning, without compromise.
If you publish a public Blogger blog, and have a FaceBook and / or Twitter account, then you have an audience for your blog updates, waiting to read your blog posts.
Any Blogger feed (which eliminates private blogs) can automatically post, to FaceBook and / or Twitter.
Until recently, you could publish your Blogger post feed directly to your FaceBook wall.
Right now, you can use FeedBurner to publish your Blogger post feed to your Twitter feed. Alternately, using the third party TwitterFeed service, you can publish any suitable newsfeed - Blogger or other - to any of 5 online services.- Twitter
- Statusnet
- Hellotxt
- Facebook
- Linkedin
I setup a new TwitterFeed account, today, in a single screen transaction.
Having setup my TwitterFeed account, setting up a Blogger to FeedBurner feed was similarly quick and painless.- I provided the URL of my Blogger post feed, unredirected.
- In a separate window, I logged in to FaceBook, using my normal FaceBook account.
- In the TwitterFeed window, I instructed TwitterFeed to publish to my FaceBook account.
- In the TwitterFeed window, I instructed FaceBook to trust TwitterFeed.
- That's it.
Now, we see when this post publishes to my FaceBook Wall.
Next, I'll get back to work publishing blog posts. And, enjoy the convenience of automated publishing to additional blog services.
We continue to see evidence of frustration about getting a blog indexed, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken.I can find the blog using the URL - but my visitor log shows nobody is reading the blog!
andMy blog was #1 for my title, in Google, 3 months ago! Last month, it dropped out of sight!! Why does Google let people hack their results???
People who report these problems do not understand that getting traffic to the blog involves more than simply getting the blog indexed, using the Author, Title, or URL of the blog.
Getting your blog indexed, so you get useful traffic from the search engines, requires effort.
- You have to get the blog indexed.
- You have to get the blog indexed, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
- You have to get the blog indexed, with good position, in searches which people actually use, when searching for blogs to read.
- You have to repeat #3, constantly - because you are competing with everybody else who wants their blog indexed, with good position.
Note that your blog will be indexed faster, if the search engines can read the content. If you have a custom domain, it's best to set the domain up, properly.
How useful is it, to index the blog by title or URL?
Getting the blog indexed, so you can find the blog by searching for the title or URL, gets the blog indexed by the title or the URL. Use Search Console, and look at the "Search queries" list on the dashboard.
How many Impressions do you see, which reference the blog by the Title or the URL? How many Impressions are from people, other than you, checking to see if the blog is indexed?
How valuable will the blog be, if you publish to a vanity domain - which may (or may not) give you a unique URL?
How useful is it, to have your blog indexed, using terms that people search?
If you want new viewers, you need to get the blog indexed, appearing in a search engine results page (aka "SERP") that people (besides you) are using - and appearing in a good position on that page.
To benefit from any search used by a potential viewer, your blog needs to appear at the top of the search list.
- Any position on SERP Page 1 is better than any position on SERP Page 2.
- SERP Page 1 Position 1 is better than Page 1 Position 2.
Which SERP positions, when clicked, yield the most traffic?
All SERP positions are not going to produce the same amount of traffic, to your blog.
Look at the observations, discussing SERP Page One results, from Click Distribution & Percentages by Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rank. Which positions, on Page One, get more clicks - and more traffic to your blog?
Position #1: 45.46% of all clicks
Position #2: 15.69% of all clicks
Position #3: 10.09% of all clicks
Position #4: 5.49% of all clicks
Position #5: 5.00% of all clicks
Position #6: 3.94% of all clicks
Position #7: 2.51% of all clicks
Position #8: 2.94% of all clicks
Position #9: 1.97% of all clicks
Position #10: 2.71% of all clicks
Total: 95.91% of all clicks occur on SERP Page One
Your blog, linked from SERP Page One Position One, stands an equal chance of getting a new viewer, than appearing in All Other Positions, combined. And only 1 in 20 viewers will even look beyond SERP Page One.
How different will each SERP page be?
Every different search, from people looking for blogs to read, will produce a different list of blogs.
No matter what the subject - or search terms - there can be only one blog, linked from Page One Position One.
- The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more readers you have a chance to get.
- The more potential readers, searching using a given subject or search term, the more other people will publish their own blogs to that subject.
- No matter how much hard work you may do with your blog, you are not guaranteed Page 1 Position 1, in any given SERP.
Would you prefer being a small frog, in a large pond - or a large frog, in a small pond? A pond without other frogs - or even with lots of larger frogs - can be a lonely place.
When you have a new blog,you're better off in a community of blogs. As your blog becomes mature, and you have your own reputation, you're better off on your own. You control your domain - and your own destiny.
Try to find a pond which interests you - not one which other people tell you should interest you. And if you're important in your pond, that's good - just don't expect to be important in other ponds, consistently.
How important is unique content?
Finally, if you want new viewers who will return, and who will send you other new viewers, you'll need informative, interesting, and unique content, that is regularly added - and properly targets your potential readers.
One confusion, which we see in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken regularly, concerns blog owners and their understanding about search engine functionality.I can't find my blog!
This is frequently more completely expressed asI can't find my blog, listed in a Search Engine Results Page, when I search by URL (blog title, some other obscure detail ...)!
Equally as mystifying are people who reportI typed in the name of some obscure porn concept, and found my blog listed. Why is my blog listed with porn?
This problem is partially caused by some browser producers, who confuse us by combining the browser address and search windows. There are other reasons for the confusion, too.
When you have a blog with an established audience, and you are able to examine demographic detail found in various visitor logs and meters, you'll observe activity from various sources.
- Search engines and similar robotic indexing services.
- People, using newsfeed subscriptions, and various newsfeed clients.
- People, pasting or typing the URL into the browser address window.
- People, clicking on links in bloglists (on other peoples blogs), and bookmarks (in their personal browsers).
People using search engines find your blog from searching for content.
When the visitor log, that you are examining, provides you with detail about your search engine traffic sources, you'll notice that most people using search engines find your blog when using search terms that reference blog content. This is because people using search engines do not know about your blog, and do not know (or care about) the blog name, title, or URL.
People who know how to use their browser most effectively, and already know about your blog, will use one of the latter 3 services to find your blog.
People who use search engines do not know about your blog - they want content.
The people who use search engines, for the most part, will be people who do not know your blog, or are looking for material other than - or in addition to - your blog. None of these people will use the blog title or URL, in their search activity.
If you are going to get new Followers, readers, subscribers, and viewers in general, you have to work hard, get the blog indexed, and get it properly publicised. And, it needs to appear in a good position, in a popular search engine results page, for some amount of time.
Use Search Console (pka Webmaster Tools) to measure search indexing results.
If you're using a blog URL search to measure search engine indexing of your blog, use the diagnostics in Google Webmaster Tools, for a more efficient and objective analysis. If you're using a blog URL search to measure visitor perception of your blog, wise up and get to work on your blog.
I've been advising bloggers about an essential and sensitive subject - getting more traffic to their blogs - for years. Such a simple activity - post accurate, relevant, and useful articles - and advertise responsibly - the search engines will see you - and the readers will come. But there's a problem here, similar to the chicken and the egg paradox.If more search engine visibility depends upon more readers, and more readers depends upon better search engine visibility, how do you start the process?
Where did the first chicken come from, anyway?
With Blogger, there is a way around the paradox - the "Next Blog" link, driven by the "Recently Updated Blogs" list. When you post to your blog, your blog goes onto the "Recently Updated Blogs" list. People using the "Next Blog" link access the RUB list, and there they are reading your blog. The more that you post, the more readers you get from "Next Blog".
But, there's a limitation here. Recently, Blogger started making the "Next Blog" link more "family friendly". This effort, prompted by thousands of complaints from people tired of seeing material not suitable for minors - or in some cases - for anybody - was welcomed by many bloggers. Many malicious or unsuitable blogs, detected as spam blogs - simply disappeared from visibility.
But this effort has side effects, not welcomed by all bloggers. The Google spam blog detection is fuzzy, and it's prone to both false negative detection and false positive detection. The former means that not all spam blogs will be detected, and the latter means that not all blogs detected will be spam. This is similar to known problems with automated locking and / or deletion of spam blogs, and with TOS actions against accounts used for setting up and maintaining such blogs.
In my opinion, locking out spam blogs, from "Next Blog" links or from the Recently Updated Blog list, can be tuned to produce false positives, and eliminate false negatives. Locking and / or deletion of blogs, on the other hand, must be much more carefully balanced, as too many false positive detections will lead to too many complaints from owners of blogs falsely locked or deleted. Check the normal forum activity, in GBH: Login Issues and GBH: Publishing Trouble, if you don't understand this problem.
Exclusion of a non spam blog from "Next Blog" links or from the Recently Updated Blog list will be much easier to get away with, even with egregious false positive detection, simply because many blog owners don't know or care about "Next Blog" and the Recently Updated Blog list, nor is it easy to measure "Next Blog" activity. With that in mind, Blogger will likely tune their scanning with the goal of eliminating false negatives - excluding all malicious blogs from "Next Blog" and the Recently Updated Blog list - and there will be many more false positives.
So enjoy the cleaner and more useful "Next Blog" link, but note that there may be a price.
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This blog is "The Real Blogger Status". If somebody went and Googled for "The Real Blogger Status", they would likely get a search list that included this blog, with this blog (hopefully) at the top of the list. Being at the top would increase the chance of a casual visitor clicking on a search list link that leads to this blog, and I would get another reader.
How many people are going to Google for "The Real Blogger Status"?
I want search list entries for "blogspot connectivity problem", "custom domain 404 error", or maybe "layouts templates spacing issue", to lead to this blog, and to the articles that I have written.
Those are real live search lists - things that people might actually search on, and things that would get me readers who want to read my wisdom now, and return later for more. Those folks won't be searching for "the real blogger status", they will be searching for real solutions to real problems, and real solutions are what I try to provide.
You get search reputation from having people click on the search list entries that lead to your blog, and more people click on the search list entries that are at the top of the lists. If your content is relevant to the searches, not juiced using SEO techniques, you get readers who will read what you provide, appreciate what you write, and return later to read more. That produces search reputation, which in turn leads to search list entries at the top of the lists.
And that's what real live search lists are, and why you want them. And none of this comes immediately - it takes hard work, and it takes patience. Not SEO - hard work. Part of the hard work includes knowing when and why you get readers, and understanding why your reader count will cyclically rise and fall.
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