Image via http://zeugma.typepad.com

        I have been blogging for over a year now and I have been constantly studying everything about blogs: traffic, monetizing, topics and more. This article lists all the information I studied, applied and got success results from. Some are accepted as generic and absolute rules by most bloggers and some are coined by a specific blogger. The names have been included where possible.

1. Include your keywords in the title. Factoidz guidelines strongly advise you to include your keywords in the title and with good reason. This makes it much easier for both people and search engines to find your articles.

2. Write attention-grabbing headlines but stay relevant to the topic and remain seo friendly.You want the attention and traffic of search engines but you also want your readers to stay after you lured them.

3. Write for people and then optimize for the search engines. Search Engines should find the article. But they are smart enough to detect keyword-stuffed posts that provide no or little value. And such a post will not be attractive to your readers either.

4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: Make use of multiple income streams.

5. Try different advertising networks and money-making methods and test to see what works best.

6. While testing one variable- such as the place of your ads, keep the other properties constant such as the images and the fonts.

7. Always tag your images: not just the caption part but fill in the text and the alternative text parts as well. This will help increase traffic as search engines will find you easily.

8. Use the All in One Seo pack Wordpress plugin. All in SEO is a free Wordpress plugins that help optimize your posts for search engines. It is recommended by a variety of bloggers, but I first heard it from Yaro Starak, the blogger of Entrepreneur’s Journey.

9. Use offline promotion tactics as well, such as business cards, brochures, lectures, speeches and more. You want more people to hear about your blog, both offline and online. Remember that the people you meet in person are also internet users. You need all the relevant traffic you can get.

10. Use social media to drive traffic to your blog and blog posts: Pick a couple that you are comfortable with, know your way around them and concentrate on them- but do include Facebook (or MySpace) or Twitter.

11. Use Adbrite as a monetizing option. I found about this ad network from Nathan Hangen. It is a very practical alternative to Adsense as Adbrite pays out its bloggers after they reach $5 as opposed to Google Adsense’s $100. It allows you to customize your ads, and encourages traffic exchange as a traffic increasing method.

12. Use mylikes.com as a monetizing method. This is a site not talked about as often popular advertising networks such as Adsense ,Adbrite, Chitika or Kontera. It allows you to pick your ads individually, promote on Twitter and Facebook. It also pays out at $2, which is easy to reach with minimum concentrated effort.

13. Write pillar posts. Again, I first heard this term pillar posts from Yaro Starak. Many bloggers refer to him as the person who coined the phrase. What Yaro Starak means by pillar posts are information-rich, interesting posts on ever green subjects. These posts help you establish yourself as an authority in your chosen niche(s). You might write for a various reasons: to inform, entertain or sell. However, your reputation will be determined according to the quality and quantity of your pillar posts.

14. “People always want to be/feel sexier, they want a happy relationship, they want to manage their time better, be more successful and make more money. This advice is a pillar, included in David Risley’s Six Figure Blogger Blueprint. No matter what time you are living in or topic you are writing about, Risley has listed the things that people will always be at a quest for. So no matter what you are writing about, keep these needs in mind and provide solutions and sound advice when/where you can.

15. Treat your blog as a business tool. This advice is agreed upon many probloggers but expressed with most emphasis by David Risley. It is not comforting, but it does give you a sense of how strategic you must be if you want to earn a full time income from blogging.