How To Build Traffic To Your Blog

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Monday, May 14, 2007 Comments (1)

Do you have a blog? Are you struggling to build it traffic? Here are a few pointers that might be helpful:

1. Write great content. There is no substitute for well-written content that grabs attention. If you write valuable content that gets people to read and interests them on your subject then they’ll come back and read it again. And again. And again.
2. Consider SEOing your blog. It isn’t hard, but it will help you in the rankings. Of course, don’t sacrifice quality content trying to stuff keywords into it just so you can rise in the rankings. That won’t cut it. But after you’ve got your content written and you know you’ve hit the quality mark, go back and read to see where you can add a few keywords without detracting from the quality. Throw in a little anchor text for link quality as well. Remember, no amount of SEO is worth watering down your content but if you can manage high quality content and high quality SEO at the same time you will win with your human visitors and the search engines.
3. Place an opt-in box on your blog and send a daily or weekly notice that it has been updated. Regular readers will notice that I’ve recently added an opt-in at the bottom of each blog post. If you want to stay up with the Search Engine Optimization Journal, opt in to my list and you will receive a weekly update with links to every blog post in the past week. You can go back and read any that you’ve missed. This is a valuable way to keep people coming back to read your high quality content.
4. Visit forums related to your blog. Leave comments. Be sure to include a link to your blog in your signature for every post you make. Again, this is a valuable method of marketing. It can drive new traffic to your blog and build your link popularity at the same time. Do this as often as you can.
5. Leave comments on other blogs. Just like forums, you can drive more traffic to your blog and build your link popularity at the same time. Valuable, valuable, valuable. If you are commenting on blogs similar to yours or that address the same topics then you should get new readers. But don’t just say things to get traffic or make blatant advertising messages. Comment on the blog posts in a meaningful way. Add something valuable to the blog you are commenting on and people will visit your blog too.
6. Trackback. If you don’t know what trackbacking is it’s time to learn. Most blog software allows you to comment on other blogs without filling out a form on the blog site or spending time writing the comment. You simply write a blog entry into your blog and copy/paste the trackback URL into a field. When your blog entry posts your software will ping the other blog and leave a snippet of your post as a comment with a link back to your blog so that interested readers can finish what you said. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your blog and, of course, build that link popularity.
7. List your blog in some directories. This is optional but it won’t hurt you. I’m not 100% convinced that every blog directory is valuable. Screen them. MyBlogLog allows you to add code to your website so that you can track your traffic, but there are other tools for this. You do, however, want to track your traffic. The problem with most blog directories is that they require you to have a reciprocal link from your blog to the directory. I don’t see value in this. You want to promote your blog, not the directory. The directory is there to help you promote your blog, not the other way around. A business blog doesn’t need visitors to leave it so they can go find other blogs; that’s why I’m not hip on most blog directories. But if you’re OK with a link telling your visitors it’s OK to leave your blog and head over to another website then go ahead and sign up at a blog directory and add their code. I won’t encourage it or discourage it, but you should know what you are getting into before you do it. If you find a blog directory that doesn’t require a reciprocal link and it looks respectable and provides value to your blog then, by all means, list your blog there. And let me know so I can do it too.

I mentioned that you should monitor your traffic. This is not optional. It’s a necessity. If you don’t know who is visiting your blog and how many daily visits you are getting then you can’t make changes or fix problems. Monitoring your traffic is the only way to stay ahead of the game. Find a traffic monitoring tool that you like and use it. But know that how much traffic you get is not nearly as important as the quality of your traffic. You want targeted customers – people who are prospective customers for your business. Otherwise, what’s the point.

There you have it in a nutshell. Happy blogging and hope this helps.

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