15 Tips to Increase Blog Traffic

The blogosphere is a big and busy world with over 100 million blogs and growing. How do you attract visitors to your blog? Follow these simple tips to drive traffic to your blog.
1. Write Well and Write Often
Frequently updating your blog with useful content is the first step to building your blog's audience. The content you write is what will keep readers coming back for more. Make sure you have something meaningful to say to them and say it often to maintain their interest and keep them loyal.
Furthermore, post frequently to increase the number of chances you have for your blog's content to be noticed by search engines such as Google or Technorati.
2. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines
Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! bysubmitting your blog's URL to them. Most search engines provide a 'Submit' link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.
It's important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn't mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.
3. Use and Update Your Blogroll
By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It's an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs' blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.
4. Harness the Power of Comments
Commenting is a simple and essential tool to increase your blog's traffic. First, respond to comments left on your blog to show your readers that you value their opinions and draw them into a two-way conversation. This will increase reader loyalty.
Second, leave comments on other blogs to drive new traffic. Make sure you leave your blog'sURL in your comment, so you create a link back to your own blog. Many people will read the comments left on a blog post. If they read a particularly interesting comment, they are highly likely to click on the link to visit the commentor's website. It's important to make sure you leave meaningful comments that are likely to invite people to click on your link to read more.
5. Syndicate Your Blog's Content with an RSS Feed
Setting up an RSS feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.
6. Use Links and Trackbacks
Links are one of the most powerful parts of your blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get you noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs.
You can take links to other blogs a step further by leaving a trackback on the other blog to let them know you've linked to them. Blogs that allow trackbacks will include a link back to your blog in the comments section of the post that you originally linked to. People do click on trackback links!
7. Tag Your Posts
It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it's worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They're also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.
8. Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites
Taking the time to submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg,StumbleUpon, Reddit and more can be a simple way to quickly boost traffic to your blog.
9. Remember Search Engine Optimization
When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don't overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google's search entirely.
10. Don't Forget Images
Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.
11. Consider Guest Blogging
Guest blogging can be done when you write a guest post on another blogger's blog or when another blogger writes a guest post on your blog. Both methods are likely to increase traffic as your blog will be exposed to the other blogger's audience. Many of the other blogger's readers will visit your blog to see what you have to say.
12. Join Forums, Web Rings or Online Groups
Find online forums, web rings, groups or social networking sites such as Facebook andLinkedIn where you can share ideas and ask questions of like-minded individuals. Add a link to your blog in your signature line or profile, so each time you post on a forum or participate in another online network, you're indirectly promoting your blog. Chances are many people will click on that link to learn more about you.
13. Promote Outside Your Blog
Promoting your blog shouldn't stop when you step outside the blogosphere. Add your blog's URL to your email signature and business cards. Talk about it in offline conversations. It's important to get your name and your blog's URL noticed offline, too.
14. Nominate Yourself and Other Blogs for Blog Awards
There are a number of blog awards given out throughout the year. Nominating yourself and other blogs and bloggers can draw attention to your blog and drive traffic to it.
15. Don't Be Shy
The most important part of the blogosphere is its community and much of your success as a blogger will be tied to your willingness to network with that community. Don't be afraid to ask questions, join conversations or just say hi and introduce yourself. Don't sit back and hope the online world will find you. Speak out and get yourself noticed. Let the blogosphere know you've arrived and have something to say!

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REQUEST 3:

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031HE5-73WZMZ-M7ACTN-0BRXF7-90HM85-HR4DZ0-2AM512-QAKD7A-4VD364-ZVHPCA-Y9BYE0-1G0A0T

031HE5-73WZMZ-M7ACTN-0BRXF7-90HH6U-CQRAP8-93U94A-2E3V1F-MHE0FR-HRYEY0-9U5H81-GP2WGN

031HE5-73WZMZ-M7ACTN-0BRXF7-90HXJC-X4MK15-D3M8Z7-NPTF48-CZR0CM-V3JQFZ-QP27KQ-3JVH21

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Sothink SWF quicker 3.0

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000017-BMGBNB-HU8CWU-JX8VDE-BKF5C5-DJTUX4-U331BC-UAQBT4-KBQFXM-VBCCDM

000017-BMGBNB-HU8F1R-FW2ZF6-XFUD0T-FRJQ2E-TZE5WU-TYECG8-ZVANE9-YKM8N6

000017-BMGBNB-HU80GY-K4EEPH-B363A9-7QA21K-0A1MMR-2GA29A-23WKGK-VEMMFA

000017-BMGBNB-HU835H-G6M7PY-UUDR3P-4PZNBP-WXZNA9-08YYZT-BAQUFD-D08B52


Microsoft expression Web 3

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or You can download it here

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Sothink_SWF_Quicker_4.5_Build_457

http://rapidshare.com/files/264544194/Sothink_SWF_Quicker_4.5_Build_457.zip

includes serial key


if u need more serials please let me know on the comment

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Firewalls

The Internet has made large amounts of information available to the average computer user at home, in business and in education. For many people, having access to this information is no longer just an advantage, it is essential. Yet connecting a private network to the Internet can expose critical or confidential data to malicious attack from anywhere in the world. Users who connect their computers to the Internet must be aware of these dangers, their implications and how to protect their data and their critical systems. Firewalls can protect both individual computers and corporate networks from hostile intrusion from the Internet, but must be understood to be used correctly.

We are presenting this information in a Q&A (Questions and Answers) format that we hope will be useful. Our knowledge of this subject relates to firewalls in general use, and stems from our own NAT and proxy firewall technology. We welcome feedback and comments from any readers on the usefulness or content.

We are providing the best information available to us as at date of writing and intend to update it at frequent intervals as things change and/or more information becomes available. However we intend this Q&A as a guide only and recommend that users obtain specific information to determine applicability to their specific requirements. (This is another way of saying that we can't be held liable or responsible for the content.)

Download the Firewalls PDF

Introduction

Vicomsoft develops and provides Network Address Translation technology, the basis of many firewall products. Our software allows users to connect whole LANs to the Internet, while protecting them from hostile intrusion. Click here to download free trial software.

Vicomsoft have gained significant experience in the area of firewall protection and would like to make this information available to those interested in this subject. For those who would like to study this subject in more detail useful links are listed at the end of this document.

Questions

1. What is a firewall?
2. What does a firewall do?
3. What can't a firewall do?
4. Who needs a firewall?
5. How does a firewall work?
6. What are the OSI and TCP/IP Network models?
7. What different types of firewalls are there?
8. How do I implement a firewall?
9. Is a firewall sufficient to secure my network or do I need anything else?
10. What is IP spoofing?
11. Firewall related problems
12. Benefits of a firewall

1. What is a firewall?

A firewall protects networked computers from intentional hostile intrusion that could compromise confidentiality or result in data corruption or denial of service. It may be a hardware device (see Figure 1) or a software program (see Figure 2) running on a secure host computer. In either case, it must have at least two network interfaces, one for the network it is intended to protect, and one for the network it is exposed to.

A firewall sits at the junction point or gateway between the two networks, usually a private network and a public network such as the Internet. The earliest firewalls were simply routers. The term firewall comes from the fact that by segmenting a network into different physical subnetworks, they limited the damage that could spread from one subnet to another just like firedoors or firewalls.

Figure 1: Hardware Firewall.
Hardware firewall providing protection to a Local Network.

Figure 2: Computer with Firewall Software.
Computer running firewall software to provide protection

2. What does a firewall do?

A firewall examines all traffic routed between the two networks to see if it meets certain criteria. If it does, it is routed between the networks, otherwise it is stopped. A firewall filters both inbound and outbound traffic. It can also manage public access to private networked resources such as host applications. It can be used to log all attempts to enter the private network and trigger alarms when hostile or unauthorized entry is attempted. Firewalls can filter packets based on their source and destination addresses and port numbers. This is known as address filtering. Firewalls can also filter specific types of network traffic. This is also known as protocol filtering because the decision to forward or reject traffic is dependant upon the protocol used, for example HTTP, ftp or telnet. Firewalls can also filter traffic by packet attribute or state.

3. What can't a firewall do?

A firewall cannot prevent individual users with modems from dialling into or out of the network, bypassing the firewall altogether. Employee misconduct or carelessness cannot be controlled by firewalls. Policies involving the use and misuse of passwords and user accounts must be strictly enforced. These are management issues that should be raised during the planning of any security policy but that cannot be solved with firewalls alone.

The arrest of the Phonemasters cracker ring brought these security issues to light. Although they were accused of breaking into information systems run by AT&T Corp., British Telecommunications Inc., GTE Corp., MCI WorldCom, Southwestern Bell, and Sprint Corp, the group did not use any high tech methods such as IP spoofing (see question 10). They used a combination of social engineering and dumpster diving. Social engineering involves skills not unlike those of a confidence trickster. People are tricked into revealing sensitive information. Dumpster diving or garbology, as the name suggests, is just plain old looking through company trash. Firewalls cannot be effective against either of these techniques.

4. Who needs a firewall?

Anyone who is responsible for a private network that is connected to a public network needs firewall protection. Furthermore, anyone who connects so much as a single computer to the Internet via modem should have personal firewall software. Many dial-up Internet users believe that anonymity will protect them. They feel that no malicious intruder would be motivated to break into their computer. Dial up users who have been victims of malicious attacks and who have lost entire days of work, perhaps having to reinstall their operating system, know that this is not true. Irresponsible pranksters can use automated robots to scan random IP addresses and attack whenever the opportunity presents itself.

5. How does a firewall work?

There are two access denial methodologies used by firewalls. A firewall may allow all traffic through unless it meets certain criteria, or it may deny all traffic unless it meets certain criteria (see figure 3). The type of criteria used to determine whether traffic should be allowed through varies from one type of firewall to another. Firewalls may be concerned with the type of traffic, or with source or destination addresses and ports. They may also use complex rule bases that analyse the application data to determine if the traffic should be allowed through. How a firewall determines what traffic to let through depends on which network layer it operates at. A discussion on network layers and architecture follows.

Figure 3: Basic Firewall Operation.

6. What are the OSI and TCP/IP Network models?

To understand how firewalls work it helps to understand how the different layers of a network interact. Network architecture is designed around a seven layer model. Each layer has its own set of responsibilities, and handles them in a well-defined manner. This enables networks to mix and match network protocols and physical supports. In a given network, a single protocol can travel over more than one physical support (layer one) because the physical layer has been dissociated from the protocol layers (layers three to seven). Similarly, a single physical cable can carry more than one protocol. The TCP/IP model is older than the OSI industry standard model which is why it does not comply in every respect. The first four layers are so closely analogous to OSI layers however that interoperability is a day to day reality.

Firewalls operate at different layers to use different criteria to restrict traffic. The lowest layer at which a firewall can work is layer three. In the OSI model this is the network layer. In TCP/IP it is the Internet Protocol layer. This layer is concerned with routing packets to their destination. At this layer a firewall can determine whether a packet is from a trusted source, but cannot be concerned with what it contains or what other packets it is associated with. Firewalls that operate at the transport layer know a little more about a packet, and are able to grant or deny access depending on more sophisticated criteria. At the application level, firewalls know a great deal about what is going on and can be very selective in granting access.

Figure 4: The OSI and TCP/IP models

It would appear then, that firewalls functioning at a higher level in the stack must be superior in every respect. This is not necessarily the case. The lower in the stack the packet is intercepted, the more secure the firewall. If the intruder cannot get past level three, it is impossible to gain control of the operating system.

Figure 5: Professional Firewalls Have Their Own IP Layer

Professional firewall products catch each network packet before the operating system does, thus, there is no direct path from the Internet to the operating system's TCP/IP stack. It is therefore very difficult for an intruder to gain control of the firewall host computer then "open the doors" from the inside.

Professional firewall products catch each network packet before the operating system does, thus, there is no direct path from the Internet to the operating system's TCP/IP stack. It is therefore very difficult for an intruder to gain control of the firewall host computer then "open the doors" from the inside.

According To Byte Magazine*, traditional firewall technology is susceptible to misconfiguration on non-hardened OSes. More recently, however, "...firewalls have moved down the protocol stack so far that the OS doesn't have to do much more than act as a bootstrap loader, file system and GUI". The author goes on to state that newer firewall code bypasses the operating system's IP layer altogether, never permitting "potentially hostile traffic to make its way up the protocol stack to applications running on the system".

*June 1998

7. What different types of firewalls are there?

Firewalls fall into four broad categories: packet filters, circuit level gateways, application level gateways and stateful multilayer inspection firewalls.

Packet filtering firewalls work at the network level of the OSI model, or the IP layer of TCP/IP. They are usually part of a router. A router is a device that receives packets from one network and forwards them to another network. In a packet filtering firewall each packet is compared to a set of criteria before it is forwarded. Depending on the packet and the criteria, the firewall can drop the packet, forward it or send a message to the originator. Rules can include source and destination IP address, source and destination port number and protocol used. The advantage of packet filtering firewalls is their low cost and low impact on network performance. Most routers support packet filtering. Even if other firewalls are used, implementing packet filtering at the router level affords an initial degree of security at a low network layer. This type of firewall only works at the network layer however and does not support sophisticated rule based models (see Figure 5). Network Address Translation (NAT) routers offer the advantages of packet filtering firewalls but can also hide the IP addresses of computers behind the firewall, and offer a level of circuit-based filtering.

Figure 6: Packet Filtering Firewall

Circuit level gateways work at the session layer of the OSI model, or the TCP layer of TCP/IP. They monitor TCP handshaking between packets to determine whether a requested session is legitimate. Information passed to remote computer through a circuit level gateway appears to have originated from the gateway. This is useful for hiding information about protected networks. Circuit level gateways are relatively inexpensive and have the advantage of hiding information about the private network they protect. On the other hand, they do not filter individual packets.

Figure 7: Circuit level Gateway

Application level gateways, also called proxies, are similar to circuit-level gateways except that they are application specific. They can filter packets at the application layer of the OSI model. Incoming or outgoing packets cannot access services for which there is no proxy. In plain terms, an application level gateway that is configured to be a web proxy will not allow any ftp, gopher, telnet or other traffic through. Because they examine packets at application layer, they can filter application specific commands such as http:post and get, etc. This cannot be accomplished with either packet filtering firewalls or circuit level neither of which know anything about the application level information. Application level gateways can also be used to log user activity and logins. They offer a high level of security, but have a significant impact on network performance. This is because of context switches that slow down network access dramatically. They are not transparent to end users and require manual configuration of each client computer. (See Figure 7)

Figure 8: Application level Gateway

Stateful multilayer inspection firewalls combine the aspects of the other three types of firewalls. They filter packets at the network layer, determine whether session packets are legitimate and evaluate contents of packets at the application layer. They allow direct connection between client and host, alleviating the problem caused by the lack of transparency of application level gateways. They rely on algorithms to recognize and process application layer data instead of running application specific proxies. Stateful multilayer inspection firewalls offer a high level of security, good performance and transparency to end users. They are expensive however, and due to their complexity are potentially less secure than simpler types of firewalls if not administered by highly competent personnel. (See Figure 8).

Figure 9: Stateful Multilayer Inspection Firewall

8. How do I implement a firewall?

We suggest you approach the task of implementing a firewall by going through the following steps:

1. Determine the access denial methodology to use.
   It is recommended you begin with the methodology that denies all access by default. In other words, start with a gateway that routes no traffic and is effectively a brick wall with no doors in it.
2. Determine inbound access policy.
   If all of your Internet traffic originates on the LAN this may be quite simple. A straightforward NAT router will block all inbound traffic that is not in response to requests originating from within the LAN. As previously mentioned, the true IP addresses of hosts behind the firewall are never revealed to the outside world, making intrusion extremely difficult. Indeed, local host IP addresses in this type of configuration are usually non-public addresses, making it impossible to route traffic to them from the Internet. Packets coming in from the Internet in response to requests from local hosts are addressed to dynamically allocated port numbers on the public side of the NAT router. These change rapidly making it difficult or impossible for an intruder to make assumptions about which port numbers to use.
   
   If your requirements involve secure access to LAN based services from Internet based hosts, then you will need to determine the criteria to be used in deciding when a packet originating from the Internet may be allowed into the LAN. The stricter the criteria, the more secure your network will be. Ideally you will know which public IP addresses on the Internet may originate inbound traffic. By limiting inbound traffic to packets originating from these hosts, you decrease the likelihood of hostile intrusion. You may also want to limit inbound traffic to certain protocol sets such as ftp or http. All of these techniques can be achieved with packet filtering on a NAT router. If you cannot know the IP addresses that may originate inbound traffic, and you cannot use protocol filtering then you will need more a more complex rule based model and this will involve a stateful multilayer inspection firewall.
3. Determine outbound access policy
   If your users only need access to the web, a proxy server may give a high level of security with access granted selectively to appropriate users. As mentioned, however, this type of firewall requires manual configuration of each web browser on each machine. Outbound protocol filtering can also be transparently achieved with packet filtering and no sacrifice in security. If you are using a NAT router with no inbound mapping of traffic originating from the Internet, then you may allow LAN users to freely access all services on the Internet with no security compromise. Naturally, the risk of employees behaving irresponsibly with email or with external hosts is a management issue and must be dealt with as such.
4. Determine if dial-in or dial-out access is required.
   Dial-in requires a secure remote access PPP server that should be placed outside the firewall. If dial-out access is required by certain users, individual dial-out computers must be made secure in such a way that hostile access to the LAN through the dial-out connection becomes impossible. The surest way to do this is to physically isolate the computer from the LAN. Alternatively, personal firewall software may be used to isolate the LAN network interface from the remote access interface.
5. Decide whether to buy a complete firewall product, have one implemented by a systems integrator or implement one yourself.
   Once the above questions have been answered, it may be decided whether to buy a complete firewall product or to configure one from multipurpose routing or proxy software. This decision will depend as much on the availability of in-house expertise as on the complexity of the need. A satisfactory firewall may be built with little expertise if the requirements are straightforward. However, complex requirements will not necessarily entail recourse to external resources if the system administrator has sufficient grasp of the elements. Indeed, as the complexity of the security model increases, so does the need for in-house expertise and autonomy.

9. Is a firewall sufficient to secure my network or do I need anything else?

The firewall is an integral part of any security program, but it is not a security program in and of itself. Security involves data integrity (has it been modified?), service or application integrity (is the service available, and is it performing to spec?), data confidentiality (has anyone seen it?) and authentication (are they really who they say they are?). Firewalls only address the issues of data integrity, confidentiality and authentication of data that is behind the firewall. Any data that transits outside the firewall is subject to factors out of the control of the firewall. It is therefore necessary for an organization to have a well planned and strictly implemented security program that includes but is not limited to firewall protection.

10. What is IP spoofing?

Many firewalls examine the source IP addresses of packets to determine if they are legitimate. A firewall may be instructed to allow traffic through if it comes from a specific trusted host. A malicious cracker would then try to gain entry by "spoofing" the source IP address of packets sent to the firewall. If the firewall thought that the packets originated from a trusted host, it may let them through unless other criteria failed to be met. Of course the cracker would need to know a good deal about the firewall's rule base to exploit this kind of weakness. This reinforces the principle that technology alone will not solve all security problems. Responsible management of information is essential. One of Courtney's laws sums it up: "There are management solutions to technical problems, but no technical solutions to management problems".

An effective measure against IP spoofing is the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) protocol such as IPSec. This methodology involves encryption of the data in the packet as well as the source address. The VPN software or firmware decrypts the packet and the source address and performs a checksum. If either the data or the source address have been tampered with, the packet will be dropped. Without access to the encryption keys, a potential intruder would be unable to penetrate the firewall.

11. Firewall related problems

Firewalls introduce problems of their own. Information security involves constraints, and users don't like this. It reminds them that Bad Things can and do happen. Firewalls restrict access to certain services. The vendors of information technology are constantly telling us "anything, anywhere, any time", and we believe them naively. Of course they forget to tell us we need to log in and out, to memorize our 27 different passwords, not to write them down on a sticky note on our computer screen and so on.

Firewalls can also constitute a traffic bottleneck. They concentrate security in one spot, aggravating the single point of failure phenomenon. The alternatives however are either no Internet access, or no security, neither of which are acceptable in most organizations.

12. Benefits of a firewall

Firewalls protect private local area networks from hostile intrusion from the Internet. Consequently, many LANs are now connected to the Internet where Internet connectivity would otherwise have been too great a risk.

Firewalls allow network administrators to offer access to specific types of Internet services to selected LAN users. This selectivity is an essential part of any information management program, and involves not only protecting private information assets, but also knowing who has access to what. Privileges can be granted according to job description and need rather than on an all-or-nothing basis.

5 Tricks to Use Keywords in Your Blog Posts

One of the biggest sources of traffic to your blog will be search engines, particularly Google.  You can boost the traffic that comes to your blogs from search engines by implementing search engine optimization (SEO) tricks into your blog layout and writing.  You can get started by doing some keyword research and determining which keywords are likely to drive the most traffic to your blog.  Then focus on incorporating those keywords into your blog posts using the tricks below.

1. Use keywords in your blog post title.

One of the best ways to incorporate keywords into your blog posts is to use them in your blog post titles.  However, don't sacrifice a title's ability to motivate people to click through and read your entire blog post.  Learn 3 tips to write great blog post titles.

2. Focus on using just one or two keyword phrases in each blog post.

To maximize the traffic that comes to your blog via search engines, focus on optimizating each of your blog posts for just one or two keyword phrases.  Too many keyword phrases dilutes the content of your post for readers and can look like spam to both readers and search engines.  You can learn more about using specific keywords to maximize search traffic by reading about long tail search engine optimization.

3. Use keywords throughout your blog posts.

Try to use your keywords (without keyword stuffing) multiple times in your blog post.  For best results, use your keywords within the first 200 characters of your blog post, several times throughout your post, and near the end of the post.  Take some time to learn more aboutkeyword stuffing and other search engine optimization don'ts.

4. Use keywords in and around links in your blog post.

Search engine optimzation experts believe that search engines like Google place more weight on linked text than unlinked text when ranking search engine results.  Therefore, it's a good idea to include your keywords in or next to the links within your blog posts when it's relevant to do so.  Be sure to read about how many links are too many for SEO before you start adding links to your posts.

5. Use keywords in image Alt-tags.

When you upload an image to your blog to use in your blog post, you usually have the option of adding alternate text for that image which appears if a visitor cannot load your images in their Web browsers.  However, this alternate text, can also help your search engine optimization efforts.  That's because the alternate text appears within the HTML of your blog post content as something called an Alt-tag.  Google and other search engines crawl that tag and use it in providing results for keyword searches.  Take the time to add keywords that are relevant to the image and post in the Alt-tag for each image you upload and publish on your blog.

How to Increase Traffic to Your Corporate Blog

Increasing traffic to your corporate blog helps you raise awareness of your company and its products and services. You do have to be committed to your blog to make it successful, though. 

Using your company blog in your public relations campaign is not as easy as slapping some copy on your website and hoping people will read your brilliant posts. There are several ways you can increase traffic to your corporate blog and take advantage of the blogging craze so you can attract new customers. 

Update Your Blog Frequently
Your company blog is not your personal diary that you can update when it's convenient for you. There's nothing more deadly to any blog than one that hasn't been updated or a post that reads, "It's been a while since I last wrote..." 

Set a schedule and stick to it. Not only does this help you blog frequently, your visitors will know when to expect updates on your blog. 

Use Your Blog for Info, Not a Sales Tool
You can indirectly promote your company and products through your blog but don't use your blog as a direct sales tool. Keep your content genuine and don't use the space as a blatant advertisement for what you're selling. 

Your goal is to build repeat visitors. Using your blog as commercial space will do the opposite. Your blog is a powerful public relations tool, which means it's not a giant billboard for you to spread your advertising message. 

Find Your Niche, Don't Generalize
People blogging about their personal lives can be all over the place in their blog. One day they may blog about their favorite TV show and the next day they share their story of how they couldn't decide between a frozen pepperoni pizza or a TV dinner at the grocery store. 

That's fine for them. They're not you, a company trying to make a living selling your products. 

Do people really want to know what you're up to in your daily life? Unless you're a big name, think Bill Gates or George Clooney, then the answer is going to be no. 

Your blog will better serve your potential customers and your business if you use it to blog about topics relevant to your industry. If you own a hardware company, for example, a blog focusing on home improvement projects will help increase traffic. Even following up with your customers about their own home improvement projects through pictures and interviews will also make your blog more popular. 

Engage Users
Your blog readers have opinions. You can encourage people to keep coming back and get involved by engaging your users. Type your blog post and then ask readers for their comments on the story or what they think about a certain topic. 

Use polls and your message board posts to get people communicating. If you accept reader questions, answer those questions on your blog and open up the floor to others to give their own answers on what the reader has asked. 

Spin Searched Subjects Into Relevant Content
What's hot right now? Are these subjects something you can spin into your own blog's topic? 

Using our hardware store as an example, hurricane season results in a lot of searches. Spin those searched subjects into content for your blog. Tips on preparing your home for a hurricane or even following a city's rebuilding through your industry's eyes can be excellent content that drives visitors to your site. 

Look at the most searched content carefully and be creative when coming up with ideas related to those popular searches. You don't want to go too far overboard but you can spin a lot of subjects you wouldn't normally think to cover. Look to Google Trends and Yahoo Buzz to see what the top search words are this week. 

Network
Just as you have to network for your business in your daily life, you also need to network online to increase traffic to your blog. Find other blogs that cover your industry and start participating. 

Look for blogs that have a lot of comments and leave comments with your name and blog link. Contact the blogger and see if they would be interested in putting your link on their blog and vice versa. Bloggers who network can increase their traffic and cross-link to each other's posts as well. 

RSS Feed
Offer your visitors a way to subscribe via RSS feed to your blog. This means they don't have to remember to come back and check on your blog. 

You want to give visitors every opportunity to keep reading. There are a lot of blogs out there and an RSS feed just gives you one more way to make sure your readers don't forget about you. 

Search Engine Optimization
It's natural to want to create post headlines and copy that's very creative. A post about how to fix a leaky faucet may make you want to create a headline like, "Down the Drain with that Drip, Drip, Drip in the Night." 

A better headline that search engines are going to pick up is, "How to Fix a Leaky Faucet." That's the search term more people are likely to enter rather than the long one that doesn't explain exactly what it is your post will be covering. 

To optimize your blog post even further, be sure to use keywords throughout your post. The more descriptive your post is, rather than being over the top creative with wordplay, the better your chances are that your blog post will rank higher in search results. 

One last quick tip on search engine optimization for your blog post. When linking to your other posts, use descriptive text as your link and not just "click here." Most people know by now "click here" isn't reader-friendly and it doesn't help your search results at all. However, making your link text descriptive can help optimize your entire post and attract even more readers to your blog.