Ping-O-Matic: A Simple Way to Draw Traffic

With a WordPress blog, you have a variety of tools to not only create content, but to share it and get your newest, freshest stuff out to your audience quickly. Ping-O-Matic is a quick and simple way to let others know you’ve posted new content—and ultimately drive more traffic to your blog. For self-hosted WordPress blogs, this update service is a built-in feature; you can choose the update services you would like to “ping” by going to Settings > Writing in your dashboard.

Need a refresher or primer? As you fill in your blog details at Ping-O-Matic,  you can opt to ping multiple ping servers at once, such as Weblogs.com, NewsGator, Blo.gs, and FeedBurner. When you ping these services, they automatically notify subscribers that new content is posted to your website or blog.

Essentially, Ping-O-Matic is a service that notifies the larger community—from search engines and blogging platforms to aggregators and social networks—of the newest, freshest content on the Internet. This, in turn, helps improve the speed at which search engines find and index your content.

That said, driving traffic to your blog isn’t simply about enabling this service and letting it do all the work for you. Remember that getting more traffic requires more effort—posting well-written, original content in particular.

To get you started, we want you to stir things up on your blog and write about a topic that’s up for debate. At The Daily Post, we post Mind the Gap prompts that ask readers what they think about controversial and divisive issues. So, we’re particularly interested in what you think about kids in adult-oriented places. Most of us can agree that it’s not a good idea to drag little Sally to a bar at 1AM, but what about a museum? A fancy restaurant?

Here are the essentials to consider when drafting this post:

• Read up on the existing discussion of this topic: Researching this topic (and any other subject you tackle) beforehand strengthens your own stance. And it also allows you to link to related posts that enhance your discussion, as well as engage with other bloggers who have weighed in on the topic. Both are good practices and additional ways to drive the right kind of traffic to your site.
• Pick a good, relevant title: Blog post titles are like newspaper headlines. They need to be short, snappy, and attention-grabbing. On social networks like Facebook and Twitter, your title is the primary (and may be the only) text that readers see before clicking to your post.
• Edit, proofread, and proofread some more: Take the time to develop your ideas. Readers are smart—they prefer to read posts that intrigue them, make them think and question, and rouse them up. If you pique their interest, they will comment on your post thoughtfully in return.
• Generate your own discussion: After presenting your thoughts on kids in adult-oriented places, ask questions or create your own poll at the end of your post to prompt your readers.
• Share your stuff on social networks: Use the sharing tools available to you to share this post across the Internet. Make it easy for others to spread the word.

You can apply the process above to other posts you write. Overall, it’s important to remember that original, relevant, and well-written content is key, and from there you can share it and use the tools and services available to you to draw traffic to your blog.

We look forward to providing more tips on this blog. Stay tuned!