Submit to social bookmark sites with one click

I just stumbled onto This great tool. It allows you to submit to all of your social bookmarking sites with the click of one button, rather than submitting to each one individually.

It allows you to enter your login / pass details for the popular social bookmarking sites (ie spurl, furl, etc) and then gives you a link to add to your toolbar so that when you browse to a site you like, you only click on the toolbar link once.

Visit the page here

List of Directories to submit your site or blog to

This is going to be a running list that I edit as i find new directories that are worth adding to. If you come across some that aren't listed here, leave a comment. These are strictly directories, most require reciprocal links and some require you to sign up for a login / password. All are free.

These are the directories that I have personally listed this site too. At the end of this list, there are links to other directory lists which inlcude sites that I havent yet submitted too. As time goes on, ill start adding in a list of the ones that are yielding me traffic.

The Directories
Premium SEO Friendly Web Directory
Open Directory Project
Global Internet Index
Friendly Web Directory
Digital Directory Europe
Top Blog Sites
Blog Point
My Blog Directory
Bloggapedia
5 Star Blogs
Blog Catalog
Get Blogs
Bloggernity
Blog Flux
Blogger Now
Blog o Riffic
eBlogzilla
LS Blogs
Globe of Blogs

Sites that list directories that I have yet submitted to
Free Web Directories
Directory Critic
Stongest Directories

Forums discussing directories to submit to;
Check out the sub-forum at DigitalPoint called Directories Forum

List of Social Networking sites

Here is a list of what I consider to be the standard set of social bookmarking websites:

Backflip
Bibsonomy
blinklist
Blue Dot
del.icio.us
Digg
Diingo
Furl
Looklater
ma.gnolia
RawSugar
Shadows
Simpy
Spurl

Here is a big, maintained list of all the social networking sites out there. Use this list to find a network where you can promote your site. Social networking is a powerful source of targetted traffic.

Click here for the list

Add you blog to open source directory

The Open Directory Project is basically a web directory of Internet Resources. It prides itself on only listing quality sites, so if your site is listed there then expect some good quality traffic.

To submit, follow the steps on this page.

How to make an 80x15 button

80x15 buttons (aka antipixel buttons or badges) are the standard link buttons for blog sites and web sites. They are extremely popular amongst bloggers and are a great way to advertise your site. Examples of these buttons can be seen in the sidebar to the right.

If your not a photoshop expert, making one of these buttons might seem like a hard task. However, i stumbled upon a site called Brilliant Button Maker that makes one for you. This is a fantastic idea and its so simple to use and produces great looking buttons. It even uploads the image to a host for your.

This is one that I made in less than one minute :

Check it out at this link

Promote your site though Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a powerful way of getting a steady, loyal source of traffic, as well as improving your PR. Basically its user submitted news and bookmarking sites, where if someone stumbles upon a link that they like, they submit the link to these social bookmarking sites to share with others.

Examples of social bookmarking sites include Digg, Spurl, and Del.icio.us. Having your site listed on any of these sites will greatly improve your traffic and you may gain a steady audience.

The best part about Social Bookmarking for you, the webmaster, is that it is so easy to include in the footer of a post links for the reader to click on to submit your site to their favourite Social Bookmarking site. See the footer of this post for a working example.

There are many different scripts to add to your blog to include this footer widget. The one which I use is from a site called Beautiful Beta. The installation guide can be found at the previous link and involves copying and posting two pieces of code.

Another one is found at The BookMarketer which is also simple to use, however I didnt really think the appearance suited my blog.

There are many more which can be found via google using search terms such as 'social bookmarking widget'

New Stat Counter - IceRocket Blog Tracker

Stumbled onto this new stat counter (they are calling it a Blog Tracker) the other day. It looks similar to the other stat counter that I have blogged about, however it offers a rank of your blog based on other blogs that use that stat counter.

This is the website for it

I think that I will sign up for this counter, it looks promising. Its only in Beta at the moment.

Blogger - How to put Google Adsense after a post

This seems like a fairly simple task for anyone with a slight bit of html knowledge, however when the adsense code is placed after the post tag, it dosent show up. This is due to part of the adsense code. What you need to do is the following:
1 Get your adsense code
2 Now you will need to locate the following code

<div class='post-body'>
<p><data:post.body></data:post.body></p>
</div>

in Template > Edit HTML (remember to click on 'expand widget templates').

3. Now paste your google code after the end
4. You will need to remove the following google code in blue

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
your adsense code
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

And thats how you do it.

Webmaster Forums for traffic trades and other tips

As a webmaster, you should be visiting some webmaster forums in your spare time. These forums are a great source for traffic trades, tips, and reviews of advertising programs.

While there are many of these forums out there, the best ones that I have stumbeled upon have been :
- SitePoint Forums
- Digital Point Forums
- Warrior Forum

Check them out. There are so many tips there for new and old webmasters. There are also sections for traffic trades with other webmasters. Of course, you could also google search terms like 'webmaster forum' to find other forums.

Using Forums as a source of traffic

As far as im concerned, this is the quickest way to get some traffic to your site, however it does require somewhat constant effort on your behalf to maintain the level of traffic.

Basically, you sign up to a forum that is of a similar topic to your forum, and have a link to your site in your signature which gets displayed after all of your posts. Keep in mind that some forums dont allow this, but most do. Usually a one line link is fine, however if you start sticking large banners in your signature expect that it might get removed. The best way to find out what is tolerated is to look around and see what the other forum members have in their signature and read the forum rules.

To find these forums, i suggest either doing a google search for eg 'soccer forum' , replace soccer with whatever topic your website is about. Also, there is a website Big-Boards.com that lists all the large forums. I suggest spending some time and looking over this list to find some relevent forums.

To place your link in your signature, you will need to:
- Register for the forum ;
- Go to Control Panel (or CP or Profile) ;
- Go to edit signature (may be different on different boards) ;
- Enter ususally BB code to link to your site.

An example of the BB code is:

[URL=www.google.com]Google[/URL]

This would display a link to www.google.com with the text Google. Note that some boards use different software so you may have to play around with the code a bit.

Guide to Blog Directories

Blog directories are a easy way to get some quick targetted traffic to your site. This article discusses:
- What are blog directories
- Why use blog directories
- List of blog directories

Blog directories are basically sites that categories user submitted blogs. You submit your blog to the related category, and people use the directory as a blog search engine.

There are hundreds of blog directories out there, its up to you how many you want to submit to. However, submitting to the bigger ones is recommended. Most blog directories require a link back, sometimes in the form of a small button. In one of the sidebars on the site, you will see lots of these small buttons. They are blog directories that I have submitted to, and I recommend you do the same.

As this site grows and as i stumble upon new blog directories, keep an eye out for more buttons and ill make a new post about them every so often.

Using referrers as a source of traffic

A simple way to get people to send you hits is to display top or recent referrers. This article expands on the following:
-What are referrers;
-Types of referral scripts.

Simply put, referrers are websites that send you visitors. Be it google, a link trade, or some random website that has linked to you.

Some websites have what is called a toplist. This is a script that keeps track of how many people each website sends them, and lists these sites in order from the one who sends the most traffic to the one who sends the least (or it may only show the top 10). These are a good source of quick traffic, so do a few trades with these type of sites. The only problem is that your link on their site is not a hardlink, so it wont affect your page rank. For Blogger, a good toplist script is Xclicks. It can be tedious to set up, so follow the guide on the site.

A very simple way to show the top x referrers is a script called e-Referrer. Simply sign up, copy and past a piece of code and it will display on your site the last x referrers and how many visitors they sent you. To the left is a screenshot of how it looks and the features are highlighted

Remember, if you find a site that looks like it could be a good source of traffic and it has a script running like e-referrer, send some hits to them to get listed on their referrer list to get some traffic back.

The code for e-Referrer can be easily installed using the following steps:
- Log in to your Blogger account.
- On the first "New Post" click "Layout".
- Click "Add a Page Element".
- Choose the "HTML/JavaScript" then click, "Add To Blog".
- Paste the e-Referrer code into the space provided. (ctrl v)
- Click "Save Changes".

There are other scripts available out there that can be used for blogger. If you come across a site that has a decent looking script, try to find a link for it on the site.

Counting and Analysing traffic using stat counters

In order to find out who is visiting your website you need a stat counter ( also called hit counter ). This article expands on the following concepts:
-What is a stat counter;
-What type of data do they track;
-What are the best stat counter.

Stat counters are programs that record certain activity of visitors to your site. In the simplest form, they tell you how many people visited your site (unique visitors), and how many different pages were loaded (hits). Stat counters can hold data such as:
- entry page (where the person found your site from);
- exit page (what page the exited your site from);
- popular pages (what pages get the most hits);
- keyword activity (what search engine keywords were typed to find your site)
and many more, depending on which stat counter you use.

Since this site is aimed towards blogger users, the number of stat counters available is limited more than if you were hosting a site on your own. However, there are two very good stat counters that are commonly used by blogger bloggers. They are:
StatCounter ;
Site Meter.
I use StatCounter and its more than sufficient, however a lot of people use both. They are very simple to install. Each site will give you a piece of code to install, and with the new Blogger Beta, is a matter of following these steps:

1. Log in to your Blogger account.
2. On the first "New Post" click "Layout".
3. Click "Add a Page Element".
4. Choose the "HTML/JavaScript" then click, "Add To Blog".
5. Paste the StatCounter code into the space provided. (ctrl v)
6. Click "Save Changes".

Done. Now wait for people to come and you can begin to see what they did when they were at your site.

Using similar websites to find sources of traffic

The following article expands on the following ideas :
- Link trades ;
- Public Stats / Hit Counters ;
- Top Referrers.

One of the best ways to get an idea of sources of traffic is to surf websites that are similar to yours. No matter how unique your site is, there will still be other sites that have common content to some extent. Finding these sites is merely a matter of googling your keywords or keywords that you think are similar to yours.

Once you find a few appropriate websites, look over the links area and see if they are accepting link trades. If your site is up and running, send them an email or fill in the link trade form. Link trades are a great source of traffic and also help to increase your page rank. If the site does not advertise that it is accepting link trades, it may still be worth sending them a polite email requesting a link trade. Alternatively, you could put up their link on your site and send them some traffic for free. Some sites will place your link up as a result of this. Still looking at the links area, it is worth clicking on the listed links that are similar to your website to see if they are accepting link trades. Follow the same steps as in the previous paragraph.

Some websites have public stats. I.E. they make available the infomation for website viewers to see where the website is getting its traffic from. This is fairly rare, however keep a look out for this button as it is a common stat counter that shows public stats. Click on it and you can see where the website is getting its traffic from. Vistit these sites and see if you can trade links with them or submit your link. Similarly, websites may have a link similar to "top 100 referrers' which lists sites that are sending that site the most traffic. These links are well worth checking out.

Each of the concepts discussed above are explored further in the website and can be accessed by clicking on the labels either at the end of this post or in the sidebar.