Obviously there's a few different paths to go down.

In addition to adding content to your blog, you also need to optimize your blog too. Keywords, meta-tags, blog title and description etc.

But what's next?

Here's a few things I do that you might find useful.

A. Have a play with DirectoryMaximizer.com – that's a low priced directory submission service that manually submits your site to SEO friendly directories. If you are planning to use that service make sure to:

1. Use 100% unique content on your blog/site for your SEO directory submissions (they frown on linking to sites created with duplicate content).
2. Try to have less than 100 directory submissions in your first month. (You could easily blast your site out to thousands of directories at once but does that seem natural to you?)
3. Resubmit to different directories each time you submit.

B. Have a play with Ping.Fm – Ping.Fm is a free service that lets you paste in your blog URL and send it out to a whole bunch of social networks. (You'll need to sign up for those social networks).

Quick tip for using Ping.fm. Promote your individual blog posts by adding a * in front of your URL like this: *http://www.yourblogname.com/your-blog-post That keeps the full URL in the ping.fm window, instead of the shortened ping.fm URL.

Only do that if you don't want to use the shortened URL.

C. Have a play with Jeff Johnson's Traffic Getting SEO Plugin – this WP plugin is a like a funky optimizer that gives you the run down on everything you need to do to optimize your blog. (Search Google for the free version).

For example it will suggest what plugins to use and install, and tell you to add your blog titles, keywords, when to post and that sort of thing.

There's also WPSyndicator, another WordPress plugin that:

• Instantly build backlinks and HUGE surges of traffic to your blog
• Automatically builds DEEP one-way links to propel your blog to the top of the search engines
• Turns 10 auto-blogs into 150+ with the click of a button

Can you tell I stole those bullets right from their sales page?

I'm not really into creating auto-blogs but if that's your thing cool.

http://yoursite.com/go/linkname?

It looks pretty nifty, don't you think? I thought it was some sort of paid link tracker or link generator tool. Just recently though, as I moved into using the excellent Studiopress WordPress theme to run my sites, I discovered exactly where that link originated from, and I'll show you how to use it yourself.

One caveat though – (as far as I know) you need to be using Studiopress to be able to use this excellent link generator. (Correct me if I am wrong!) It is a WordPress plugin though so there may be something similar available if you run a different WordPress theme.

Why Do I Like This Link Generator?

The first thing that grabbed me with this is that it is super easy to use. All you do is upload the plugin and activate it. Then in your WordPress dashboard you'll see a section called Simple URLs. Just click on Add New Link and it's straightforward from there. (See the images below for clarity).

The great thing about this link generator is that you no longer have to use a redirect page. This is what Studiopress says…

By avoiding page based redirects, which is the current trend in masking affiliate links, we avoid any issues with permalink conflicts, and therefore avoid any performance issues.

Previously I always used page based redirects… What that means is that I would get my affiliate link, put it into an index.html file and inside a folder, then upload it to my site. (Making sure the permissions were right, etc).

That process works well (mostly), but it does tend to eat up a lot of time!

Using this link generator WP plugin makes things MUCH easier. And it makes your outgoing links much cleaner, and easier to manage.

Plus you can actually see how many people actually clicked on your links from inside your WordPress dashboard. Let's see if I can show you what I mean…

Once you've uploaded the plugin, you can see how simple it is to add new link. You name your link – in this case I called it 'Traffic Dashboard' (because it's a great product and I wanted to promote it), and add the URL information below (that would be your affiliate link). Then you need to publish the post. (It's not really a 'post' but you still need to hit publish so you can create your link).

Then you get to see what your URL link looks like… How easy is that? That step takes probably less than a minute to do… and no more uploading page redirects! Here's what the links look like inside your WordPress dashboard…

Much better than having an incredibly long Clickbank (or Shareasale) link, right?

The only catch is of course that you need to be running a Studiopress theme to use this excellent little link generator. Although there probably are other WordPress plugins that do a similar thing.

UPDATE — my bad — as far as I know you can use this plugin on any WordPress theme! Here's where to download the simple urls plugin.

What do you think? Have you used a plugin like this one to make your link management easier? Let me know in the comments below…

Image by ocean.flynn via Flickr

Have you been searching high and low for the perfect WordPress templates?

Believe me, it’s NOT that easy… Actually it IS easy to find good WordPress templates, but to find the one that is right for YOU in all ways is a huge time challenge.

That’s because there’s so many great looking templates out there. You just need to go to www.themes.wordpress.net to see that’s there’s zillions of 1-4 column WordPress themes available for you to choose from.

How to choose which one is right for you?

Well, you need to think it through and ask yourself if you want to keep things simple (1 column), or do you need the space for 2 or more columns? (The column is really just the sidebar. For example, this blog has two columns, small on the left side, and wide on the right).

Let’s look at some examples to show you how this works.

This terrific Internet marketing blog from Martin Avis uses a simple one column WordPress theme. For this blog, simplicity works well. The content is rich in value, and easy to read. (You can become so absorbed in the content that you hardly get time to look at the sidebar anyway!)

So, in this case, content is king and the simple approach works very well. However you might want to add more advertising, such as Google Adsense, or other methods, to monetize, and give your viewer more choices to explore when they click away from your blog.

Another thing to do is just to look at other blogs in your niche… If you discover a blog theme that you like, you should be able to tell in the footer (down at the bottom of the theme) whether the blogger is using WordPress or not.

If it’s a WordPress theme then more often than not there’ll be a link to the theme designer. Follow the link, download the file, and get your new WordPress blog happening.

Normally WordPress themes are free, but sometimes it’s worth buying a theme. A great example of this is the revolution theme from Brian Gardener. These themes ooze professionalism. They’re made to work, totally customizable, and they’ll make your blog beautiful.

So without any further ADO…