How Do I Increase Traffic to My Blog? - FAQ
User djinferno asked a question over at the Authority Blogger Forum that I know is on the minds of many bloggers.
It is a question I see a lot, expressed in many ways
- “How do I promote my blog”
- “What can I do to get more visitors?”
- “How do you increase traffic?”
In the thread already there is some great comprehensive advice from glblbuy that I totally agree with. Do read the whole thing but here are a couple of the main points.
- Have great content - everyone knows content is a pre-requisite but it is always surprising how many people put one post up on their blog then ask how to get more visitors right away!
- Make yourself known - Fellow bloggers are your best quality source of free traffic and subscribers. Participate in forums and carnivals. Comment. Make friends and partnerships and get them to link and Stumble your posts.
- Guest post - Once people know you a bit build on it by guest posting. By writing on other peoples blogs you build contacts, raise your profile and can help other people while helping yourself - win-win
- Be easy to help - Make your content easy to skim and quote. Use bullets, bold areas, quotes. Provide easy to use social media buttons. When it comes to Digging you up, linking to you or stumbling your stuff if it seems like too much work nobody will do it!
- Take advantage of the traffic when it comes - make sure your subscription options are prominent, welcome people, respond to comments, follow up with more good stuff
Added: I was reminded of another good thread at the forum on the same topic
I’m sure you have your own advice, what has worked for you? Sign up to the forum and join the conversation or leave a comment here 
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Posted on September 26th, 2007 by Chris Garrett in Marketing
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Rubbish.
1) Write trollish content. Any hotbutton issue will do.
2) Comment in other blogs no matter how little they have in common with yours.
3) Include links to truly funny (related) cartoons or hot naked wymmyns.
4) Check Goggle’s Zeitgeist and daily headlines, and make sure to include those keywords in the title and first few paragaphs.
That’s it. That’s all you need to do to get traffic. Unless you’re getting paid based on CPM rather than click-through you’re not going to actually make any money from that traffic.
You do have to keep in mind your brand so trollish comments and posts might work against your long term goals. Your last point is worth remembering, in fact I wrote something similar on another blog today
Contents is the key!!
Good post Chris.
Guest posting is something I have not done much myself but it’s something I hope to do in the future when I have more time. A big part of blogging is being known.
Interesting tips. Thank you.
@kaushik - Yup, as a start you need great content but after that you need to network
@Kevin - Definitely try it if only to get a fresh persective of this thing we do
@Ann - Glad you like
ReallyEvilCanine I would have followed your advice if I were a content scrapper
Engaging in the (online) community has really worked for me. Commenting on posts, building a network in the social tools (mybloglog, sphinn, stumble, etc etc) has really helped me gain readership and RSS feed subscribers.
Guest post you say…not sure there’s too many people out there who wants a chick who specialises in organics and fairtrade to be tapping away at the keyboard for them. Not unless someone decides to make an iPhone cover out of fairtrade rubber…then I’m definitely their girl
Thanks Chris, my blog is getting much better traffic thanks to some of the tips I’ve picked up here over the last few months…this post is a good reminder about a couple of things I’ve neglected…buttons etc. I’ve also found Codswallop to be a really great resource too. Cheers
Chris
To focus on the problem more - how do you find the ‘prominent blogs’ in or related to your niche? And unless they show the data, how do you know how much traffic they get?
@ReallyEvilCanine I’ve come across lots of blog as you’ve described.
Hey Chris,
I’d like to guest post and link-build more but I always feel slightly nervous about approaching other bloggers in my niche. I’m always worried that they won’t consider my content good enough. Guess I just have to battle past that!
Hey Chris,
Nice and easy tips that can easily be implemented.
Thanks Chris.
Cheers,
Carlo Selorio
Good tips Chris.
As for number 2 on your list.
I’m Jason from Success For Your Blog.
Nice to meet you all.