This post is part of our 68 Traffic Tips day. To find the complete list when we’re done, see the original post. Be sure to subscribe to get a weekly round-up of our daily traffic tips.

1. Before you write your first blog post, make a list of topics that speak directly to what people in your industry are most asking about. If you don’t know, consult WordTracker Questions.
2. Do keyword research on your topic to use as tags and as subjects to write about. Run them through an online thesaurus as well.
3. Optimize your blog for search engines. Properly configured blogs can get a continuous flow of traffic from search engines that is easy to maintain.
4. Already have a blog? Double your blog posting for a week. Look at your traffic stats – this can bring 25 – 200% more traffic.
5. Comment on more blogs by people in compatible markets. If  you’re an interior decorator, it’s all well and good to comment on other interior decorator’s blogs, but you have more of an exclusive market among, say, local realtor blogs
6. Submit to as many blogs taking guest blog posts as you can.
7. Get some guest blogging happening on your site – it’ll give you a break and help you form partnerships.
8. Don’t discount blog carnivals, or think that they’re beneath you. They tend to drive a lot of targeted traffic that’s actively interested in the topic.

Update: You can now find links to the entire series of tips below.

I’m sure you’ve noticed some of the changes I’ve made to the site lately – design changes, topic changes… it’s all about course correction.

By that I mean that the things that this site has become known for aren’t necessarily the things that are helping you the most. At the same time, I don’t want to completely scrap all the other things you’ve grown to enjoy.

So I’m in the process of diverting some of my thought leadership discussions to other sites, but still finding a way to incorporate those headlines into the stream of information that comes from here. That way, each of the four major groups and the four major reasons for loving the site can all still converge in one location.

It’s the 68th day of the year. So to kick things off, today I’m going to do  68 traffic tips (or link to some of the tips I’ve given so far this year). After today, we’ll see how long I can keep up a daily traffic tip – or at least provide you with seven tips a week. No promises this time – you know about my schedule, health issues, and other extenuating circumstances – but I’ll do my best.

We’ll start shortly and the list will include:

• 8 Blog Traffic Tips
• 12 General Traffic Tips
• 21 Search Traffic Tips
• 8 RSS Traffic Tips
• 9 Social Media Traffic Tips
• 10 Article Marketing Traffic Tips

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I need your help in thanking someone. All it’s going to cost you is a link, and maybe an email. If you want, you can even make money from it.

You might have checked your email yesterday and seen a message from me about Evergreen Traffic, and read about my story. Some people I know had never heard about that part of my background, and if you’re one of those folks, it probably explains a lot. If for no other reason than to satisfy your curiousity about me, go by and skim the page on Marlon Sander’s site.

And yes, that’s what I want you to link to, talk about, etc, but let me tell you why first.

What I really want to talk about first is how this whole thing happened – how I ended up suddenly having one of the people I admired first and most online decide that I needed to revive my product line, and how he dragged me, kicking and screaming, into creating another product that explains the core of the traffic system I use on my own sites.

You might know Marlon Sanders from The Amazing Formula, a product that’s been on the market as long as I’ve been in online marketing. It’s one of those things that, if you lost it, you’d buy it again.

For me, having him suddenly come into my life as a customer is kind of like being on American Idol and having Stevie Wonder ask you to sing at his birthday party. Yeah, I have a rep of my own that I’ve earned through my talent — but he’s the Real Deal, you know? If I was to stay in this business that’s the kind of success I’d be shooting for.

Think of the person you look up to like that in your profession, coming up to you and saying, “hey, we’ve got to get your product line back up and cranking- you’re talented!”

Can you imagine?

I was really… resigned to retirement status.

I still have some lose ends to tie up and was hoping to get some of my friends together to help me with a fundraiser to get that going and maybe some residual income. But it’s been hard to coordinate, and with me not knowing until I wake up in the morning whether or not I can conduct life semi-normally, it’s been tough to commit to interview times.

Cindy, Violet, and Morgan are a HUGE help, but it’s gonna take five people to take over what I was dong at my peak. That’s not to brag, it’s just the long and the short of the issue. So I’d just about given up hope of ever doing the part of my life that I love the most, which is sharing the details of the information about traffic, search and marketing that you find on this site.

I would think to myself: At least I have my consulting clients – for the most part, if I can talk and coordinate research with other folks, I’ll always have that. But there’s something about being able to reach masses of people with good information.

Anyway, not even a week ago, I get a Facebook message and a friend request from Marlon. I thought, this has to be THE Marlon Sanders, because most of the folks who would spoof him aren’t old-school enough to remember him.

And it was.

And he was writing to tell me that he thought I was talented, and why was all my stuff down?

So I told him.

And long story short (or at least less long), he convinced me that I needed to keep on sharing what I know, starting with a new product. And that’s how Evergreen Traffic came about, through the kindness of Marlon Sander’s heart.

I hemmed and hawed and made excuses but he cut through my BS and got me working. I know some people who would have modified what I told them and sold it as their own. But the successful people are Never like that.

Isn’t that funny?

Marlon has resurrected my dream. I’m still going to have to retire for health reasons, but because of him I’m going out with a bang instead of quietly fading away. But until that day, I can create my best work and not have to worry about certain nutty details. I won’t bore you with them, but suffice it to say that without flexibility on those points, it made it hard for me to be able to make products as I’d like.

He has also helped me to remember what I needed to keep in mind the most.

You.

In all these issues I’ve been having, I can’t say I forgot about you… I always think about you. What I forgot was how much you guys … love me, to put it in Marlon’s words.

In return for Marlon’s generosity to me, i want him to make a mint off this. Yes, i get a cut, so you’ll be supporting me too.

Here’s what I’d like you to do, if you would.

1- Go to Marlon’s special site for affiliates, where currently instructions for promoting Evergreen Traffic appear on the front page. If you want to make money, create an affiliate link. If not, you can use the same information to link directly there.

2- Make a blog post about it. If you link here or send a trackback, of course I’ll link back.

3- If there’s anyone within the sound of your blog/voice/del.icio.us that you think would be helped by learning about the Evergreen Traffic System, send them a note, whether it’s your list, a friend, or someone you know who just started their internet business.

4- If you think that more than 50 of the people you know could pick it up, contact Marlon directly. He can make you a special partner or create a special page for you.

That’s it. Just four steps and you’ll be helping me show my appreciation for Marlon and all he’s been willing to do to help me.

If you do, make sure you send me the link in Facebook or make a comment here because I want to send you something special for helping out. In any case I appreciate you perusing my rambly thought for the day.

Okay, I just appreciate you, period.

Just in time for all that talk about Tag and Ping (I’ll write a short blurb about that later.)

Yahoo officially announces changes to MyWeb. In a post to their MyWeb blog yesterday, they shared with us some of the updates they’ve been making.

Top Tags and Interesting Today
We haven’t figured out how the save the world yet, but we *can* show you what the world is saving. Specifically, our “top tags” section and “interesting today” tab show what’s hot in the system, and are a great way to start if you’re new.

Finding Friends
We’ve also turned up the “social” in social bookmarking by helping you connect to the people who share your interests — here’s how:

Those two are my favorites, but I also liked the new export feature, which makes it a lot more useful as a bookmarks management tool, not just for social bookmarking.

Well. If you’re a blogger anyway…. it means yet another way you can increase your blog traffic is by covering the news.

No, it’s not a new concept – I’ve been harping on that for at least two years, as all you regulars know. What’s new is that Technorati is helping blogs get featured on AP News sites.

After having the pleasure of witnessing a friend of mine hit the Associated Press newswire last year, it’s great to see that Technorati is going to be partnering with Associated Press member sites. That means that the next time a friend of mine is covered by AP, I can blog about it and possibly appear in one of the links to the stories.

From Technorati’s Weblog Post:

The new service will bring blogger commentary about AP news stories to communities large and small throughout the USA, giving bloggers a voice in trusted local papers throughout the nation. For many news readers, this will be their first exposure to the blogosphere with national, international, business and sports news presented along side links to blogger commentary and perspective.

So what does that mean to you? If you have any reason to cover stories that pop up on the AP wire, then sugar… dumpling … blog about them. Link naturally, and not just because of the traffic – it’s an extra boost, not the whole point.

What I’m really hoping is that this bold venture will help build bridges between bloggers and reporters. In some trades and local dailies, you can almost feel the animosity towards bloggers coming off the page. I just had a conversation about this with the folks over at Real Estate Blog Sites, who set up MyST Blog sites specifcally for the high end real estate industry. It seems that in some online newspapers, you still see a blog backlash – some play down their effectiveness in generating leads, others warn big companies to fear the blogosphere instead of reach out to it.

Anyway. Before I dive headlong into that tangent, just though you should know.

I’m back in Nevada! Don’t everyone all clap at once….

Still getting my sea legs and doing the rounds out here near Vegas. So if you’re in the local area and you’re wondering when I’m going to touch base, please be patient. I promise I’ll get to everyone. Oh, yeah, and my belated birthday gifts are folding cash only this year, LOL…

Seriously though, it’s great to be back to work. I’m loving it.

I’ll be back posting more regularly starting this weekend, but first I just wanted to say a personal thank you to Ed Forteau and the Success Rainmaker group for having me in their teleseminar series for a special session on blogging. I appreciate the warm welcome and reception. If you’re a part of the group who couldn’t ask their question, please leave a response here, have Ed forward me your question or feel free to call my toll free number, 1.877.884.2882, Monday through Thursday 10 am to 4 pm Pacific. If I’m not in my office manager will give me your number or you can leave a message.

(That goes for the rest of you, too. The phone number is in the sidebar if you have product questions and the like.)

I JUST turned the page back on for more Traffic Reality memberships, with immediate access to the site and the last two newsletters. And some people must have those notifiers turned on that tell them when a page has changed, because the first 12 are already gone! I was preparing to announce it in the newsletter in a few hours, but okay – go get ‘em if you want ‘em!

(And if, by chance you really don’t know what I’m babbling about, you can click the link. )

I haven’t been around for a while, and I’ll probably post an update on that later. I’ll be flying back to Vegas on May 2nd, and by the 7th, I’ll officially be around full time again. While I have a few minutes, I thought I’d talk a little about business blogging, since I have a press release out about it today.

One of the reasons I talk about blogging so much is that I know a lot of webmasters who are absolutely desperate for traffic to their sites. They often have a budget of less than one hundred and fifty dollars, a few hours a week of free time for marketing, and desire search engine traffic above all else.

If this sounds like you, let me ask you this.

What’s wrong with a method to increase your search engine traffic in the time it takes to write a medium-length email every weekday for 30 – 90 days? Especially if, after 90 days, you can maintain those results with one update a week?

This time three years ago, if someone had told me that I could get hundreds of first page rankings in the search engines that I got to keep, month after month, and I didn’t have to spend $100 – $1000 a month on AdWords or Overture, I would have done backflips.

And apparently, I’d be a millionaire today as well. All from learning the right way to blog to rank for 200 search terms instead of two.

It absolutely confounds me why anyone who could write an email wouldn’t find the time to try this method of generating additional traffic to their site – free, high quality, targeted search engine traffic.

Of course, some people believe that all the answers to how to do this are available for free online. And for sure there are some great resources, like Wayne’s excellent Blog Business World.

But if all the information for how to increase your traffic from search engines with a blog was available online – wouldn’t everyone have great traffic right now?

And yet they don’t. Because it’s not just about how to pick a good keyword, or getting links from submitting to blog directories, or knowing where to ping when you blog.

It’s about building relationships – document relationships, the relationship between you and your reader so your traffic will stick.

I talk about some of that in the podcast I did with PRWeb today. It should be out in a few hours. In the meantime, open up the attached PDF file and look at some of the sample resources and ask yourself – are you really happy with how much traffic you have? If there’s an ethical, step-by-step way to learn to do it better, that other people are getting great results with, what’s your reason for not trying it?

How valuable are sales and leads to your business anyway? Are they worth spending a couple of hundred dollars? A couple of thousand? A few hours a week?

You can download the attachment in PDF format. In an upcoming post I’m going to talk about the first case study I have for Adsense and Blogging using my method, which got my personal coaching student 300 visitors a day in three weeks, who are helping him earn over $500 a month in AdSense.

What if he had ten blogs? What if he sees the plan through to the 90 day mark and has ten times the traffic?

What if he were YOU? We’ll talk about that soon, maybe in a few hours, maybe tomorrow.

Which is my birthday, incidentally….

…. the coolest Google PR tool that SEW found, from Webmaster Eyes.

What it Does: It overlays the Google PR of any page linked from that site with the site’s PR.
Why it’s Cool: You can study it to learn more about how the PR is distributed on the site – after all it’s the individual pages that matter, not necessarily the site. You can also click on the PR button to navigate the site.
More About Google PR: MasterNewMedia.org has a mega-page on this.

Now, in case you’re new here, PR refers to Google Page Rank, and technically, just knowing it, or even having it, won’t increase your traffic by itself. But the clout itself IS often a traffic magnet when you get to 5 and higher. If high traffic is what you want though, you’re better off balancing relevant,fresh content with traffic-producing links pointing to you.

… You have a realistic goal.

Which is why it really irks me when I see a traffic program/software package/course that promises you thousands of visitors when it’s done. What if I already have thousands of visitors? How many thousands are we talking about anyway?

Whenever these things come out, I know that within a week to a month, someone is going to write me saying “I used x product and I’m failing. Can you help me?” And there are potential clients I turn away because they want to get 10,000 visitors a day like this program promised them, when they aren’t going to get much more than 2000 a day with their site the way it is.

This isn’t to say that some high-yield traffic programs don’t work if used properly. And to be sure, sometimes failure is about the fact that the person failed, not the program.

Some work (and I’ll make a post about evaluating these programs another time), but in my opinion, most of them

1. Make the whole idea of increasing traffic organically too hard
2. Behave as if raising traffic, as opposed to profit, is the one and only point
3. Don’t tell you that the quality of traffic you’ll get might not be what you want
4. Lead you to believe you’ll never have to spend a penny to increase your traffic.That’s BS. Sooner or later, someone has to advertise, or make an improvement to your site, products, services, sales pages, etc that is going to cost you money.There WILL be a traffic-related expense. The trick is to minimize it, or shift the cost elsewhere. And faced with a consistenly converting product, your affiliates will probably be happy to foot the cost of advertising, but you will still have to improve your web design, or hire a copywriter, something.Even if it’s the phone call to an expert to JV with you, at some point you will spend money. You can bootstap your way a surprisingly significant part of the way without funds.

I do believe that a million visitors or a million page views even, is a realistic goal for traffic.

However, for someone who is starting at zero, or getting one hundred unique visitors a day and actually converting some of those people into sales, on your way to a million, you have to start somewhere. What do you think is a realistic, starting-out goal?