If you’re having trouble getting traffic to your blog, you might be better off to write for someone else! Guest posting is a great way to gain readers, increase your name recognition and drive traffic to your blog.

Readers need to see you and hear your voice before they’ll know who you are – that’s pretty simple. Guest posting will give you a chance to show your work to readers on blogs that see far more traffic than you do. Plus – the more you guest post, the more people will remember your name. If they remember your name, they will remember your blog. Finally, most blogs give guest posters a link at the end of their article. Post on a blog that has several thousand views per day and you’ll see an instant spike in traffic.

If you’re looking for somewhere to guest post, this is a great list to get you started.

For those who are trying to make money blogging, the first reaction can be to ’sell something.’ That’s how we’re taught to make money our entire lives.

In the blogosphere, you’re in a unique position that makes that impossible. In most cases, readers get to try and use everything – they even get to take it home before they buy. In fact, they might take it and use it and not buy at all. Buying, in this case, of course being subscribing to your blog or clicking on an advertisement.

If you’re having trouble selling – it’s probably because you’re trying to sell something. Try teaching instead.

People who read blogs are looking for real information. They want quality, reliable content and they want it fast. That means you have to deliever useful information that will actually benefit people and you have to present it in a way that’s easy to read and comprehend.

Teach, dont’ sell.

It’s amazing to see how much you can take in about blogging just in a single day. Today alone, I’ve read ___ great articles on blogging and I wanted to share them.

They come mostly from four different topics – design, blogging, writing and monetization.

All of these categories fit well inside my blog and I wanted to share some thoughts on each of these articles

5 Ways you are Unknowingly Harming Your Posts

If you have been blogging for a while, you should probably have a rough idea of what things you should and should not do while writing a blog post. But believe it or not, whether you know it or not, there are still quite a few things you have on your blog that are hurting it that you don’t realize.

Inside this post, I particularly liked the reference to dates. I still do dates, but after reading this – I’m reconsidering. Dates do give your blog a time stamp, which can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on your content.

5 Sure-Fire Sources for Headline Inspiration

Some days headlines are a breeze to write. The perfect words flow from brain to page in a flash of brilliance.

…

It can be intimidating, frustrating, and a little bit humbling . . . and worst of all it can grind your projects to a halt.

It doesn’t have to be that way — as long as you have a few sources of headline inspiration at your disposal.

This is a great idea post that will help you get going when you’re stuck. In addition, a commentor suggested a poetry book. I would also suggest newspapers. Journalists have been getting people to read boring stuff for a long time.

10 Elements of Highly Effective Articles

Here’s the bottom line: If you want to keep a majority of your visitors then you have to be able to produce amazing articles.  Period.

There are a lot of people out there not producing amazing articles who still do fine. Regardless, it’s important to try, right? By the way, never use the word amazing. It’s empty and means nothing.

Make Money Blogging

Do you want to make money blogging? If you do – you’re not alone. More and more bloggers are finding that blogging is a profitable medium. Whether it be to earn a few extra dollars a week to feed their coffee habit, or making enough money to stop them having to get a part time job to get through college, or whether they’ve got it to a point where they are able to make a full time living from their blogging – there are tens of thousands of bloggers making money from blogging.

This is an old favorite from Problogger. I still look back at it every now and then to see what I’m not doing or what I’m doing wrong.

Success Keys For Young Entrepreneurs: Simplify Your Life

No summary here, but this article has a good list of overall traits you should have if you want to be a successful blogger.

In a blog design, there can be a lot of wasted space. It’s easy to lose track of what can be some valuable parts of your blog, like your “sidebar” and your “footer.”

Don’t forget about these areas. Usually, they’re dedicated to advertising and/or navigation. They can be more valuable than that though. There was a great post at ProBlogDesign last February about re-thinking the “sidebar.” Wordpress design expert Justin Tadlock has been discussing the “sidebar” even longer than that.

The point is, don’t waste that space. Every pixel of your design is important.

Why The Italic “Sidebar?”

You may be wondering why I keep using the term “sidebar” in quotes and italics. It’s for good reason. The term sidebar or for the part of the blog that’s not where the “real” content goes, is very vague and subjective.

For one blogger, the “sidebar” could be on the left and for the other it could be on the right. For some, it could be below or on top or in the middle or anywhere in between. Really, a “sidebar” is just a different area of your blog that can be utilized for a different purpose other than blogging content.

I call them widget-areas, thanks to Justin Tadlock. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll continue to call them “sidebars.” Really though, the term should be changed because these areas shouldn’t just be used for what’s leftover or what’s extra.

Conventional Wisdom

Conventional Wisdom in terms of “sidebars” says that this is a secondary area of your blog. It’s for features like search, category and tag navigation, and advertising. Maybe, if your site has a lot of dynamic content, you can use it for most commented posts and the like.

This is great. When blogging was in its infancy, this was probably a great use of that “other space” leftover after the content makes its bed. But there is more that can be done with these areas.

My Suggestions

The way I think in regards to “sidebars” is really a combination of the philosophies I linked to earlier. The “sidebar” of your blog can be used to push content and keep readers moving in the direction you want them to go.

For example, I create my top picks to push readers toward those posts. It will keep them on the site longer and hopefully, inspire them to come back.

I offer tag navigation and ad space secondary to my content. Because that’s the way it should be.

Also, if you scroll down (don’t forget to scroll back up and finish reading) and look at my footer, you’ll see that I utilize this area of my blog for content too. I put recent posts here so when readers are done reading and at the bottom of the page, they are directed to more relevant content.

Don’t waste your space. Use everything you have to help keep your readers on the site longer. The “sidebar” and “footer” areas can be utility blocks to promote your content.

There are a countless number of Ebooks across the Internet all trying to tell you how you can make money blogging. On the rare occasion one is actually of value, it’s worth sharing.

Daniel Scocco at Daily Blog Tips has released a free Ebook (perhaps that’s the best part) that covers everything from the most basic fundamentals, to some quality information on how to take your money-making venture to the next level.

The book includes:

• How to Pick a Host
• How to Pick a Platform
• How to Pick a Topic
• Creating Valuable Content
• Design
• Subscribers
• Networking
• Promotion
• Per Click Advertising
• Commission Advertising
• Direct Advertising

And much more! It’s a quick read at 54 pages, but is loaded with valuable content. In order to get it, all you have to do is sign up for his e-mail list, so go ahead!

Once you’ve established a new blog, you will want to get traffic, so in turn, you can make money.

There are a few dependable ways to create traffic for your site including SEO, building back links, social networking or through professional promotion.

All of these ways will work, especially if you have good content, at generating traffic and bringing real visitors to your site. For now though, let’s focus on professional promotion.

Why Professional Promotion?

If you’ve developed a high-quality blog that offers valuable information, then professional promotion could really help you get started. Why though, would someone choose to pay what could be a significant amount of money for a start up blogger to promote a blog?

The simple answer is simplicity.

Professional promotion, like that offered by companies like PRWeb, PRLeap and several other professional public relations companies, can generate lots of traffic in a relatively short period of time with very little effort on your part.

Sites like PRWeb have thousands, if not millions, of subscribers including bloggers, consumers and journalists who will all have a look at your site and, if it’s valuable, share it with others.

Try it Today

If you’ve got a blog, then give professional promotion like PRWeb a try. PRWeb is the most popular press release service on the Internet. They’ll share your site with hundreds of thousands of bloggers, journalists, consumers and social networkers and put your site at the top of the search engines.

It’s the simple solution to a complicated problem.