Relatively new to blogging Motivated Mum, Maggy of Red Ted Art, started out small and now boasts an ever-increasing readership and presence on the internet.  These are her tips on ways to attract readers to your blog, increase your stats and get yourself noticed on the internet.

There are two approaches to this article. One is the story (rather a long essay) and the other is keeping it short and sweet. Here is short and sweet.

Here is a screen shot of my stats:

What happened in Jan/ Feb 2010 and again March & April? Then in May? What will June  look like?

You only get one chance to make a first impression: This is particularly true of the web.

If you go into a shop or a cafe and you don't like what you see - the chances are that you will hang around for a few minutes, you've probably caught the eye of the staff and it would look very rude just to turn around and walk out.

So the staff might get a second chance, a chance to engage you in conversation… and maybe win you over.

If you click on a website that you don't like, you simply click away - and no one even knows that you were there. 

If you’re not in the industry,  search engine optimisation can be a bit of a minefield.

So many people all tell you different things,  but they generally have one thing in common, they all want to make money out of you.

You are probably already bombarded with phone calls from Companies promising to get you on page one of the search engines. In truth, they possibly can, but it will cost. And if the cost outweighs the business it generates then you have not really achieved anything. It is also important that you are at the top of the right page – it’s all very well pushing visitors to your site, but if they are the wrong visitors , you won’t make any new sales.