Cheap hits: You get what you pay for

Cheap visits to your blog.



I know you have thought about getting some.



All those of you who are guilty, please raise your hands.



Aha! I thought so!



Okay, now we have that naughty little secret out in the open, we can discuss it freely.



I had an e-mail question on the subject today, as a matter of fact. The writer wanted to know how to get some fast visits to his blog. He was hoping there were some magic words he could use to streak to the top of the search engines, and pick off some stray internet searchers.



Well, let's consider the idea.



Is there any value to cheaply acquired visits from the search engines like Google, MSN Search, Yahoo, AOL Search, Teoma, and others?



I don't think so.



First of all, visitors to your blog who are searching for Britney Spears wedding photos, Paris Hilton video movies, and the latest news about Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, are not likely to read your blog about planting rutabagas in Nebraska.



Simply placing keywords in a blog post, suggesting risque pics and stories, won't develop a blog's readership base.



The visitor counter will register a stop alright, but the click away in frustration, by a dissatisfied fan of Charlize Theron, will be much faster.



There is no magic bullet to gaining blog traffic. No one said building a blog, and a regular readership was ever going to be easy.



It takes hard work, and many, many interesting and informative web posts.



While it would be great to gain visitor traffic as a result of popular celebrity searches for Christina Aguilera, Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, and Jessica Simpson, it's not going to benefit your blog in the long run.



Unless you are writing an entertainment or celebrity news blog, or those topics are components of your current blog, your cheap hits won't pay off very well.



The search engines might just register your blog high in the search rankings as a result of the famous names. Don't get too excited, however. The resulting visits to your blog don't usually translate into loyal readers.



Instead of looking for cheap search engine hits, on highly popular searches for famous names, concentrate on writing good quality posts instead. Link out to other related blogs that provide even more helpful information on your blog's subject matter.



Feel free to add a mini-link section to blogs on your personal interests. I have some baseball blogs linked, for example.



I write a small bit about baseball, and Blog Business World might even be slightly themed as a baseball blog. I know it's already themed as a roller derby blog, due to the fact I have an actual blog about roller derby.



Write great posts about your areas of real interest; and that includes your hobbies.



Don't go chasing cheap hits from the search engines.



The resulting visitors won't stay, for more than a few seconds, before they click away to a more relevant site. Searchers want to find what they are looking for in the search engines.



Now, since I have mentioned some celebrities in this post...



Maybe I can get some cheap clicks to this blog...



Nah!