6 Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Blog
Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean anyone knows about it or reads it. Like any other website, you still need do some promotion to drive traffic. Otherwise you’re just a needle in the haystack. Here’s a few things you can do start bringing people to your blog.
1) Submit your blog to both traditonal and blog search engines, and ping them everytime you write a new post. For this I use Ping-o-Matic.
2) Post useful comments on other related blogs. This really does generate good traffic. I often click the links of others that have left comments on the blogs I read regularly. I also visit the sites of every single person who leaves a comment on this site, and have come across so many great blogs this way.
3) If you have a lot to say about another blog post try writing about it on your site instead of leaving a comment. But make sure you leave a trackback link. I also read all the trackbacks on my site and can guarantee every other blogger does too. Of course we want to know what others have to say about our posts. Do this everytime you quote or refer to a blog.
4) Make sure you have a RSS feed that people can subscribe to. This will help others keep track of your blog. Very important for repeat visitors. Don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.
5) Post often when you first start your blog. As time goes on you don’t have to post everyday but try not to ever go longer than a week without posting. Your blog will start looking like a ghost town and your visitors won’t want to come back if you don’t update it on a regular basis.
6) Write high-quality posts. They don’t have to be long but they need to be good. Give a unique view of your opinions. Try writing something that will create a buzz and get other bloggers to talk and link about your posts. Ever you ever write something good enough to get on Digg that alone will bring in 30,000 visitors and a few thousand links to your site.
Don’t give up. It’s hard to build an audience and takes a lot of time and effort. It won’t happen over night, unless you’re already somewhat of a celebrity. Stick with it, if you write unique content eventually you will build a good following.
Cameron Olthuis is the Founder of
This are good recommendations indeed. Most of the (small) traffic I get is from trackbacks and comments on other blogs.
One can only hope that the blog ends up on Digg, though.
This really was a great article. These tips are a good start for people like me and others who may be starting a blog or website. By the way, if it wasn’t for digg, I wouldn’t have found this read.
Nice tips. I would also add that it just takes time. No matter how much time and effort you put in, it’s still going to take time for your page rank to go up, links to spread around, bots to crawl, etc.
Norante, thanks for the digg!
GreenLantern - That’s 100% true. It’s definitely not something that will happen over night.
Good tips. It’s nice to know that I’m doing some of the right stuff, and where I need to go next. Thanks.
Giving up - committing blogicide - is so easy, especially after the honeymoon phase has worn off and before the real rewards start pouring in. To all bloggers, but especially to those who have been blogging for anywhere from two weeks to six months, I say, “Don’t give up! Stick with it!”
I’ve blogged for about seven months now and I’m starting to see a snowball effect of traffic and links - and most especially, respect and relationships. I’m getting to know bloggers who might not have taken me seriously back when I only had a few posts up and didn’t know a Meebo from a Mabber (okay, I still don’t really know those two apart :)).
Your tip number five is interesting - don’t know if I’ve ever heard it before, but I think I agree. Being prolific becomes a bit less important once you’ve got a sizable captive audience.
Nice list, I really do need to start updating more regularly, I’m very lazy about that.
Any hints on getting more people to comment? I seem to be getting a lot of visitors, but the only people who ever comment are the ones that actually know me.
Jet,
Ask questions! Leave your posts open ended and invite conversation.
I think you have given very practical ideas. Let me try them out as well. Is Digg good? Just tried it, hope it gets me good traffic. These days I am super traffic hungry LOL
Just the kind of advice I needed. Thanks.
You do realize that this post, especially #2, will forevermore (look, it’s over a year since it was posted!) attract comments designed solely to get you to view people’s blogs? Even from people who would not otherwise have even heard of this site (though that part you probably like)?
Morgan, I definitely enjoy discovering new blogs. Just checked yours out too.
Good Ideas Cameron! I’ve been reading a lot lately about blogging tips, and it might be worth noting that although creating well written posts is a must for a good blog, you need to be writing about a subject that people care about. Do some research on your subjects before starting a blog and make sure you’re not the only that thinks about your subject on a regular basis.
There are many advantages of your web blog above a website, except it’s easy to setup and free. You can put every thing in your blog: from a couple of lines what it is on your mind or your new article just published elsewhere, or a product review. In principle, a blog is the same as a website, but you will need to update more frequently to get the visitors to your site. A major advantage of your web blog here above a website to getting major search engines like Google and Yahoo to visit your blog frequently is a technique called “pinging”. It’s a method of notifying all of the major search engines and blog directories, each time that you have updated your blog. The search engines will come and to take a look at your blog, thereby increasing traffic to your blog. If you link your blog, the search engines will follow the links from the blog pointing to your sites. This will help the search engine rankings of your sites as well!
Hi,
These are some really good points which I will definatlely try to implement on my new blog too. I have to research more in “backtrack link” I have seen it but I don’t know how it works.
I’ve seen on some websites small buttons for your site to be added on the Google bookmark, Yahoo, digg, etc.
Thanks
Whatever industry or niche you’re in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that’s already active. Depending on the specificity of your focus, you may need to think one or two levels broader than your own content to find a large community, but with the size of the participatory web today, even the highly specialized content areas receive attention
http://sanjevsharma.blogspot.com
Thanks a lot!
This was a really helpful post, I’m sure I will now implement these to bring traffic to my site, and yes I will tell people about this article…. hahhaha
*sneaky link* http://www.amaturegamers.com
See I’m learnding….
Thank you for the tips, I have some ghost town blog since i focus to one blog. But this tips really help me to dig more traffic for my website
I’ve set up my blog recently to share my views and data about the stock markets. It’s nice to come across with your ideas on improving traffic to my blog. It’s kind of lonely if no one comes visit. Thanks for the tips!
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Awesome guide, i will put these tips into good use i think