Increase Web Traffic

The number of excellent resources that have come out since the beginning of the year on attracting links and building traffic has really mushroomed. Plus there are some timeless classics that are still very relevant today.

I think it makes sense to compile the very best in one handy location and share it, so here’s my entire collection. If I missed your link and traffic resource let me know and I’ll take a look.

Now, it doesn’t matter if you like the term “link baiting” or not. It’s the process that one goes through to attract links that matters, not whether you prefer to think of your content as bait for links. I like to think that creating content that increases web traffic and builds links simply falls under the general social media optimization marketing buzz phrase that is gaining in popularity.

So, here’s your ultimate “how to” guide to creating content that attracts links and drives traffic in the social media environment:

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 | SEO Book
101 Web Marketing Ideas and Tips | SEOpedia
25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog | Online Marketing Blog
10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic | SEOMoz
8 Reasons Why Lists Are Good for Getting Traffic to Your Blog | Problogger
7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.ico.us Popular Page | Problogger
3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic | Performancing
How to Get Traffic For Your Blog | Seth Godin
The Art of Linkbaiting | Performancing
The Art of Blog | SEO Black Hat
What is Linkbaiting? | Modern Life is Rubbish
SEO Advice: Linkbait and Linkbaiting | Matt Cutts of Google
Problogger Link Baiting Series | Problogger
Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 Revealed | Link Building Blog
What Makes a Site Link-Worthy? | Eric Ward
Using Digg to Attract Hits | Slate
Using Digg and Netscape to Get Traffic | Pronet Advertising
Social Bookmarking for Traffic | SiteProNews
The Sandbox and Delicious | Graywolf’s SEO Blog
Unleashing the IdeaVirus | Seth Godin
Viral Copy | Copyblogger
Building Traffic to Build Your Fan Club | Copyblogger
Trust Rank and Your Domain | Link Building Blog
Generating Buzz With Link Baiting and Viral Campaigns | Search Engine Watch
Linkbaiting for Fun & Profit | Search Engine Journal
Link Building Guide | Jim Westergren
Link Baiting & Effective Link Building | Search Engine Journal
Link Baiting and Viral Search Success | Search Engine Roundtable
How Much is Link Bait Worth? | Cartoon Barry
Link Baiting (How Nick Wilson Created SEO Even Seth Godin Could Love) | Stuntdubl
Link Baiting Case Study from Search Engine Journal | Search Engine Journal
Link Bait | SEO Book
The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do | Seth Godin at Squidoo
Building Traffic With Article Marketing | Copyblogger
Link Building Blog | Text Link Ads
Link Building Wiki | Text Link Brokers
Advanced Link Building Tactics | SEOMoz

Creating SEO Friendly WordPress URLs

Setting Permalinks to Create SEO Friendly URLs


By default, WordPress uses dynamic web URLs that may hinder some of your search engine optimization efforts. This challenge can be easily overcome simply by creating SEO friendly WordPress URLs. Thankfully the WordPress admin panel is set up so that you can implement this technique in a matter of minutes!

STEP 1 - Open Admin Control Panel

Go to the admin control panel.
Click on: Options > Permalinks



view full-size screenshot

STEP 2 - Edit Permalink Structure

Copy and paste the code for the structure you prefer, to the empty text box next to "structure"

I prefer the following structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

view screenshot

When finished, click on: Update Permalink Structure

view screenshot

In the majority of cases this will automatically create the structure for you, making it unnecessary for us to change anything in the .htaccess file.

STEP 3 - Verify Link Structure

After updating the permalinks on your blog, you need to VERIFY that the links work on your blog. If you click the title of the test post, does it work? Do the category links work? The archive?

If not, you may not have NOT updated your permalinks correctly.

The most likely scenario is that the permissions were set too strict for the htaccess file when you updated.

Troubleshooting Broken WordPress Links

Go to the admin control panel.
Click on: Options > Permalinks

view screenshot

Now, just set this window to the side. I simply want it open and ready to go. We will come back to it in a moment.

Using your FTP program, locate the .htaccess file on your server. Right hand click on the file and select "properties".

While we are doing the updating we need this file to be writeable.
Change the number to 666. If you can't see numbers, but only settings, it should have a checkmark in every setting EXCEPT execute. Click OK.

Do not close your FTP program, as you will be return to it in a moment.

Return to the Permalinks page we had open and waiting

Copy and paste the code for the structure you prefer, to the empty text box next to "structure"

I prefer the following structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

view screenshot

When finished, click on: Update Permalink Structure

view screenshot

Now view your blog and see if the links are working again.

If so, we can now return the permissions on the .htaccess file back to its normal settings, which is: 644, or a check in owner, group and world for read, and a check in owner for write.

Click on: Okay

You're done! That's all there is to it. You should now be ready to move forward to a tutorial on how to Configure WordPress Categories.