How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog
My blogging friend Paul Chaney has asked a question about blog traffic in a post on his blog. ( You can see the post by clicking on his name. )
I’m curious myself, so I’m gonna ask the question here and will send a free ebook to the Top 5 suggestions.
Leave a comment here, do a post on your blog, use trackback, whatever. Just give me an idea I can use and you’re entered.
Here’s the question:
What’s the fastest, easiest and most effective way you know of to drive a semi-massive wave of targeted readers to this blog ?
Ready? Set….Go !
EDIT:
I just read a post on Blogging Help, by Arieanna Foley. I found it by reading Darren’s post on ProBlogger.
Arieanna describes how she goes about getting traffic.
Here’s a few tidbits for you from her post:
-Write 25-40% original content. For some blogs this will mean reading news feeds, as well as other blogs, to catch news first. You can also consider non-RSS content research to find items or to connect the dots between topics.
-Use pictures. They draw the eye. Look on Flickr or Google Images. Take what is Creative Commons, but be liberal with your link of thanks. Ask when unsure.
-Know your area bloggers and link to them. Make sure to comment too.
-Send emails to big blogs in your area. Pitch a story, write something interesting about your blog, and make that link prominent.
She’s got a good post going, drop by a leave her some ideas and let’s share the blog love.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
if you post on a similarly themed message board, you could include a link to your blog in your “signature”
also, if something you write gets a mention on AM radio, espeically a nationally syndicated show, watch out.. look at what happened with bennett/ freakonomics, after he made those comments on air.. in fact this is being discussed on a freakonomics blog posting, how traffic picked up after the comments broadcast over the air..
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog.php
try to get on an AM radio show and say anything controvertial, if the media picks it up, watch the hits rise..
if you say it, they will come
Daniel,
Thanks for the tips !
Please send me your email, so I can send you an ebook !
Send it to mike [ at ] travellinggolfer.com
Interesting topic! I’ll keep an eye on this as I’m still struggling to get more people to read my articles as well.
One thing I’ve found interesting at least temporary is writing about a subject that’s currently ‘hot’ but apply a different twist. Then, go to various sites that have posts about this topic as well and post comments (comments, mind you, not spam!).
If you do it right and your article is of good quality it might get ‘picked up’ within the blogosphere and result in quite a lot of backlinks.
I tried this with my take on RSS and content theft and it got picked up by waxy.org and later on by quite some other sites. I didn’t experience that before so it seems to be working nicely.
A second tip: If you’ve written a high quality article: submit it to as many sites as possible. Of course bookmark it on del.icio.us with all appropriate tags (important!), furl it etc. etc. Don’t forget digg.com either. It got me many incoming hits.
Note: If you post to sites like digg.com it better be a GOOD post or it won’t have any effect. People hate clicking on links that lead to shitty content
This is not the holy grail or anything but slowly but surely it works. I’m seeing a rise in backlinks to my blog lately which means the hard work pays off if you hang on in there long enough.
Marco,
Thanks for that advice. I’ll give it a try.
BTW - I love the header on your site. Looks like a road that will go where you want it to take you.
Thanks Mike! The real beauty of the best tips, I think, is their simplicity. Work that social network.
Good topic Mike!
Traffic.. sometimes you can’t live with it, and you can almost never live without it!
Here are a couple of tips I’ve picked up through my experiences:
1. Blog Hot News - Stay on track of the latest news items by scanning news sources. Check out places like Yahoo Buzz (buzz.yahoo.com) or Google News to see what people are searching for. Pick a good topic and blog about it. Write up something really interesting, perhaps, a different angle, a different perspective. If your website has a decent ranking and you have a decent amount of readers, this can be a great way for other bloggers and news sources to find your write up and spread the word out.
2. Spread Virally - There’s nothing quite like having something viral orginate and spread from your blog. This is a WHOLE topic in and of itself, but is by far one of the most successful ways to get a load of traffic.. fast. Create something that people would WANT to spread. Maybe you could create a brilliant little quiz that, when they finish taking it, gives them their results and HTML code that they can drop in their blog and share with their readers. Be sure to include a link back in the code ;).
3. Write Tutorials - A a good part of my traffic comes through tutorials I’ve written for various open source projects like Wordpress. People find them useful, they use them, and then they tell others! When you’ve written a good tutorial, submit it up on places that accept them. Write something exceptional.. it’ll spread :).
Those are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head.. Keep up the good work Mike!
-Jonathan
Jonathan,
Thanks for dropping by and for those well thought out words of wisdom.
I will break those down and apply them to my situation this weekend.
I had been thinking about a .pdf document to give away to increase visibility and readership. Now all I have to do is create it !
Should be able to create a good list with it, too.