Check out my RSS Feed if you enjoy this post. See what I did there?

1) Write a post about your RSS Feed. Even if your grandma is the only one who reads your blog, don’t let people know that! Write a post about your RSS Feed, why it’s good to subscribe to it, and explain some of the benefits to your readers. For example, subscribing to your RSS Feed via email is a great way for users to read your blog on the go and on their portable devices. Make sure to remind them of this.

2) Make your RSS Feed icon visible. The first thing one may notice when they come to my blog is the large and obtrusive (but shiny) RSS Feed icon over to the right. There’s also the subscribe via email field under it, and it’s pretty welcoming if a reader likes a few of my posts. Take away that tiny text wrapped in <small> at the bottom of your blog saying “Please subscribe to my RSS Feed” – sorry, but no one will. You need something obvious and above the fold (before the user has to scroll down) for you to gain more RSS Readers.

3) Hold a contest. People will do almost anything for $10. A small cash prize for a random drawing of one of your RSS Subscribers is an extremely easy wait to increase your subscriber count (via e-mail). Have them subscribe to your RSS Feed, then comment on the post saying that they did. That way, you can check their email in the backend of your blog software, and compare it to their e-mail in at Feedburner – this leads us to the next tip.

4) USE FEEDBURNER. Anyone who is trying to promote their RSS Feed and doesn’t use Feedburner should be ashamed. Not only can you keep track of how many people are subscribed, but you can also keep an e-mail list, create buttons/widgets for your blog, and even easily organize and promote your podcast, if you have one. It is a necessity if you are running a blog. Sub-Tip: Use the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin to automatically convert all of your RSS Feeds on your site to your Feedburner one. This means that if someone is using a browser that detects your Wordpress RSS feed, instead of giving them access to that, it will give them your Feedburner one.

5) Gain a Twitter following. Twitter has a lot of bloggers, and I mean, a lot of bloggers. If you aren’t a Twitter user yet, sign up and follow some people. You’ll instantly see that they promote their blog like crazy, letting people know about their RSS feed, when they write a new post on their blog, and even set up an automatic DM (direct message) for people to check out their blog. If you want, check me out on Twitter, and I’ll make sure to follow you back if you let me know you came from my blog. Make sure to set up TwitterFeed on your blog (so when you write a new post it will tweet it) and search Google for “Automatic Twitter Follow Response” and write a short message welcoming your new follower and link them to your blog. When you use Twitter though, even out your personal life tweets to links on your blog – if your public timeline consists of only links and self promotion, you’ll have a hard time gaining new followers.

And that’s all folks, comment here if you have any questions or would like to add anything to this list. Good luck! [Image Via]

To easily answer that question, check out this graph. It’s based on Twitter’s traffic for the past six months.

Though the graph fluctuates and dips every few months, it is continually rising. In fact, Twitter has continued to surpass sites almost every month that are ranked under 100 in Alexa, and that takes a lot of increased traffic. Sure, Alexa isn’t totally accurate, but it’s the closest thing we have to officially ranking sites. Twitter’s traffic may even be greater than what Alexa picks up, but only the company and their investors know.  Either way, we can see that Twitter is continuing to rise per month, and if you wait around too long, there may not be room for your Twitter-based App.

So what should you do? Purchase a Twitter domain…now. Think of something, preferably with Tweet or Twit, bird, or Twitter in it, and purchase the domain.  Buogo, Inc. is sitting on a number of Twitter domains only to be used for with our own apps or sell them in the future. We have already launched our first Twitter-based site, TweetMyLink, and there will be more to come.

You may be asking “Aren’t you creating competition for yourself by encouraging people to create Twitter-based sites?” Yup, and we love it. Twitter needs sites like these to continue to grow and hopefully in the future profit. Sites like these need competition to improve on their game and offer more to the internet than they ever did before. Competition, especially on the web, is a good thing.

If you are indeed worried that Twitter may go out of business and your site will go with them, then come up with something that can still be used afterward. Perhaps loosely base it around the API, or create something that is marketed towards Twitter users but everyone can use it. Like TinyURL, yFrog, TwitPic, eggURL, or any other web app that is beneficial to both someone using Twitter and those who are missing out.

I predict that now is the best time to start on your tweet-action.  Whether it’s a highly followed account, an app based on the Twitter API, or something mobile that you have in mind, get a start on it. If you are a web developer I highly recommend that you get into this game. You’ll love it, you’re users will love it, and in the long run, Twitter will love it because you are improving the power and publicity of their platform. Oh, now I see what their business model is.

Though getting your site or content on Digg or Reddit is a great way to start, it’s not always possible. Write up a summary of your site and send it to these following sites. Each link will directly send you to their contact page:

1) KillerStartups: KillerStartups reviews 15+ sites a day, and displays basic information about your site and company to the world. Getting reviewed by them is a little tougher than some other sites, so make sure you have a “killer” site.

2) MakeUseOf: MakeUseOf is a large directory of web apps, with over 60,000 subscribed via e-mail or RSS. This can drive great amounts of traffic to your site, and is very beneficial in the long run.

3) FeedMyApp: Almost any Web 2.0 startup sent here will be published. Users can rate and comment on your site, and some good traffic is generated.

4) TechSnack: TechSnack is a blog type site listing new websites on the internet. They are pretty good about checking your submission out, so you should submit your app and see what happens.

5) Post on forums. Don’t be annoying and make it sound like a commercial, just casually tell them they may enjoy using your site and that they should check it out. Also, make sure to tell them to comment and critique it, so they will be inclined to actually check it out. There may be more of a chance of a “flame war” on some sites rather than others, but if you have already have a good reputation on a forum, you should be fine.

There are a million web directories and review services out there, but these are the ones that have worked for us in the past and helped out with new startups. Merely getting reviewed on one of the first four sites may spark other sites to review you, and in no time you will have 15-20 links to your site. Your users will be happy, the internet will be happy, and most importantly, you and your company will be happy as well.

If you know of a site that has worked better for you and I didn’t include, list it in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Seo Samurai, Advice, SEO, Tips, Startup, Exposure

Now dropping 300 times a day might sound hectic, but if you Google “Entrecard Lists” or “Entrecard 300 Lists,” then you will find lists of sites that have the Entrecard above the fold, (above the point of where you have to start scrolling,) and sites that load quickly. This process should take around 20 minutes a day, and help you out when finding sites to drop on. These lists will help me out as well upon conducting this experiment.

I am starting this experiment with about 1000ec, and we will see where I am in terms of credits in a month of this post without purchasing any advertising or items. I will also post my traffic influx if there is one. To help me out, make sure you drop your Entrecard on mine, (on the right,) and within these next 30 days we’ll see what happens.

Technorati Tags: Entrecard, Google, 300, EC, Experiemnt, SEO, Traffic Improvement, Traffic, Statistics, SEO

Let

Once you sign up you immediately get a user account, where you can add your sites and other info. You also get a referral link to invite your friends with, and if you do, you receive $100 QBucks. But if you sign up within the next 12 hours from this post and refer someone, because of the closed beta, Quassia has upped it to $500 QBucks. So here is an invitation for you, (click the link and then Sign Up so I get the refer credit and you get the closed access,) and we can all test this together. Enjoy.

I am going to be using this service for The Many Happenings, and I will write updates as they happen. I hope the service is worthwhile – it definitely seems like it is.

Technorati Tags: Quassia, Closed Beta, Traffic Exchanges, SEO