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Five Steps To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

Written by: Omaro Ailoch

Article Overview: How do you get people to visit and keep coming back to your site? By following a few simple steps, you can begin to see immediate increases to your traffic.

Five Steps To Increase Traffic To Your Blog

How do you get people to visit and keep coming back to your site? By following a few simple steps, you can begin to see immediate increases to your traffic.

One: Let them know you're there

This one may seem overly simple, but it's a step many people overlook. Tell your friends and family that you have a blog. Send them the url and periodically remind them when you update it. Don't send notices too often, but it's perfectly okay to send an occasional e-mail to let your friends, and acquaintances, know what you're doing.

You should also register with blog aggregators and sites that track blog postings. Most blog software enables you to do this by default.

Two: Participate on Similar Blogs

People who want to read your blog are probably already reading other blogs. Those blogs are likely very much like yours. Most sites will offer an option to list your own url as a part of your profile information. By commenting on others' sites, you help those bloggers and increase the chance that someone will try out your blog in the process.

One word of caution concerning this technique: You should spend time on the blog and participate in a meaningful way. If you're a frequent commenter, then the site host is more likely to go out of his or her way to help you promote your own site. Posting a single comment that you have a blog too is poor etiquette and will probably result in your comment getting deleted entirely. Treat the blogger as you want to be treated when your traffic is booming.

Three: Add your link to your signature

You may already use an e-mail signature, so why not add your blog's url to it? Every time you send a note to a friend or forward your children's latest school pictures, you'll also be including your blog link. It's a simple and easy way to get it out there.

Four: Post, Post, Post

No matter how much you advertise, unless there's something new to read, you won't generate traffic. You don't have to post daily, but in most cases you should post a few times a week. The more you post, the more motivation readers have to come back and see what you're up to now.

Any old post won't do, either. Your readers want to know who you are and what you're doing. A few lines or a post thrown together before bed won't cut it. There are too many other blogs out there; give your readers something they really want to read. If they feel that you've taken time for them, they'll take time to come back for you.

If you plan to be away for a while, then let your readers know that you won't be posting for that time. Announce when you'll return, and be sure to post on that day. Even better, schedule a few posts to come out while you're away. Most blogging software allows you to schedule when posts will appear on your site. Whichever route you choose, don't just leave the blog idle. You don't want your hard-earned readership to go elsewhere because they think you've abandoned your blog.

Five: Get your readers involved

If there's anything blog readers love more than reading your blog, it's getting to participate in your blog. Host a contest to select a guest blogger for a day. Give away a small prize to the person who brings in the most new readers. Ask your readers what they'd like to see on your blog, and take their suggestions seriously.

With a little creativity and patience, you'll soon see your traffic growing. These simple steps will allow you to attract and retain your readers as your blog develops.

Related Articles
  Blog Statistics Can Help You Improve Your Traffic
  10 Free to Low Cost Traffic Techniques
  Free to Low Cost Traffic Tips
  Use These 3 Ways of Attracting Traffic to Your Internet Based Business Blog
  How to Guest Blog

Article Tags: blogger, mail signature



Related Forum Posts
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - LOL, I spoke too soon. Within a few hours of my post, Alexa updated the Traffic Rank on the toolbar. Note however that the 3 month Traffic Rank on Alexa.com has still not been updated...
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.
Jen's Blog - Spam protection - Jen, I like the Blog and just posted a comment to one of your articles. From my experience you need to implement some sort of SPAM capture tools. i use them on my Blog and it's been a life saver as I'm getting hit by spam atleast 5 times a day. I use Wordpress and they have plugins like Captcha and SPAM Karma installed.


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