For most Internet marketing endeavors there are two main subjects of great interest, SEO and traffic and images are powerful tools for both of those goals.

1. They are really good for the look of the site design, look and enhance the visitor experience, especially with product guides and tutorials of any kind.

2.  They are great for on-site SEO because they add keyword relevancy via image alt tags and this includes any header graphics for site-wide keyword relevancy.

3. They can also bring you lots of website traffic and money.

Search engines cannot read images you must use alt tags for descriptions, which should be keyword relevant to the page. By the way, it is blackhat to give inaccurate descriptions for the purpose of SEO trickery in the Alt Tags.

Image HTML Code:

<img src=”http://mydomain.com/image1.jpg” alt=”Keywords- Descriptions”>

Link Image to URL code:

<a href=”http://mydomain.com/”><img src=”http://mydomain.com/image1.jpg”  alt=”Keywords- Descriptions”></a>

The above code is for images that are hosted on your servers. With Wordpress you can upload images directly from your computer via the Browser Uploader and the Title area in the Image dashboard is the Alt Tag.

The Traffic Connection via Images

The best benefit of images is traffic. Google often shows image results when people search particular keywords.

Lately I think they must really be doing more of this than before because I have 3 new sites that have been getting a lot of traffic from Google Images and its converting to sales.

To make sure my images show up in correct keyword search results I name the image file in detail, for example:

SonyEricsonMobilePhone.jpg
SonyEricson350.jpg

And, I also make sure the Alt Tag is there with the correct descriptive words.

I launched a new site last week and within 4 days I had something like 2,000 visitors all coming via Google Images and 6 sales and that is pretty good for a new site. I think this is especially good for shopping sites that use product images.

What I like to do is place at least 2-3 images on my content pages that are related to the topic of that page. They really make the content pages look better and more professional, especially with guide type pages.

I also make sure to have several images on my home pages like around the welcome message, that is a great place to provide keyword relevace for the sitewide keywords.

If you love the content buy me a coffee.

Give your blog a voice with free podcasts and extend your blogs exposure and readership.

What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a series of audio media files, usually mp3’s, which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds for playback on a mobile device or a personal computer. So basically a podcast is the voice RSS of your posts and allows people to listen to your blog via computers, iPods, and basically any device that can play MP3’s. If you are not sure what RSS is, here is a complete guide - What is RSS?

Basically, free podcasts give visitors another way to subscribe to your blog, and more exposure via free podcasts submission sites, where people go to search for and listen to podcasts.

How to Get a Free Podcast

A basic and free way to turn your blog into a podcast and get free podcasts is with Odiogo. They will convert your blog posts to podcast voice posts and do it’s free. There are other free podcasts conversion services, but this is the only one that actually played my posts without error and breaks in audio, so I prefer Odiogo.

They also provide a Podcast Wordpress Plugin that adds a “Listen Now” button to your blog posts (see it at at the top of the post) which allows visitors the option of listening to your posts and anoptional “Subscribe to Podcast” button for the sidebar.

More important, the podcast gives more exposure to your blogging via the many free podcasts sites where people go to find podcasts, including Apple iTunes! Many of these podcasts sites have very high membership and traffic!

Also, bloggers use podcasts in innovative ways on their blogs, Yaro Starak of Entrepenuers Journey, wrote about What is a Podcast and How Can I Use One?, where he discusses how much influence the podcast has in engaging listeners, how podcasts can beat out radio stars and how he creates entire podcast shows for his blog.

How Effective is a Podcast for Bloggers?

Well, take a look at the popularity of ipods, the membership and traffic of the podcast sites, how many high traffic blogs produce podcasts and even weekly radio shows and also the fact that SEO Book Keyword tool shows a daily search estimate of 1,090 for the keyword “podcasts”, that’s 32,700 searches a month.

It will take about an hour of your time to set up a free podcast and submit to these websites, and it will spread your content further and give it more exposure so what do you have to lose?

27 Free Podcasts Submission Sites

Once you get your podcast created on Odiogo, they will send you an email with your control page and your personal podcast url. Save this email so you can access your control page in the future, and then use your podcast url to submit to these sites. I spend some time researching and these are the best ones that I found:

Apple Itunes -  Note: You must have and be logged into an iTunes account to submit your podcast.

Podcast.com

PodcastDirectory.org

PodSeek

Digital Podcast

Podcast Directory

Podcast Blaster

Podanza

PodFeed

Podomatic

Pod Blaze

Syndic8

Get a Podcast

All Podcasts

Idiot Vox

Pod Lounge

Fluctu8

Hard Pod Cafe

A Podcast Like That

Daily Splice

Pod Submitter

Podcast Pickle

Podcast Ferret

Small Business Podcasts

Podcast Alley

Podcast Bunker

Tech Podcasts - Tech subjects only

Happy Podcasting!

If you love the content buy me a coffee.

By, JR

Participating in forums relevant to your niche is one of the best ways to get relevant and targeted traffic to your sites and blogs.

Internet forums are so widely used and have thousands of members that ask questions and engage in discussions and that large audience can turn into targeted traffic that can lead to lots of sales and subscribers. If you have not utilized the power of forums in your Internet Marketing endeavors that you are really missing out.

Also, posting in do-follow forums can give you a nice backlink for link building and search engine optimization. The do-follow forum link comes from a link you set in the signature option of your profile, referred to as a sig link. This sig link appears at the bottom of your forum posts. So, every time you post that’s a backlink! Remember to use a good anchor text for SEO but also make sure it is eye catching for the forum audience to get the click!

Make sure to read the TOS and Posting Rules to make sure that you will not get banned. Also check out all the topics available in the forum many of them have a section for website promotion, guides, articles and how-to’s where you can refer to your sites within the post itself.

Make sure to sound like an expert (no typos ) this can bring lots of traffic!

Getting targeted traffic from forum sites is one way to make money online right away, while waiting for SEO to take affect and SERP ranks for the organic traffic. Since most of the forum traffic is highly targeted they are much more likely to buy.

Do-Follow Forums with PR by Niche

Webmaster/SEO/Internet Marketing Do-Follow Forums

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/ - PR7
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ - PR7 - Post requirement prior to sig link
http://forums.seochat.com/ - PR6
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ - PR6
http://www.zymic.com/forum/ - PR6
http://www.googlecommunity.com/forum/ - PR5
http://www.smallbusinessforums.org/ - PR5
http://forums.site-reference.com/ - PR4
http://www.websitebabble.com/ - PR4
http://affiliate-marketing-forums.5staraffiliateprograms.com/ - PR4
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.dreamteammoney.com/ - PR4
http://www.wickedfire.com/ - PR4
http://www.v7n.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.webdigity.com/ - PR4
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.ewealth.com/ - PR4
http://forums.seo.com/ - PR4
http://www.webmasterforums.com/ - PR3
http://siteownersforums.com/ - PR3
http://www.internetmarketingforums.net/ - PR3
http://www.webmasterdesk.org/ - PR3
http://www.internetmarketingforums.net/ - PR3
http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ - PR3
http://www.im4newbies.com/forum/ - PR3
http://www.webmasterize.com/ - PR3
http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/index.php - PR3
http://w3seo.org/ - PR3
http://forums.seochat.com/ - PR3 - Member for 30 days before sig link
http://www.affiliateseeking.com/forums/ - PR3
http://www.webmaster-forum.net/ - PR3
http://www.webmasterforumsonline.com/ - PR3
http://allcoolforum.com/ - PR2
http://www.seorefugee.com/forums/ - PR2
http://9mb.com/ - PR2
http://www.searchbliss.com/forum/ - PR2
http://www.decentdiscussions.com/ - PR1
http://www.inboundlinksforum.com/ - PR1
http://www.directoryjunction.com/forums/ - PR0
http://www.webmastershelp.com/ - PR0
http://www.frogengine.com/forum/ - PR0
http://www.capitaltheory.com/ - PR0
http://www.gptboycott.com/forum/ - PR0
http://www.thegreennation.com/forums/ - PR0

International Webmaster/SEO Do-Follow Forums

Australia - http://www.australianwebmaster.com/ - PR3
IRISH - http://www.irishwebmasterforum.com/ - PR3
UK - http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/ - PR2
Phillipines - http://forums.seo.ph/ - PR0

Blogging Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.feedburner.com/ - PR7 - All Feeds Topics
http://forum.newsgator.com/ - PR6
http://www.feedforall.com/forum/ - PR5 - “Favorite RSS Feeds” thread to promote your blogs
http://www.bloggerforum.com/ - PR5
http://www.bloggertalk.com/ - PR5
http://www.bloggeries.com/forum/ - PR4 - Has a Show of Your Blog Thread!
http://www.blogtrafficschool.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.wtricks.com/ - PR0
http://www.blogodirectory.com/forum/index.php
http://www.rss-forum.de/ - PR7 - German Based Forum

Web Design/Development/Code/Photoshop Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.mysql.com/ - PR7
http://www.zymic.com/forum/ - PR6
http://developers.evrsoft.com/forum/ - PR6
http://www.htmlforums.com/ - PR5
http://www.geekpoint.net/ - PR5
http://www.talkfreelance.com/ - PR4
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.talk-mania.com/ - PR3
http://www.webmastershelp.com/ - PR0
http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_comm_forums - PR9 - Adobe and Flash topics

Electronics/Gadgets/Computers/Digital Hardware/Software/iPhone/Tech/IT Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.cnet.com/ - PR7
http://forums.amd.com/ - PR7
http://forums.microsoft.com/ - PR6 - choose Country and Forum Topic
http://forums.afterdawn.com/ - PR5 - Digital Media/DVD, Digital Cameras etc…No-Follow but allow sig link and very high traffic
http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/ - PR5
http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/isn/Community/en-us/Forums/ - PR5
http://forums.windowsforum.org/ - PR4
http://forums.xandros.com/ - PR4
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/categoryHome.jspa?categoryID=84 - Various PR
http://www.cultofiphone.org/forums/ - PR0
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/ - Various PR

Laptop/Notebooks Do-Follow Forums

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ - PR5
http://www.techsupportforum.com/ - PR5 - I think it’s no-follow but has mass traffic
http://www.notebookforums.com/ - PR4 - Not sure if do-follow but allows sig link and has mass traffic and bonuses for posting

Video Gaming/Gaming Do-Follow Forums

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/index.html - PR8
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/default.aspx - PR8
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/index.html?sid=1 - PR5
http://mygamebuilder.com/forum/ - PR3 - Has a special section for link dropping
http://forums.gentoo.org/ - PR0

Books Do-Follow Forums

http://www.bookforum.com/ - PR7
http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/ - PR3

VOIP Do-Follow Forums

http://forum.skype.com/ - PR6

Wedding/Bridal Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.onewed.com/ - PR4 - Sig link allowed after probation period and it’s no-follow, but big traffic.
http://www.bunchobrides.com/ - PR2 - Not sure if do-follow, but lots of traffic

Tatoo/Body Art/Piercing

http://forum.tattootattoo.info/ - PR2

Work at Home Moms/WHAM Do-Follow Forums

http://www.wahm.com/forum/ - PR4

Science Do-Follow Forums

http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html - PR7

Forum Software Do-Follow Forums

http://bbpress.org/forums/ - PR7

Owners and Admin of Online Communities Do-Follow Forums

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/ - PR5

Math Do-Follow Forum

http://mathforum.org/ - PR8

Comics Do-Follow Forum

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/ - PR5

Photo Related Do-Follow Forums

http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/ - PR8
http://forums.photobucket.com/ - PR7
http://opensourcephoto.net/forum/ - PR3
http://forum.hot4s.com.au/ - PR3 (Australia)

Home and Garden Do-Follow Forums

http://www.gardenstew.com/ - PR5 - Blog link below each post and parses latest posts
http://www.blossomswap.com/garden-forums/ - PR4 - Parses latest posts near your username in forum posts
http://www.gardenweb.com/ - PR4 - Lots of Traffic!
http://www.homegardenguides.com/garden-forum/ - PR2

Education/Schools Do-Follow Forums

http://chronicle.com/forums/ - PR8

MIDI/Music Mixing/Musicians/Entertainment Do-Follow Forums

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/ - PR5
http://www.votefortheworst.com/forum/ - PR4 - American Idol Vote
http://www.ableton.com/forum/ - PR3
http://forum.hot4s.com.au/ - PR3 - Australia based

My Space Forum

http://forums.myspace.com/s/4.aspx?fuseaction=forums.viewsubforum = PR6

Credit Cards/Banking/Money/Investment/Finance Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.wsj.com/ - PR6
http://paymentprocessing.cc/ - PR6
http://thehyipforum.com/ - PR4
http://www.diggsamachar.com/adrforum/ - PR2

Cellular/Mobile/SMS Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.cnet.com/ - PR7
http://cellphoneforums.net/ - PR5 - No-follow but lots of traffic
http://www.cellphonehacks.com/ - PR3

Dogs/Pets Do-Follow Forums

http://www.i-love-dogs.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.globalpaw.com/forum/ - PR4 - No follow but great traffic
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/ - PR4

Health/Vitamins/Weight Loss Do-Follow Forums

http://www.publichealthforums.com/ - PR3

Travel Do-Follow Forums

http://www.travelforum.org/ - PR4
http://forums.travel.com/ - PR4
http://forums.touristclick.com/ - PR3

Movies/Video Do-Follow Forums

http://forums.metacafe.com/ - PR6
http://www.movie-list.com/forum/ - PR5

Sports Do-Follow Forums

http://addictsports.com/baseball/ - PR4
http://www.baseballtalkpro.com/forum/ - PR2

Pagan/Witchcraft/Herbology Do-Follow Forums

http://www.paganforum.com/ - PR3

Cooking/Chefs/Food Do-Follow Forums

http://www.cheftalk.com/forums/ - PR4
http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/ - PR3
http://www.cookingjunkies.com/- PR3
http://www.cookingforums.net/ - PR2

Hosting/Web Sales/Domains/Design Do-Follow Forums

http://www.freehostforum.com/ - PR3

Real Estate Do-Follow Forums

http://www.realestateforum.com/ - PR3
http://loanofficerforum.com/forum/ - PR1

Satellite TV/Dish Do-Follow Forums

http://dishnews.medianetwork.co.in/yabb2/YaBB.pl - PR2

Joomla Do-Follow Forum

http://forum.joomla.org/ - PR8

Horses Do-Follow Forums

For my friend Glenda
http://forums.delphiforums.com/dreamhorse

Various Topics

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?nav=index&webtag=delphicomz

If you guys know of any do-follow forums I missed please leave links in comments or contact me and I will add it to the list.

If you love the content buy me a coffee.

By, JR

Want more blog traffic? Often times blog traffic, like website traffic, can be elusive. Being proactive in getting blog traffic is an important part of blogging.

You can use the usual methods of getting traffic to your blogs, like article marketing, social bookmarks and other link building methods that bring traffic. But, you can also take advantage of the RSS feed technology that comes with blogs and promote them with special RSS/Blog submission sites.

Because blog’s have feeds and are updated regularly with fresh content, RSS sites exist to promote such content to their own members, and that means BLOG TRAFFIC for you.

Blog Traffic
Many of these RSS/Blog directories have lots of members and so they can bring you tons of blog hosting traffic and especially targeted blog traffic since most of these sites categorize the blog submissions by niche, topic and/or subject. Also, many of these sites automatically update on their sites as you post content, so your actual posts get exposure.

Backlinks
Many of these sites are high PR, some 4, 5, 6 plus. And while most are probably no-follow, Yahoo ignores the no-follow tag.

Over 500,000 people searched for blogs this month alone and submitting to these sites is just another way to gain access to those searchers and get blog traffic!

So here is a list of 100 of these RSS/Blog Directory sites that will bring lots of blog traffic. Make sure when you submit to them that you use the appropriate category for your blogs when available and always add your main keywords as tags (if applicable), tags is how many people search for blogs on these sites.

Don’t worry, this list is long but it will not take that long to submit, since quite a few of these sites fetch your info from your meta tags.

100 RSS Submit Sites for Blog Traffic

My Blog Log
Top of Blogs
Feed Bees
Read a Blog
Feed Fury
Suggest Soft
LaunchFeed
2 RSS
5starblogs
88 Feeds
Blawg - Legal Blogs Only
Blloggs
Blogarama
Blogbib
Blogbunch
BlogCatalog
Blogcode
Blog-collector
Blogdigger
Blogdir
Blog-directory
Bloggernow
Blogexplosion
Blogflux
Bloggapedia
Bloggernity
Bloghop
Bloghub
Blogintro
Bloglines
BlogPulse
Blogs.com
Blog-search
Blogs-collection
Blogooculars
Blogscholar
Blogville
Blogz
BoingBoing
Chordata
Day Pop
Feedage
Feed Cat
Feednuts
Feedest
Feeds 2 Read
Feedza
Feed Hoster
Feed Fury
Find RSS
Feed 24
Feed Base
Feed Cycle
FyberSearch
Globe of Blogs
Golden Feed
Gnoos
Icerocket
LSBlogs
Jordomedia
Million RSS
Plazoo
Pressradar
ReadAblog
RSS Mountain
RSS Motron
RSS Feeds
RSS Mad
RSS Feedz
Redtram
RSS Around
RSS Micro
Regator
RSS Network
Syndic 8
Tailrank
Technorati
Today
Topix
Octora

Wilsdomain
We Blog Alot
Yahoo Blogs
Blogs Feeder
Feed Stumbler
Feed Plex
RSS Buffet
Blogoriffic
Blog Toplist
Flookie
Blogion
Blog Burst
Blog Hints

Aspin - ASP applications type content only

Blog Street - Only blogs that about India or written by Indian authors.

Blog Traffic - Auto RSS Submitter Software

Here is an auto submission RSS software, RSS Submit 2.40, but the free version only submits to a handful of sites and I was not that impressed with it.

Blog traffic is important so I suggest submitting manually with the list, it takes time but it is better to control what you put in and make sure your submissions took since many of the sites require email and confirmations to avoid spammers.

Now Go Get Some Blog Traffic!!

If you love the content buy me a coffee.