Wordpress is a free blogging platform that anyone can use. A “blog” is an online journal, and is proven to be the most effective way of building a website from scratch with no experience.

But don’t let the words ‘journal’ fool you.

It’s not just a ‘diary’ to record your personal experience and daily ramblings.

With a Wordpress blog, you can build an entire website on a particular topic and dominate the entire industry. The gurus call this an ‘authority’ website.

Now the average joe like me actually has a chance to build a mega-site with hundreds of pages and thousands of visitors a day...

..and yet still have time for myself and my family.

The reason I’m yakking on about Wordpress is because hundreds of smart entrepreneurs are already using it and I don't want you to be left out!

Look at it this way...

By the time you create your first page they have already created an entire profit-pulling niche website and are making much more than you do now, while spending only a fraction of the time and money you’ve invested.

The good news is that you can catch up too, if you start taking action now.

Why not Blogger ?

Blogger is Easier? Maybe.Better? Definitely not !

Yes, it’s easy to set-up a blog with Blogspot.com and get your own Bloggger account. You can be done in 10 minutes flat. Blogger also has built-in functions to add Adsense codes directly into their platform.

In fact I started with Blogger and I won’t say that it’s bad. But after a while I started to get frustrated with Blogger, and here’s why:

1. Google Owns Your Content – Google has the authority to shut down your account without warning if they don’t like what you’re blogging about. You have no control over your own blog. With Wordpress, you own the domain name and the blog is hosted on your own account. You have full control over your content.
   
2. Lack of advanced options – Blogger doesn’t allow categories. You can’t sort your articles into different focuses. With Wordpress, not only can you add categories, you can also add as many plugins as you want easily and even add audio or video to your content.
3. Publishing with Blogger is a pain in the ass – It can take forever to post articles on the Blogger platform, especially if you’re making changes to the entire website.
4. You can't brand yourself – Of course with Blogger you can publish to your own domain, but you can’t do significant changes to it. I can identify Blogger sites immediately, but with Wordpress you can customize and brand almost anything you want. You can also install Wordpress on an existing website as a sub-domain or sub-directory if you want.
5. Limited promotion options – When you post in Blogger, you can only “ping” a limited amount of sites, whereas with Wordpress on your own domain you can ping as many blog directories as you want, and start getting more traffic.

In fact, there are other platforms like MSN Spaces, Typepad, and even MySpace. But these solutions are severely limited.

20 Essential Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog

Here is a list of some essential directories.

1. Best of the Web Blog Search La Crem de la Crem, Best of the Web’s Blog Directory is very selective and only lists aged and valuable blogs. A link from here is majestic and well deserved.

2. Eaton Web Blog Directory is a real jewel with many aged inbound links and a blog rating system. You may have to pay a fee for your blog to be reviewed, but like Yahoo, the review fee is well worth the few dollars.

3. Blog Hub offers a drop down category and member blog list. With its “new blogger” list and hot topics, Blog Hub is a great directory to list your site.

4. Upon visiting Bloggernity, you find a crisp, clean, and easy to navigate site. Scrolling down, you find the new blogs. As there is little advertising on the home page, it is pleasant to the eye of the reader as well.

5. Blogarama has an impressive listing of over 65,000 blogs. The site is well designed and follows the same content categories as many other sites.

6. One of the most selective Blog Directories on the web (and Wordpress powered), Blog Search Engine is owned by Performancing’s parent company and serves search results powered by Ice Rocket.

7. Blog Catalog features a vast directory of categories, from academic to writing, while offering the ability to search by country, language, or user. It has a no frills design, but offers convenient member access through simple blog registration.

8. Globe of Blogs has too many features to list. In order to be listed on the site, the blog must not be commercial. The site may appear to be busy, but I like the features of being able to search by title, author, or subject. Narrowing the search becomes easier on this blog.

9. The ultimate directory of British blogs connotes all things British. It is not directed by location, but by the culture! It is asked that blogger be genuinely “Britisher.” Being listed in this blog reaches readers all the way across the pond!

10. Blog Universe is the perfect place to promote your video or podcast themed blog. Its layout is easy to navigate. Although the content is limited, it is an all around good directory site worthy of submission.

11. Bigger Blogs is a relatively new blog directory with only a few blogs registered. The blog is intertwined with a business directory. The blog section is difficult to find, and it is located through a link on the right side of the business directory page. However, the benefit is that the earlier you are accepted on a blog directory, the more exposure your blog will obtain. In addition, a back link is indeed a back link, so this can help with your search engine placement.

12. Bloggeries has the best categories and subcategories home page on the Internet. The layout is clear and concise, and readers are able to find what they are looking for in a snap!

13. Bloggapedia has an interesting and eye catching homepage. Readers are easily connected to the top blogs and newest posts. Innovative categories and a colorful design make this blog directory a hit.

14. Spillbean is a well-designed blog directory site with categories such as health, society, internet, and personal. The site is aesthetically pleasing, but there are not many listings yet.

15. Blogging Fusion is a blog with over sixty categories. These categories include photo blogs and family focused blogs. Blogging Fusion has an good amount of blog listings within the directory, and it also has visitor stats available.

16. Blogflux is not only a tool for blogger, but a directory that has the listings in alphabetic order. The blog listings are organized and clear. It is definitely an effective blog directory in which to be listed.

17. The blogs on the top listings of Bloglisting are fun, colourful, and catch the attention of the reader. Bloglisting displays the page ranking blogs, which is a helpful tool when determining with whom you want to exchange links.

18. Blogio may be a small blog directory with few listings, but it worthy of a submission. Despite its small size, there are quality blogs and a solid ability to search on this site.

19. Blog Explosion claims to be the largest blog promoter on the Internet. They have a vast directory but do not seem to have direct links. However, the listing in the directory can still show up in SERP’s, so keep this in mind.

20. Super Blog Directory is a great site that offers tools to posters that others do not. You can see the latest submitted links and blogs on the site, which is a perk that draws traffic into the directory.

Top 10 social bookmarking sites

1. del.icio.us
del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that has rapidly taken off even more in popularity since being purchased by Yahoo. I use del.icio.us probably the most out of all these top picks, particularly to post interesting sites that I've found around the Web. I also subscribe to quite a few del.icio.us tags, such as popular and reference, and I get all the sites tagged with these keywords in my RSS reader of choice, Bloglines.

2. Digg.com
Digg is social bookmarking and social networking gone a little crazy due to the fact that anyone can submit a Digg (site), and then anyone can comment on those same Diggs. For me the most interesting feature of Digg has to actually be the comments on the sites and stories, since the Digg community is not shy about letting folks know how they feel about a particular Digg. Primarily focussed on geeky, technology-type items.

3. Listible
Listible hasn't been around very long, but already it's one of my must-visit sites. Probably because I have a weird thing for lists. Anyone can start a list about pretty much anything; I've seen lists for Firefox extentions, TV theme songs, and much more. Listible users can rate the items on the list and add comments.

4. Furl
Furl, a service of LookSmart, gives users the ability to save copies of any Web page, search within your own personal archive of Web pages, and share what you find. People use Furl to create their own personal shopping lists, real estate directories, job searches, student research papers, etc. This may just sound like a fancy way of saying bookmarks; but the thing about Furl is that you can access it from any computer, which means that your Favorites will go with you.

5. Yahoo My Web 2.0 Beta
Yahoo my web 2.0 is a social search engine, which means that people and search sociallyare working together to create both better searches and a better search experience. From the site: "What if you could tap into a directory of favorite web content bookmarked by thousands of people? And what if that content was organized so that you could browse through it by keyword or instantly search to find content on a particular subject?" It's a great way to network and bookmark at the same time.

6. Flickr
Flickr is a social bookmarking and social networking site with a twist: it's all about photos. Users can upload and tag their favorite photos, then other users can bookmark those photos as favorites and share them with even more people. You can also comment on individual photos and share why you like (or dislike) that image.
7. Slashdot
Slashdot is the original social bookmarking site. Slashdotters can submit stories or links they find interesting and then users comment on them (usually the comments are extremely active). The only drawback of Slashdot is that stories and sites have to be pre-approved; this has actually driven a lot of very fervent Slashdot users to other social bookmark sites such as Digg.

8. YouTube
YouTube is another social bookmarking site with a twist; it's all about videos. Users upload their favorite videos and their fellow YouTube users can comment, pass these videos on around the Web, or paste them on their web site or blogs. YouTube is a great way to find popular homemade (mostly) videos.

9. Simpy
Simpy is a social bookmarking site that allows users to "save, tag and search your own bookmarks and notes or browse and search other users' links and tags." There's a lot of technology-related stuff here but then again, there's also a lot of very eclectic links on here as well.

10. Popurls.com
Popurls.com is one of my must-read sites every day. Popurls is a lovely conglomeration of about 10 different social bookmarking sites, some of which I've already mentioned in this list. Popurls is a great way to get all your potential bookmarks in one place. From Wendy Boswell.

NUMBER 1

Use H1 Tags for your entire page (except the title and other header information). You can use CSS Style sheets to make them look smaller and Google will give you bookoo points for having everything so big on the page (even though it doesn't look big to the user).

NUMBER 2

Submit early and submit often. I prefer to submit on a Sunday. That way - on Monday morning - the Googleplex will be swamped with so much to do - my submits will slip by. See the Googleplex hard at work.

NUMBER 3

Link back too other people linking to your page using link:www.example.org.
This is similar to the technique in no.5, but not as powerful.

NUMBER 4
Be careful spelling. Words like "PENS" and "ANGINA" can easily be mispelled to be words of the male and female anatomy respectively. This will cause Google to mistake your site for an ADUL† Site - and get it banned.

NUMBER 5

If all else fails - mail a 10 spot wrapped inside a number 10 envelope (make sure you wrap one layer of aluminum foil around it). Write your URL above the serial number on the front. If it won't fit, then that's THE problem - as Google hates long URLs.

NUMBER 6

Use lots of meta keyword tags. Use it WITH Commas. Make sure you don't repeat the same word more than 3 times in a row. Google only indexes the first 101K of the document - so don't use TOO many.

NUMBER 7

Make sure you include at least one link to Google. They need quality traffic as well. Don't be greedy and hog it all to yourself. This can do wonders for your pages. Remember - Google may be going public soon - so the more traffic you send them the better.

NUMBER 8

Use invisible text but make it close - colors like 00FF33 & 00FF66 are both browser safe, but are so close most humans can't tell the difference. Even though Google has over 50 Phds on staff - none of them probably know this - so use it - the bottom of the page is a good place - right above what you will learn in number 4.

NUMBER 9

Dots, Dots, and More Dots.
Don't link to other sites (other than your own) that aren't search engines. Don't even link to sites that used to be search engines - like AltaVista.

NUMBER 10

This tip is probably the most powerful one on here. Make at least three pages on your site and link them.Keep your patient.

Google Page rank is based on back links. Back links are Links pointing to your website from another website. The more back links you have the higher your PR will be.

NUMBER 11

Forums are a great way to achieve links to your website. In most forums you are allowed to have a signature and in your signature you can put a link to your website. But another important note to look on is making sure the forum is somewhat related to your website. You will still get credit if it's not, but if it's related to your website than you will be accomplishing two tasks at once.

Your websites presence is very important to your survival. The more people see, or hear about your website the more credibility you will have and this increases your chances of having these visitors come back and possibly become leads.

NUMBER 12

Search engine directories are a good way to get a free link to your website. They also increase your chances at being listed higher on popular search engines like Google, and overture.

Most search engine directories allow you to submit to their website for free. This will allow you to increase your web presence by being listed on another search engine, and it will also be a free link.

Remember the more links you have the higher your PR will be

NUMBER 13

Creating an ezine will probably be the most beneficial step you can take to increasing your web presence. When you create an ezine you will be able to keep visitors coming back to your website for more by using signatures and giving special deals.

Ezine's will also allow you to increase your back links. By creating an ezine you can submit your information about your ezine to an ezine directory. This directory will than link to your website(thus giving you a free link).

NUMBER 14

Articles are an easy source of generating new traffic. You can include your signature in your article. This will bring in more traffic from article submission directories.

Your signature usually consists of 4 to 8 lines. Usually the first line would be the title of the website that you are trying to advertise. The last line would be the link to the website and the lines in between these would be a sales pitch to draw your viewers into your website.

NUMBER 15

Gaining links from related websites can be one of the most frustrating tasks you can attempt.

They are very easy to find, but can be somewhat difficult to obtain links from.

To find related websites, all you have to do is go to a search engine... say Google... and type in your subject. Maybe your website is based on ford mustangs.

You go to Google and type in ford mustangs, than you look around for pages that are somewhat related to your website. After you have done this (which should be very easy) you have to contact them in some way to get your link posted on their website. This can be the most difficult task because a lot of webmasters ignore e-mail's from people requesting links because they don't see the importance of it at the time. Some other reasons could be that they are rarely online, or they delete spam mail and sometimes delete their important emails in the process.

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Linkreferral forums traffic - By participating in our forums on a daily basis, you'll build relationships and your reputation within the linkreferral community and improve the odds of successfully converting visitors to your end goal. Promote your listing by asking questions and giving comments, each post you make actively displays your link, category and member profile.

Free Traffic For Your Site/Blog

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Simply sign up for a free account and place a 2-3 line text ad with headline. Copy and paste the snippet code on your own site. This snippet code enables your web site to host a few text ads in return. Within 24 hours, after ad approval, our robot visits your web site and once it detects that your snippet code is up, your very own text ad goes live and our system serves your ad to hundreds of wbsites on a continuous basis.

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Ways to increase traffic in your websites

You should know the ways to increase pagerankings to get more traffic to your blogsites.Every blogger wants more and more traffic towards his blog. So, to increase traffic to your blog here are some tricks for blog exposure.



Keywords

This is the first step to increase traffic towards your blog. make sure that you have enough relevant keywords in your blog post so that people may find you on search engines.

Tagging

Tagging is also similar method which involves creating keywords that your articles will be read under. You may use sites like Technorati to do this.

Pinging on post updates

You should submit your RSS feeds to Yahoo and Google search engines so that site will be indexed and notified when the posting is done. Ping sites help to increase blog exposure. Whenever you add a post to your blog you should ping it so that a ping site like Ping-O-Matic will be able to recognize it as updated.

Link Trading

This can free or paid. You may deal with some another blogger to have link exchanging. Also, their are some sites which provides widgets for site link exchange. You may use Entrecard or Blogrush for improving traffic. This helps to increase blog exposure because the blog you link to will recognize you and promote your blog as a result.You may go to the site:
www.linkmetro.com, http://onewaylinkexchange.net, You could also search for "free oneway linking" in Google.

Article Marketting

Post some articles in some Directories and add your blogsite there.They will linking you blogsite.You may go there: "suggest my link to the linkpartners.com directory" by Google

Advertising

Advertising lets the user know about your site and attract him towards it. So, if you can pay some bucks for advertising, you may sign-up for Advertising networks such as Adwords, Adbrite and Bidvertiser. There are many more present but here I’ve suggested some popular and cheap programs.

Back-linking

I’ve already mentioned about backlinks and how to get them easily. Backlinks denotes your site’s popularity on web-world, its direct effect is that your Alexa ranking improves gradually. So, High ranking websites get High-traffic rate.You may conact through e-mail with the websites having good page ranks.