11 Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic

January 14th, 2009

by Alice Seba

Blogging for a living can be hard work, and to be honest it gets very frustrating when we don’t obtain the traffic we need to keep the blog thriving. You see, simply working hard can’t always guarantee that you will receive the traffic you want, while on the other hand, not working at it is a sure fire way to never receive traffic at all. For us bloggers that work too hard at this game, here are 11 successful techniques to help you get all the traffic you need.

1. Make your blog remarkable: There is a good reason this is first in the queue, that is because being remarkable can make all the other concerns fall into line. Everything else on a blog could be missing, but with this at its core it could still be a success.

So how on earth do you make yourself remarkable?

Delight and indulge – Stimulate your readers minds, give them some brain food to get their minds working. Build rapport – understand your readers personalities, address their worries and concerns. Be outlandish – sometimes controversy can also bring good publicity, even if not everyone agrees with what you’re saying. Enlighten your readers – Be honest with your readers and tell them exactly what they want to hear, in a way they would appreciate.

Some may disagree with this attitude, and advise that more effort should be put into building traffic the manual way. This may be so, but building up the content of your blog or sites can far outweigh any amount of traffic building. Think about it – what’s the point of sending masses of traffic when the average viewer will simply click away on arrival at your site.

2. RSS: Some may say RSS old news, but there are still many blogs that haven’t thought to use a feed. If it is not something you have come across, an RSS feed is simply something that allows readers to stay updated without constantly visiting the blog. The RSS feed alerts readers to every new post via their feed reader or e-mail account. Using a service like FeedBurner.com will make this process a lot easier.

3. Ping!: Make sure your blog is set up to ping the various web blogs. Many blog platforms allow you to set this up in your settings. This helps a variety of information/search sites know that you’ve updated your blog.

#4 Comment on Other Blogs: Comment on other blogs in related field to your own. The option of linking back to your own blog is usually available. Make sure you are respectful! I would pay the conditions set by the blog owner, be courteous by offering real information instead of a big advertisement for your own blog. Without this kind of diplomacy, your comments will probably be deleted by admin.

#5 TrackBacks: Most other blogs will allow you to post comments about their site on your blog. When you link to their site, a link to your own post actually appears in the comments on their blog. Setting up trackbacks between two WordPress blogs is easy, you simply need to put a link to the relevant post and the rest is done for you. Again, be respectful. If you’re going to TrackBack to someone else’s comment, be sure that you have written something useful. Simple copy and pasting of their own post really does not count as adding to the conversation.

6# Stay in contact with your list. As every marketer says, the money is in the list. This is definitely true, but the list needs nurturing and updating or you may begin to lose subscribers. Try to send relevant posts and things that you know people on your list to enjoy.

#7 Content Distribution: Your content does not have to be 100% contained on the blog. Remember the many other ways there are to distribute content, like article marketing, guest posting on other blogs, audio content and videos. The more content you have out there, the more likely you will be noticed.

8. Affiliate linking: You may have set up your own affiliate program, enabling your affiliates to link back to any page on your site. Try to encourage your affiliates to link to, and write about your blog posts. A recommended system to use is quicksales.com – which is a private label 1shoppingCart solution, enabling affiliates to direct traffic to any page they please.

If a potential client clicks through these links provided by your affiliates, they are automatically cookied, meaning that any purchase made on your site will generate an affiliate commission. This will give incentive to your affiliates to publish your content and link back to the original article. This won’t offer the same benefits of landing on the actual sales page, but will provide a good alternative and at same time provide referred visitors with excellent value.

9. Social Networks: You can use various social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) to drive traffic to a blog. People you connect with socially are likely to be interested in what you have to say on your blog. Make sure you follow proper etiquette and use your common sense. Also, don’t overdo it and get lost in your social networks all dayyou’ve got WORK and other important things to do. Plus, if you are remarkable, those who use social networks will be doing the work for you and talking about you.

10. Online Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking includes well-known sites like del.icio.us, Stumble Upon and Digg. The site enables you to bookmark your favorite webpages and other content on the Internet. A lot of marketers choose to mark their own sites, but this could be against terms and conditions, so read the rules first. Another idea is to bookmark each other sites, but at the end of the day if you’re site’s good enough, people will bookmark it on their own accord.

11. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): I’ve chosen to put SEO at the end of the list, even though I know a lot of people would disagree. If you’re trying to find first-time visitors or people who are just browsing, SEO is fine, but if you want the faithful visitors who continuously return, try not to concentrate too much on optimization.

The trouble with trying to optimize every single page on your blog is the time it takes to do so, and the fact that you could be using that time for being remarkable. Remember that content should be readable rather than just written for the search engine’s, and keyword rich with the same phrase repeated throughout. If you’re savvy enough however, you could combine the two by optimizing your existing pages, but don’t make this a priority over your (remarkable) content.

About the Author:

If you’re looking to pull more profit out of your business blog, check out the IM Blogging Bootcamp. This 4-week intensive program designed to get you actively and effectively blogging to reach more of your prospects and convert more of them into lifelong customers.

Tags: Blogging, blogging for profit, Internet Marketing
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