Increasing Page Views

There are many different ways to widen the audience of the people who read your writing. One way is to be involved in many different social networks, and cross post about similar interests. If you write articles on AC, Hub Pages, or other places this may give you opportunities to share you thoughts with a wider range of people. When making a post in a community about a topic you've written an article about, always include a link.

Regardless of where your work is seen, some articles or posts will get more interest than others. Some of that has to do with how your work shows up in a search engine, and many factors such as good use of keywords may play in. Other factors such as the popularity of a topic will play in.

Here's a good example. I wrote a couple of silly little articles about Halloween related topics a few weeks ago. I put some time into sharing good ideas, but I can't say that either piece was very weighty. Both received about five hundred page views within a day! One reason may be that it was the right time of year for people to be interested in articles about Halloween.

The first article was about "Fun Things to do for Halloween in Seattle" . I didn't expect it at first, but sometimes I get a lot of views when I write an article that is based on a certain locality. In the article I included more unique ideas as well as standard ones. For instance, Seattle has a number of great Ghost Tours- which would be a fun and spooky activity for a group of people at this time of year.

The second article I wrote had even more views than the first, and was about "Cool Ideas for Halloween Costumes with Thrift Store Finds" .  If you have a look you'll note that I included lots of different types of costume ideas. Including an array of related topics that fit key words and concepts may draw more viewers. "Halloween", "Costume Ideas", "Pirate Costume", "Greek Goddess Costume", "Costumes for Kids", and "Costumes for Adults" could all apply as keywords. An underlying concept that may draw more attention is the opportunity to still have fun, but do it on the cheap. In this economy many people are struggling to take care of basic needs, and may not have much money for things like entertainment. Those people effected will all be looking for less expensive ways to celebrate than they may have in other years.

Paying attention to these simple things made the difference between 50 page views over time and 500 page views in a day.

Creating Links to You Blogs With Articles

If you start writing and submitting freelance articles, you may have opportunities to add links to related information. If you are also a blogger or run a website, you can use this to increase the traffic to your outside work with visitors you already know will be interested in the subject matter you are talking about. If your blog has business aspects, this could increase interest in your skills and products. If you do affiliate work, it will also increase the number of people who may take an interest in those other aspects of your pages.

When adding links to articles that you submit to various services, be careful to pay attention to the guidelines. They will differ from publisher to publisher. You should try to make sure that your links in general are related to the subject matter of your article. Many publisher's and clients don't want articles that sound like a sales pitch, but don't mind you sharing other content if it is relevant.

For instance, I play piano and write songs, and have developed a blog of notes for musicians and music lovers. You can find it at http://nicolettesmusicnotes.blogspot.com . When I write articles about piano, songwriting or music theory, I take it as an opportunity to lead people back to my personal work outside the sites I submit articles to.

Promoting Yourself with Ezine Articles

For a budding freelance writer, getting involved with Ezine articles may be another good idea. Ezine does not pay you for your work, but sharing some of your work through Ezine gets a lot of exposure for some people. Authors post articles on whatever they would like, and a team of editors reviews the material to determine that it's quality work and follows their guidelines.

You'll probably remember having read someones article about something on Ezine at some point, and that's a good sign if you want people to read and be aware of your work. Ezine stores the articles shared there and makes them available, free of charge, to people who want content for their blogs and websites. People using content from Ezine can select up to 25 articles per year to share in their own projects. They are required to leave the name of the author on the article, publish as written without editing, and include the author's "resource box" with the article. In the resource box you can share links to information about your topic, links to your blog or website, and ways to contact you. Allowing others to share your work in this way gets it out there, and interested readers may find their way to your work elsewhere in this fashion. Whether you are trying to get clients for freelance gigs, or people to check out your web based business, this kind of exposure can ultimately lead to good press and new opportunities.

If you keep a blog or have a website, you may also be able to use good articles you find on Ezine, to add to your own unique pages. Sure, if your readers like what they see, they may go off and check out the writer's other haunts on the web- but that's not always a bad thing. If your site is that useful they'll be back, because they know you have fresh and helpful material. If it's not useful or interesting, well then, maybe you need to improve. *wink* Cross linking such articles can also give you an opportunity to befriend other writer's, -which often leads to link sharing, more traffic, and the joy of having people to chatter back and fourth with once in a while.

To start sharing articles on Ezine, simply go to their site and create a profile. You can link your blogs and website's to your author profile there, as well as share a short biography and other information. When you post your first article you'll learn more about what their rules for posting are. You will save yourself some time by reading and understanding the guidelines. For instance: it's okay to put a link in your author' resource box to a website that sells products and services in your own business. It's not however okay to write an article that is really a sales pitch for your products. You're limited on the number of links you can add, so pick wisely. At first, you can submit up to ten articles. If you're somewhat prolific and good at writing, the powers that be at Ezine will raise that- so make sure you share useful and well written material.

http://ezinearticles.com/

Have fun! If you stumble across this post and have Ezine articles you'd like to share, feel free to leave a link in the comments.

"How do I put a counter on my page?"

One thing you will probably want to integrate into any blog is a counter, so that you can see how many people are visiting your pages. I like Stat Counter, another free and highly customizable service. It is possible with Stat Counter to create individual counters for different pages, and fairly simple to set up. You can use Stat counter in conjunction with all kinds of websites and blogs, including those published on Blog Spot and Word Press. In either of those cases, you set up an account with stat counter and get it to generate a a HTML box in the widgets or gadgets section. You'll the be able to see what kinds of hits you're getting, and be able to break it down and view different statistics.

http://www.statcounter.com/