25 Ways to Get More
Traffic to your Blog
As you start to develop
your blog, you will come to
realize an important fact:
you want people to read
this thing. In order to gain
more readers, you need to
actively drive more traffic
to your blog on a regular
basis. There are many,
many different ways that
you can do this. Here are
25 of them just to get you
started:
1. Tell people about it.
Word of mouth is the best
marketing tool that you
have at your disposal so
don't be afraid to brag
about your blog every
chance that you get.
2. Link to your own
articles. You can do this
within your blog, of course.
But also make sure that
you are using links to your
own work if you do any
sort of blog writing for
other people. (Of course,
make sure that you're
allowed to do this.)
3. Use Craigslist. There
are dozens of different
ways that you can use
Craigslist to promote your
blog
and you should be using
every single one of them.
4. Get active on social
bookmarking sites. Top
ones that I would
recommend as a blogger
are Mixx and StumbleUpon
but there are lots of big
and small ones out there
to keep you busy. The key
here is to choose just a few
and then be truly active on
them on a regular basis.
This gives you more
credibility on the site and
drives more traffic to your
blog.
5. Visit the blogs of other
people who write on
similar topics and leave
thoughtful comments
there . Include your blog
link in the "website"
section of the comment
form and people will start
turning up on your blog.
6. Add a link to the blog
on all of your social
networking profiles. If
you're on Facebook or
LinkedIn, you should make
sure people can find your
blog there.
7. Add a link to the blog
on your email signature.
Also add a link to a specific
post that you like.
8. Business cards. Every
blogger should have
business cards and should
hand them out liberally.
Very few do.
9. Issue a press release.
Figure out what makes
your blog special and then
issue a press release about
it. If you're really serious,
you might hire someone to
write and spread the press
release for you.
10. Do a giveaway. You
can advertise on the blogs
of others that you're doing
a giveaway on your own
blog. For example, you
have CDs laying around
that you don't want so
hold a contest and
announce it on a bunch of
music blogs.
11. Give away your
writing. Do guest blogging
on the sites of others. Offer
to write one article per
month for a site that you
like in exchange for a link.
Alternatively, you can
publish articles on sites like
this one which may provide
you revenue income but
which are also a tool for
promoting your own blog.
12. Have a link love post
each week. These are
posts that many bloggers
are doing these days which
are simply lists of some of
the other posts that they
are reading around the
web. People like this
because it's a great
resource for them to start
learning about other blogs
with similar topics. And you
get the immediate
attention of the people
that you are linking to.
13. Use promotional
items. Bloggers need to
learn some of the basic
marketing skills that
salespeople use. Get pens
or coffee mugs or whatever
else you'd like to give away
and have them imprinted
with your blog URL. Try to
come up with a cute saying
or slogan that says what
your blog is about to go
along with it. Then give
them away like crazy.
14. Create a newsletter.
You can probably find the
time to do a short little
monthly newsletter about
yourself. Include
information about your
blog and your favorite
posts as well as some of
your goals for the next
month. Send this out as an
e-newsletter or a print
newsletter to everyone on
your contact list. This will
help them feel closer to
you personally and that's
sure to make them more
loyal to your blog.
15. Tell Technorati that
you're around. You should
sign up with Technorati
and then make use of
Technorati tags in your
posts.
16. Understand Google.
Google is the search engine
that everyone is using these
days so you should make
sure that you understand
how it works. There are lots
of articles out there that
you can read to get a
better understand of
keyword use, linking rules
and page rank.
17. Submit your blog to
directories. Here is a list of
100 of them to get you
started.
18. Add a link to the blog
on your bio. There are
many different places
where you will publish your
bio over the years. Make
sure that you include that
link so people from all of
those places can find your
blog.
19. Linkbaiting. There are
many aspects of this but
the basic idea of link
baiting is that you write a
controversial topic and
then include links in it to
people that are likely to
disagree with you. You have
to be able to stand the
heat if you're going to do
this but controversy is
always a great way to get
attention and attention is
what you want.
20. Write an eBook. If you
know enough to blog
about a topic then you
know enough to write an
eBook. It will take a little
bit of time but then you
can promote it through
different channels where
you can't promote a blog.
Include your link on all of
that promotional material
and people will turn up on
your blog.
21. Make sure that you
are regularly reading up
about new blog
promotion tools and
resources for bloggers .
Here's a link to 10,000
resources for writers and
bloggers, many of which
will help you out.
22. Create a video about
your topic. You can film a
short video that explains an
aspect of your blog topic
and upload it to YouTube.
Humorous videos are best
because people like them.
Make sure that you include
your blog URL on the video
as well as on your YouTube
profile.
23. Attend blogging
events. There are social
media and blogging
conferences cropping up
all over the place these
days. Other bloggers are
your best readers so start
getting out there and
meeting them.
24. Hold your own event
for bloggers. Start
advertising in your area
that you're putting
together a coffee-and-
conversation night for
bloggers to talk about
blogging. The more people
that attend, the more
traffic you're going to get.
25. Provide content that
people want to talk
about . Ultimately, traffic
really does spread through
word of mouth. If you have
good content then people
will start helping you to
spread the word.
These are all great ways to
start driving traffic to your
blog. However, the best
way is to get creative and
do some sort of blog
promotion that no one
else is doing yet. Anything
that gets you attention is
going to get you traffic.
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