There are dozens of different ways to get free traffic to your site. One of them is to leave comments on other people’s blogs and link back to your own site.

This by itself is a decent strategy. The quicker you comment on a new blog post, the more likely it is you’ll get some traffic to your blog.

Why?

Because many successful bloggers email their list after they publish a new post. If you are the first one to comment on a new blog post… then you’ll get to “ride the wave” of subscribers who visit that post.

But while this strategy works, I’ve found an even better way to generate traffic from blog comments.

Blog Comments as a Source of Traffic

Lest you think that commenting on blogs is a waste of time, let me share with you a little story.

A couple years ago, as I was researching new ways to drive traffic to my blog, I stumbled upon a simple idea. The idea was to find “do-follow” blogs that passed PageRank through their comment links.

In theory, by leaving comments on blogs like this (and perhaps even using your primary keyword phrase as your “name”), you could actually increase your search engine rankings.

In my case, the theory proved true. Here’s what I did.

First, I found a do-follow blog that had a post related to one of my posts. I then left a comment linking to a post on my site. I used the title of the post in the “name” field. In my comment, I referenced my post and said, “Click my name to read the post.”

This not only helped me get (and stay) ranked for that search phrase for years, it also sent a lot of traffic to my blog.

Not just hundreds of visitors.

Thousands.

In fact, this one blog comment has sent more traffic to my blog in the last year than any single guest post or web site other than Google, StumbleUpon, and Twitter.

In other words, this blog ranks #4 in terms of how much traffic it sends to my site.

And it was all because of one measly comment on one measly post.

Blogs that Rank Well Send Lots of Traffic

If you were to use this same strategy to drive traffic to your site, you’d want to do the following:

1. Search Google for a keyword phrase you’ve already written about in a blog post or article.

2. Go through the first page of search results to see if any of the sites are blogs.

3. If one of the sites is a blog, and comments are open, then leave a comment contributing to the conversation.

4. Do not link to your site’s home page in the URL field. Rather, link directly to the post or article that’s related to the one you’re commenting on.

5. Rather than typing your name into the name field, use your primary keyword phrase, or even the title of your post or article.

6. Finally, mention your related blog post or article in your comment and instruct readers to click your name if they’d like to read more.

While it’s no guarantee that your comment will produce thousands of visitors (or that it will even be published), there is a good chance you will get a steady stream of visitors to your site for weeks, months, and possibly years.

-Ryan M. Healy

Listen to This Blog Post:

A few months ago, I quietly changed my blog comment settings to automatically close comments after 30 days. After this worked so well, I decided to reduce the “comment window” to only 14 days.

Here’s why I decided to do this.

Reason #1 – I’ve had quite a lot of work to do this year, and I don’t always have time to reply to comments. This is especially true for comments that are added to old posts. Once a post is more than a month old, the discussion has moved elsewhere and a new comment can be a hassle to deal with.

Reason #2 – In spite of sophisticated spam filters like Akismet, every blog is still susceptible to comment spam. What’s more, the older the post, the more spam it’s likely to attract. So by automatically closing comments in 14 days, I’ve literally eliminated my blog comment spam problem altogether.

Reason #3 – A 14-day comment window encourages people to comment now instead of later. Furthermore, those who decide to comment before the window closes are rewarded with a link back to their blog or web site. People who come along later do not get that privilege.

I know a number of bloggers who’ve decide to turn off comments altogether. While I’ve considered it, I actually like to get comments and respond to them.

So, for me, a 14-day comment policy is the perfect compromise. It allows me to keep comments open, but also: prevents old discussions from being reopened; eliminates blog comment spam; and encourages readers to comment before the 14 days is up.

-Ryan M. Healy

Lots of people come and go on email lists. A few of them actually tell me why they unsubscribed. These are some of the most fascinating responses because they’re usually passionate — and I struck a nerve.

Here are a few reasons people have unsubscribed from my email list this year and last year.

******

I am unsubscribing because of the most recent post and your saying that we should not have responded to 9/11. Thank you.

(I suggested forgiveness as an alternative to revenge. So this guy unsubscribed. Go figure. -RMH)

******

It’s just a lot of e-mail to add to already too much e-mail received daily, especially when I never explicitly opted in to receive these e-mails

(To this woman’s credit, I checked my opt-in page and realized I wasn’t saying subscribers would get email updates. So I changed this. -RMH)

******

I just have signed up for too many blogs. I’m on information overload.

******

I am sorry.But you have no value or you do not give any free e-book guides,software,cource,etc,.

******

Very good and valuable information but have to decrease the amount of email coming in… hard decision but will have to unsubscribe at this time. Thanks for all you do!

******

internet marketing is a huge scam and nobody honestly makes a living online

******

Tired of being sold things instead of given useful content.

(This one surprised me. In the month of April 2010, I’ve published 8 posts. Four of them have had soft sales pitches. Not a single pure sales message — and this person still freaked out. -RMH)

******

To many newsletters, I need to focus on the most relevant ones to my industry. I think you do good stuff. Except the references to your religion, then, I better not say anything.

******

I love your writing, I just don’t have the time to read everything in my inbox

******

I am an Obama supporter and DO NOT appreciate you posting such negative remarks about him…I no longer want to hear from you. You are entitled to your opinion and I am also entitled to mine. I did not like this post.

p.s. I WAS really a big fan and follower of you and your IM work. Not anymore.

(Amazing how radically a political difference of opinion can polarize people. This response proves it. -RMH)

******

Believe it or not, I’m actually happy when I get passionate reasons why people unsubscribe. It tells me that I’m bonding with people who are on the the other side of a particular viewpoint.

It also tells me that I’m standing up for something.

The only way you’ll ever develop a loyal following is by standing up for a particular point of view. This allows other people to identify and bond with you.

You can’t be all things to all people, so this is a good thing. Embrace that you’re never going to please everybody. Just do your best at being who you are — and writing to the white hot core of your fan base.

-Ryan M. Healy

A few months ago, this question was posted to one of the private Yahoo groups I belong to:

> Hi,
>
> Could someone tell me what are the big parts that make
> up SEO? Can one say that X things make up ones rankings?
>
> For example with direct mail, it’s the list, offer and the creative.
>
> I have heard that incoming links is like 50% of SEO success and
> I am not sure if this is true.
>
> SEO has proved to be a mystery to me. It’s the only thing that
> has defeated us for years and years lol
>
> I would appreciate if someone could help me out.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Dave

Here’s the SEO Advice I Gave to Dave:

The short version.

SEO is determined by:

• Inbound links…
• With the right anchor text…
• From the right web sites…
• To the right pages.

Having the right domain name helps. You want your primary keyword phrase in the domain name, but is not required.

You want your internal linking structure to reinforce inbound links from other sites. (So use the right keyword phrase when linking to a page within your site.)

Generally speaking, older domains rank better than newer domains.

Last but not least, have solid content on your site. When you’re trying to rank a page for a particular keyword phrase, it helps if that phrase is in the page title and an h1 tag. It also helps if the keyword appears a few times on the page.

But all these things bow to inbound links.

I’m no SEO expert… it’s not what I do for a living… but I’ve managed to get 1st page Google rankings for a number of competitive keyword phrases. So I know this formula works.

This Really Is the Short Version of SEO

I recently wrote an in-depth report on SEO and it rang in at 34 pages. I named this report “Free Traffic: The Layman’s Guide to SEO.”

I may be selling this report in the near future. But first, I’m going to give it away FREE if you sign up for SEO Link Vine through my affiliate link.

This is a brand new service. I just signed up for SEO Link Vine myself, and it will probably end up being a resource that I recommend in my SEO report.

So I figured: instead of selling this report to you for a price, why not give it away free when you sign up for one of the tools I believe is going to help you get better rankings?

Here’s what to do right now: Purchase SEO Link Vine through this link. Then email me your receipt at rhealy@gmail.com. I will immediately forward you a copy of my brand new SEO report.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. If you want better rankings, I truly believe this new service combined with my report will help you immensely. Purchase through this link and you’ll get my SEO report for free: http://www.LinkVine.net

Social media can be a huge time waster when it’s used incorrectly.

Unfortunately, most people use social media the wrong way. They spend hours every day tweeting, Facebooking, and who knows what else — only to find that they’re a day older and not a penny richer.

Here’s a useful principle for business:

If what you’re doing for business is not producing additional revenue, then you need to either a) change your approach until it does produce revenue or b) stop the unproductive activity altogether.

This is especially true of social media.

Here’s another useful principle:

Find people who have already figured out how to generate additional revenue from social media — and then simply do what they’re doing.

Obviously, modeling another successful person does not a guarantee that you’ll have the same degree of success (or any success at all), but you can at least be sure that your approach will have a reasonable chance of succeeding.

With this in mind, I’d like to tell you about Charlie Cook’s free teleseminar series called “The Insiders’ Secrets to Profiting With Social Media Marketing.”

During this series, 8 experts (including me) are presenting some of their best knowledge about how to use social media to grow your business. It’s free to participate — and you can listen to just one teleseminar or all of them. It’s up to you.

All you have to do is register with your name and email.

• Jack Humphrey will be sharing blogging strategies.
• Jan Vermeiren will teach you how to build (and profit from) your LinkedIn network.
• Kyle Lacy will be revealing how to use Twitter to build relationships and get more referrals.
• Plus, there are five additional presentations — including one in which I share how I use my blog to develop my business.

I haven’t heard any of the other presentations, so I can’t vouch for what kind of value you’ll get. But I can tell you the content in my presentation will be worth your time. (I delivered the same material to a local business group, and they responded very positively to it.)

To get registered, please click here.

Note: This is my affiliate link. If you decide to buy the recordings later, I’ll get a commission. Otherwise, all 8 presentations are free.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. When you go to register, you’ll see a sales letter. For the record, I didn’t write it. I would not have used the word “killer” to describe my blog and sales letters.

Anyway, I suggest you scroll down to the speaker profiles and see if there’s anything you’d like to learn more about. If something catches your eye, go ahead and register.

Today (March 11, 2010), I gave a talk at a local Meetup group here in Denver. I talked for an hour about how to build your business by building your blog.

Overall, I think it went pretty well. Especially since it’s the first time I’ve spoken in public in more than 6 years. It’s been so long, I can’t even remember the year I last talked.

One thing that quickly became apparent is that it’s difficult to explain how to set up a Wordpress blog on your own domain. And it’s hard to explain the concepts of themes, plugins, etc. to somebody who is not familiar with blogging.

If you’re just getting started, you’re certainly free to take the time to learn how Wordpress works on your own. That’s what I did. There’s lots of free information at Wordpress.org.

But if you’re short on time, and you’d rather have somebody else set up your blog for you, then you should hire my friend and business partner Ken Gary.

He can set up a new Wordpress blog for you, install a theme, and even install a handful of plugins for you — all for just $200.

If you’re interested, here’s what to do.

Step #1: Go to Ken’s consulting page.

Step #2: Check the third box down, which is the one for two hours of consulting.

Step #3: Complete the order form and click Continue.

Once you complete this process, you’ll want to let Ken know your hosting account login details so he can login and install Wordpress.

Ken will also need to know what theme you want installed, as well as the plugins you want installed. You can probably do that by email or a phone call, whichever you prefer. I’ll leave it to you to work out the details with Ken.

Anyway, I’d hate to see you put off starting your blog because of a lack of time or a lack of technical know-how. So if one of these things is holding you back, hire Ken to help you.

-Ryan M. Healy

P.S. I just got off the phone with Ken, and he told me that you will also get access to his private Wordpress training videos if you hire him to install your Wordpress blog.

These videos show you how to use Wordpress as a publishing platform, and are very helpful if you’re just starting out.

Ever wanted to monetize your blog with Adsense? Then you’ll definitely want to grab the free Adsense blogging interview I’ve linked to at the bottom of this post.

I’ve tested Adsense a few times throughout the years with a modicum of success. But lately my interest has been rekindled because of some new plugins that make it super easy to put Adsense on Wordpress blogs.

(This is in contrast to the old days when I had to cut and paste the Adsense code on every page of my site. Ugh!)

A couple weeks ago, Mark Allen stumbled on my blog and called me up to talk. During our second conversation, he offered to do an Adsense makeover on my blog.

Since I’ve been wanting to switch things up on my blog anyway, and my previous experiments with Adsense on RyanHealy.com have generated very little income, I agreed to the interview.

At the very least, I figured it would be a good challenge for Mark. :-)

Turns out, Mark’s advice is really good. And while the jury is still out on whether Adsense will work on this blog or not, Mark’s advice is already producing good results on another blog I write.

With that in mind, here’s the link to go download the Adsense makeover interview from Mark’s blog. I hope you get as much out of the interview as I did. Enjoy!

-Ryan M. Healy

A few people have responded to my recent controversial post either on their blogs or via comments. Some have expressed their opinion that it’s never good to name names. And others have spoken out against name calling.

But I think the two issues are getting a little bit confused. There is a big difference between “calling somebody out” and being a “name caller.”

If you name names and draw attention to a particular person and his or her bad business behavior, that is a public service. This is why there are complaint boards, business rating services, etc. They exist to help document unethical business practices and protect consumers.

Should we have not called out Bernie Madoff — and let him continue his Ponzi scheme indefinitely? Should we have been silent as Robert Tilton exploited thousands of TV viewers every week?

To be silent on such issues is to encourage criminal behavior.

In my opinion, naming names is not optional. It must be done to preserve law and order in a society. Criminal behavior (like fraud) can’t be ignored.

Here’s a mental exercise that helps prove the point:

Imagine a known sexual predator living in your area. Would you merely warn your neighbors about the different kinds of sexual crimes being committed in neighborhoods across the nation?

Or would you tell your neighbors the full name of the sexual predator, exactly what he had done in the past, and exactly where he lived so you would know how to avoid him?

I think you know the answer to that. You’d warn your neighbors — and you’d give plenty of specifics.

Name-calling is a different issue entirely. It rarely serves any positive purpose and only redirects attention away from the real issues that need to be talked about.

Unfortunately, this is what often happens in political discussions. The ad hominem attacks start flying. The real issues get swept under the rug.

In fact, this is what happens in many, many arguments, not just political ones. Whether it’s between two friends, two spouses, or whomever, it’s far too easy to let our emotions get the best of us — and resort to name calling. (“Jerk!” “Pervert!” “Idiot!” Etc.)

So, in sum:

Naming names – Necessary, especially when criminal behavior is involved.

Calling names – Unproductive at best, damaging at worst.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. :-)

-Ryan M. Healy

Last I checked, Apple had sold like a hundred gazillion iPods and iPhones.

Okay, just counting iPhones alone, they’ve sold more like 33.75 million as of fourth quarter 2009. [source]

Remember, that’s not counting any iPod Touch sales.

Plus, millions more Crackberries, PDAs, web-enabled cell phones, and handheld Internet devices have been sold all across the world.

I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I said that 70 million people worldwide can now surf the Internet on a handheld device. And even if it were “only” 34 million people, that’s a LOT of mobile web surfers!

Question: Have you ever wondered how many people are trying to read your blog using a handheld mobile device? And have you ever seen what your blog looks like on one?

I only recently got an iPhone in July 2009 — so I’m not casting stones here at all — and all of a sudden I realized why “the mobile web” is actually a really big deal.

One morning in particular brought this to the front of my mind. My friend was traveling and my brother had slept through his alarm clock, so all of a sudden I found myself at Panera alone… without a book. (The horror!)

But I did have my iPhone.

So I stopped in at a few of my favorite blogs.

Let me tell you: It was practically impossible to read some of them! The words wouldn’t resize, the borders wouldn’t flex, and I’d be stuck scrolling left to right and squinting to read the super-small font.

Not a pleasant experience.

Then I tried to read my blog. And it wasn’t much better!

The fact is, a blog that’s designed to be read on a computer cannot be easily read on a screen that’s perhaps one-tenth or even one-twentieth the size of a full computer screen.

That’s when I got curious about how to modify my blog for mobile readers.

Turns out, it’s way easier than I thought — if you have a Wordpress blog.

All you have to do in Wordpress is scroll down to “Plugins” from within the admin panel and click on “Add New.” Type “Wordpress Mobile Pack” into the search box. Click “Install” next to the plugin to install it.

From there, customize as you wish.

It’s a beautiful thing. Because immediately you will have a site that is easily viewed and read by any mobile web user.

Problem solved! (Not to mention you can now grab the eyeballs of a few million web surfers who are stuck in department stores while their wives try on clothes.)

-Ryan M. Healy

Heads up…

I’ve got a few more posts in queue and will be publishing them soon.

But it’s been a while since I asked you what questions you’ve been wrestling with. With that in mind, what questions do you have about writing sales copy for the web (or direct response copywriting in general)?

Just type your question below in the comment box. Or, if you’d rather, shoot me an email at rhealy@gmail.com.

I’ll be reviewing every question and will choose the best ones to answer in new blog posts.

Thanks!

-Ryan M. Healy