I subscribe to a free newsletter from Yaro Starak, the self proclaimed Blog Traffic King. He gives very insightful tips on how to write a good blog and attract more traffic. This is one of his articles. It is quite lengthy, but if you are interested please carry on

 

Today I’m going to introduce you to the main concept that is at the heart of my methodology for building blog traffic. It’s called "Pillar Articles".

Pillar articles on the surface appear to be standard blog articles, but for some special reasons they become the main drivers of traffic to your blog. They form the foundations - the pillars - of your blog.

SPECIAL OUTCOMES

There is no one particular reason that an article becomes a Pillar, rather it’s the results you get from the article that qualify it as a Pillar. A Pillar article will perform the following key functions for your blog -

1. Bring in a flood of traffic when first released. This is often the result people linking to or trackbacking your article and generating a little bit of "buzz" around the blogosphere (other blogs).

2. Provide a definition of a key term, an answer to a commonly asked question, or a brief how-to tutorial. The article’s value is not time dependent, you can refer to it in future blog posts, other bloggers will link to it and refer people to it over and over again. It’s timeless information, not news or personal blogging - it’s relevant to a wide audience for a long period of time.

3. The traffic keeps coming long after the article is archived deep within your blog. Often because of reason one above (lots of incoming links to the article) a Pillar article will rank well in search engines and consequently show up on the first page of searches, directing brand new readers to your blog long after you first published the article.

4. Provides a reason to bookmark and/or subscribe to your blog (and RSS feed). When a first time reader comes to your blog and they see all the fantastic content they are much more likely to bookmark your site for further reading later. They will start monitoring your blog regularly, transforming from casual random surfer into loyal reader because they can see the quality of your previous work.

SPIKE ARTICLES

Don’t get confused between a Pillar and a Spike article. A Spike article is all about a quick rush of traffic that often disappears within a day or two and has very little long lasting impact. Pillars are timeless, Spikes are temporary. One of the tricks is knowing how to convert a Spike into a Pillar.

Without Pillar articles most other traffic building techniques fail. If you don’t have Pillars in place most traffic techniques you implement will be Spikes, maybe generating a rush of traffic for brief bursts but very quickly dropping back to where you were previously. You won’t convert first time visitors into regular readers.

FOLLOW A BLOG TRAFFIC METHDOLOGY

A well constructed blog, one that follows a traffic building methodology, will retain an audience long after the blogger stops writing. This has many positive outcomes, including -

A) You can stop blogging for a week or two without worrying about losing your audience. This means less stress and a more solid blog foundation.

B) The resale value of your blog will be higher because it’s value and popularity are based on the existing content, not the potential future content that evaporates when the blogger stops blogging after the sale. It’s more about the blog and less about the personality behind the blog.

(Although personality is still very important - more on this in future email newsletters.)

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak Blog Traffic King