Mom Central Blogger University

How to get more inbound links to your blog: blog carnivals

To rise in page rank and get more search engine traffic to your blog, you need more inbound links (links from other blogs and websites to your blog and posts). So how do you know how many inbound links you have?

The easiest way is by going to Google.com and entering link: www.yourblog.com and seeing what the results are.

You should also try link: yourblog.com as well as  the URL of some of your more popular posts just to see who is linking to you.

You can also do this using Google Webmaster Tools. Here’s how.

How to increase inbound links

One way to increase your inbound links is by guest blogging, but that requires a lot of work. First you have to find someone interested in hosting your post, then you have to write it. (Chris Garrett's Guest Posting Workbook can help you streamline this process.)

You can also bookmark your posts at sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Facebook or StumbleUpon. Some of these sites use nofollow links (they don’t pass on “Google Juice”). To find out if a site uses nofollow links, use a Firefox tool extension like SearchStatus. It will highlight all the nofollow links on a web page.

A quick and easy way to get inbound links is by participating in blog carnivals. A few years back, blog carnivals were very popular. It seemed that at least once a week, a favorite blogger was hosting them on her site. When that was the case, it got kind of boring. After all, who wanted to read link roundup posts that much? Well, maybe it’s time to buck the trend!

$30 can make you a better blogger and help you build traffic

If you’re going to make an investment in your blogging this year, you should check out two ebooks being offered by a couple of top bloggers – Darren Rowse of CopyBlogger and Chris Garret of ChrisG.com

Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Starting today and for 1 week only, Darren is releasing three bonuses for all previous and all new owners of his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook.

The downloadable workbook gives a series of 31 tasks to help bloggers get their blogs going or revitalized. Usually this is offered as an online course over a month, but this way you have it all in one ebook.

Each day you get:

1. A Task – something to DO.
2. A Lesson – each day you’ll be given instructions on both the WHY and HOW of the task of the day.

This week only, Darren is bundling it with these bonuses:

1. 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track in The New Year – This short piece gives you an extra nine exercises to help get you focused on blogging for the New Year.
2. A podcast interview with Leo Babauta of Zenhabits.
3. A podcast interview with Neil Patel, the traffic generating and personal branding genius from Quicksprout.

The workbook is available for you to purchase and download now for just $19.95. It has a 30 day money back guarantee to ensure that this is the right purchase for you.

You can purchase it directly here or get more information on the workbook and bonuses here. It’s such a great deal that I’m going to buy a copy myself!

How to get your blog on Amazon's Kindle

You can now publish your blog’s RSS feed for sale on the Amazon Kindle Store and Amazon will share revenue with you for every Kindle user who subscribes to your feed.

Getting started is easy

To start using Amazon Kindle Publishing for Blogs, first create a new account by following a quick three-step process to create your login information, set up your security questions and fill out the Vendor Set Up form.

In the Vendor Set Up form you will need to do the following:

• Provide your contact information
• Provide your payment information
• Accept the terms and conditions

Once you are finished with the setup, you can upload your blog on the Add a Blog page.

Add a blog

To upload your blog for purchase in the Kindle Store you need to follow a short three step process:

1. Fill out the simple one page form
2. Preview your blog to be sure you are happy with how it will be displayed
3. Publish your blog

Add your feed

First you need to validate your blog’s feed URL by using the URL of your blog or its RSS feed by adding it the appropriate field. If your feed is not validated, then please check the following requirements:

• The blog feed should be a full text, well formed XML feed.
• The feed should be a valid ATOM or RSS feed.

Note that if your feed has videos or user-generated links like Reddit, DIGG and Technorati, they will be removed for the Kindle version. Also, if your feed has advertisements and promotional links, they will be removed for the Kindle version. Use the preview functionality to make sure you are satisfied with how your feed looks.

Are you taking the National Blog Posting Month Challenge?

Happy NaBloPoMo 2009!

Huh?

NaBloPoMo – or National Blog Posting Month – was started by bloggers as a goof in response to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.

Who is NaBloPoMo for? Anyone who wants the challenge to set a habit of blogging every day for a month, including weekends. It’s a great way to build a body of content on your blog and increase traffic.

How can you participate? Go to the NaBloPoMo site, click on that box on the right that says “Welcome to NaBloPoMo Sign Up” Then set up your profile and explore the site to see what NaBloPoMo offers and who else is here. (Some people participate every month. Some only in November.)

Then stick a NaBloPoMo badge on your sidebar and start posting!

How do you find out more? Click the FAQ tab for a basic explanation of how things work and how to get on this month's blogroll, and if you have any questions or concerns feel free to drop an e-mail to nablopomo@gmail.com.

Who else is participating? You can see the NaBloPoMo blogroll here.

Will I be participating in NaBloPoMo 2009? I did participate in NaBloPoMo 2007 on a now defunct blog I not longer own. It was a challenge, a good challenge and I’m proud that I participated. Since I run several personal blogs and post here at Mom Central and other websites, I do blog just about every day anyway – just not at one site. So it’s too challenging for me to participate in NaBloPoMo and keep up all my writing and blogging assignments as well.

Are you participating in NaBloPoMo 2009? Share below!

Becoming a better blogger: online problogging classes

Last week, when I posted Two ways to improve your writing skills, I mentioned online writing classes. But did you know that there are online problogging classes, too?

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

Most of the pro blogging classes out there have a definite “make money blogging” slant. However, if all you’re interested in is honing your blogging skills to grow readership, then check out Darren Rowse of Problogger’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a downloadable e-book. It’s designed to help you revitalize your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will help you turn it into the page view powerhouse.

I participated in Darren’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge the last time it ran. (Well, I read the daily emails, but didn’t actually do any of the exercises since I was too busy.) Darren is The Man when it comes to blogging, so $19.95 is a small price to pay for some great advice.

You may also want to get Darren’s book, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, that he wrote with Chris Garrett.

Guest blogging can help increase your traffic

We all want to get paid what we’re worth, especially when our blogging evolves into a paying career. However, there are times when giving away your content is a good thing. When you guest blog, your host’s readers will be exposed to your work, maybe for the first time. If they like what you wrote, hopefully they will follow the link back to your blog, like what they see, and become regular readers. This way you increase your traffic and recruit new readers.

It’s one way to get exposure for your blog, though the joke is that one can die from exposure. It’s also worth doing to help out at a friend’s blog or a cause you believe in. Maybe you want to guest post to gain some link love or to build up your blogging resume. (There’s something to be said for getting published on a big site like the Huffington Post.)

Guest posting can be done as part of a blog tour for a book or product, too, like Jennette Fulda of the Pasta Queen did for her book, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. (You can see her guest post on eating healthy on a budget at my blog, This Mama Cooks! on a Diet.)

What ever the case may be, how do you go about guest blogging?