How to get traffic to your blog
So now are getting to the point of
this article where I start sharing everything I have learned over the last
couple years about blogging. So, if you are like most, you want to create a
blog so that others can read what you have to say. Sadly, people will not find
your blog (in the beginning anyway) unless you do a little legwork. These are
some of the things I did to get traffic and some that I still do. The first
thing I suggest doing is writing a few great articles about your topic and
feature them in your sidebar. Then I would start working on generating traffic,
because you not only want traffic, but you want returning traffic as well.
Guest Posting!!
I think this is one of the best ways
to start getting some quick traffic. Almost every blog I know allows guest
posts (even this one)
– and almost every one of those does not discriminate. What I mean is that most
bloggers (that I know anyway) will accept or reject a guest post based on it’s
quality, not on whether they know the person or not. This provides a great
opportunity for a newbie to write an article that could be seen by 20,000
readers. I don’t know of any other method that could bring traffic as quick. I
must admit, I could still do more guest posting myself. I have been pleased
with the results in the past. The key is to write a great article – don’t hold
back your best stuff. I have seen people grow their blogs very quickly by
giving some of their best articles away as guest posts. Also, only submit
unpublished content as a guest post. If it has already been published, then the
blog that is allowing you to guest post won’t get any search engine traffic for
that article. But there are places to republish your articles you have already
published – we will get to that in a minute…
Sign up for blog
community sites
Just a few off the top of my head
are mybloglog.com, technorati.com, and blogcatalog.com. Look for
other blogs in your niche and join their networks and ask to become their
friends. Networking with some of your fellow bloggers here will send a few
visitors your way and is a good way to get started.
Submit to
Blogcarnivals
One of the best things beginning
bloggers can do is to sign up for blogcarnivals. At this site you can submit articles that you wrote
on your blog to be included in a list of articles by the hosting blog. It is
kind of like “open mic night.” If you have a good article with a good title,
you can get some good traffic from blogcarnivals, not to mention incoming links
from other related sites.
Join Directories
If I were starting a blog today, one
of the first things I would do is Google “whatever topic I want to blog about”
+ “directory” This should return a list of web directories about your topic.
Getting added to these directories will only help. You may not get a lot of
traffic from them, but ultimately they will help you get more traffic from the
search engines. A few of the more valuable ones to get you started…
Blog Commenting
One of the absolute best ways for
new blogs to get traffic is just to comment on other blogs. Commenting with a
thoughtful and provocative response will often send a few visitors your way.
The blogging community is generally a very social community and those who are
active in the community often reap the rewards of it.
Forum Commenting
Becoming involved in forums related
to your topic and having a link to your blog in the signature line can send a
few visitors. Google “your topic” and “forums” and you are sure to find a few.
Just don’t be annoying and go in just to promote yourself. People can see that
from a mile away. The new age of the internet (aka Web 2.0) is very much a
“give and you shall receive” environment. If you seek to give and be a benefit
before seeking your own rewards, you will be much better off.
Linking to other
blogs
I don’t know what it is, but
everyone wants to know when someone is talking about them. So it is with blogs.
When people link to my site, I get a notification and often go check out who
linked to me and what the context was. I have had some good relationships form just
from this.
Create Squidoo
pages
Squidoo.com,
InfoBarrel.com,
Hubpages.com, and a
handful of others are sites that allow you to build a simple page about a
topic. You can do it very quick and the pages often rank well in the search
engines. If you build a page that gets a little bit of traffic and have links
coming back to your site, you will catch some of those visitors. If that
weren’t good enough, many of them allow you to earn money from your articles as
well.
Article submissions
Submit articles to article
submission sites. These sites collect articles and most allow a bio-section
that can include a link back to your blog. Here are a few that are worth
looking into…
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