Since blogging, I’ve noticed that there are bloggers who do posts daily, and still, their followers and site traffic doesn’t increase; it ultimately stays the same. You can have superb blog posts, but if no one knows your blog exists, your site will not gain traffic & grow.
I figured I’d do this post to help some of you out who are struggling a little bit in that area. These are things that have worked for me. It may or may not work for you, but it will not hurt to try.
1. Join networks that relate to your blog genre. There are several different networks out there that cater to specific blogging types/categories. On them you will be able to meet bloggers from all around the world who can help give you advice & exchange links. The best networks are those who have weekly link exchanges. Link exchanges allow you to network, and have your blog featured ons everal different blogs at a time.
2. Network with other bloggers. The blogging community will not know you’re there if they don’t hear from you. Sure, you post everyday, but if you don’t let people know, how will you get feedback? You have to explore other blogs & commnent. Be sure to leave your website link as a signature when you do comment. That way, other people who comment see your blog link & may end up checking it out.
3. You have to use social networking to it’s full advantage. Create a separate twitter account specifically for your blog & have the posts feed directly to your twitter every time you post. Invite your readers to connect with you on twitter, facebook, stumbleupon, Formspring etc.
4. Host a giveaway. People love free stuff. Hosting a giveaway on your blog is a wonderful way to promote yourself and draw in new traffic to your website, blog or online business. If you have a fairly new blog or a small readership, you may want to consider hosting your giveaway on someone else’s blog. There are a lot of blogs out there and many of them host giveaways featuring other people’s wares. It benefits both you and the blog author because she gets to offer something fun for her readers, and you get to draw some of those readers over to your blog or online shop. Start by finding a popular blog that attracts your target audience.
5. Don’t ignore your readers comments. It’s kind of rude to not reply to a comment on your blog. If someone compliments you, say ‘thank you’. If they ask you a question about where you got soemthing from or what is the best type of product, answer it. Even if you have to do some research let them know, but always get back to them.
6. Optimize your blog for search engines. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).
7. Syndicate Your Blog’s Content with an RSS Feed. Setting up an RSS Feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.
8. Tag Your Posts. It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it’s worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They’re also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.
9. Remember Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I know wordpress automatically does this for you. When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don’t overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google’s search entirely.
10. Use and Update Your Blogroll. By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It’s an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs’ blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.
11. Don’t Forget Images. Images don’t just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.
12. Consider Guest Blogging. Guest blogging can be done when you write a guest post on another blogger’s blog or when another blogger writes a guest post on your blog. Both methods are likely to increase traffic as your blog will be exposed to the other blogger’s audience. Many of the other blogger’s readers will visit your blog to see what you have to say.
13. Submit Your Blog to Search Engines. Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! by submitting your blog’s URL to them. Most search engines provide a ‘Submit’ link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.
It’s important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn’t mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.
I know it’s a lot of reading. I hope it helps.
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