If you keep an eye on your blog stats, sometimes you might notice a traffic spike on a specific post. Usually this spike comes from a link from another blog or website, linking to a meme or a social bookmark. (More on social bookmarking coming soon.)
Seeing all this extra traffic is exciting. But instead of just sitting back and enjoying the higher numbers, why not take advantage of this new traffic? After all, wouldn’t it be great to turn some of this one-time traffic into returning traffic?
When you notice this …

Have you ever read a magazine article or watched television news or talk show and wondered how the quoted “average-person responders” were found? Well in this day and age, many of them are found through HARO.
What is HARO you ask? HARO is an acronym for Help A Reporter Out. The brainchild of Peter Shankman, HARO is a wonderful source that connects average people with media sources and vice versa.
On the HARO website, you can enter your name and email address to be added to the source list. Then, you will …

As a new blogger you have high aspirations for sharing your endless knowledge, your funny stories, and your most humble (or not) opinions.  You want others to try your tastiest recipes and your favorite household tips.  You desire to unleash your inner writer and make a difference in your corner of the blogosphere.
But what do you really want? What you really want is for someone to read your posts! I can remember refreshing my stats page every hour 30 minutes after those first few posts, giddy when I saw that …