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Topic: How do you increase traffic to your blog?
| Author | Message |
| Unemployed-gal | Posted – 3/2/2008 7:19:08 PM | show profile I've been blogging on and off for the past year or so, and I'm not getting my blog read (aside from family and friends). How does one increase traffic to a blog? Mine is mostly about job hunting and books, but every now and then I slip in something personal. PS--The link to my blog is here; feel free to give suggestions. http://atreegrowsinbrooklyn-kasthu.blogspot.com/ |
| write2rachel | Posted – 3/2/2008 10:20:32 PM | show profile I think one thing you can do it add it to your signature on any message boards you belong to. Of course, this won't bring in a ton of traffic, but it does help. Also, if you have original stories that you think other blogs would be interested in... pitch them. I used to do this for another website. Every day, I would look at their lead stories and pitch them to other sites... if they found the story interesting, they would pick it up and link back. Good luck! ------ www.rachelcericola.com |
| linjohn | Posted – 3/2/2008 11:14:40 PM | show profile Find other blogs you like and comment on those. You will attract readers with similar interests who probably have their own readers with similar interests. Also, link to those blogs from your site. Some may link back to you, attracting more readers, while also increasing your searchability (the more people that link to you, the higher you will come up in random searches). Finally, if there are any sites that list bloggers in your city (I know a bunch in LA but am not sure about NYC) send them your URL and ask them to add you to their link list. They might give you a shout out if a post if relevant, interesting, etc. |
| Unemployed-gal | Posted – 3/4/2008 11:25:23 AM | show profile Thanks for the responses! As I said, I'm tatally new to this, so any help is appreciated. Is there anything as far as content on my blog that I could improve on? Layout? etc? |
| Gayarthurthomas | Posted – 3/4/2008 2:51:41 PM | show profile What's ...a blog? |
| 1337 | Posted – 3/4/2008 3:18:34 PM | show profile Linking is the key Your only going to be found in searches if you have other sites linking to your page. You need to have a good amount of sites linking to yours so when search engines like google spider to your page they won't think its a Spam site. Eventually you will start getting higher page ranks as well. Your goal is to be on the first page of a search. To get links you can offer to trade links (as in, i'll link to you if you link to me). But if you link to a lot of sites especially bad sites then google will see you as spam again and give you poor ranking. I would suggest using social networking sites like digg, readit, facebook, myspace.... Put links to your site on them and start groups about your topic or joins groups about you topic. Find forums about your topic and reply, offer your expertise and a link to your site. But if you really want to become a blog super star, then your going to have to do more research on search engine optimization. linking, and page rank. ------ and so it was written... the geek shall inherit the earth |
| 1337 | Posted – 3/4/2008 3:24:57 PM | show profile Linking is the key P.S Your reads will also want consistency, your probably loosing readers by not having a steady stream on blogs on your site. If your reader comes back 2 or 3 times to old news, you can say bye bye to those readers. They will think your site is inactive or not professional and look for more reliable sources. |
| Seafarer | Posted – 3/4/2008 3:58:25 PM | show profile | email poster There is no magic to this, just hard work. 1) Write good content (develop an editorial calendar with a focus, don't just wander around various subjects) and post consistently and fairly often, at least twice a week. Sorry, there's no magic bullet and this is the one reason that most people fail as bloggers. If you can't post for some reason, don't just "go dark;" put up a post that says you'll be back, and when. Then come back when you said you would. 2) Link OUT. A link is currency and has value. People like to get them and most will (eventually) go check out the site/blog of someone who has linked to them. That's how you get people's attention - link to them! Emailing and asking for link swaps works sometimes but it's much better if it happens organically. 3) Link IN. Backlink to related posts on your own blog; this encourages people to dig into your stuff if they like what they see. 4) Participate in subject-related forums, bulletin boards and blogs. Comment when appropriate. When you type in your name and URL to leave a comment, your name is now a highlighted link back to your blog. If you say interesting things in comments, many will assume that you are equally interesting on your blog, and will click through to see. 5) Make sure you have a full RSS feed. 6) Stick with it for at least six months to a year. ------ My Web site Family Travel blog NHRA drag racing on Fast Machines |
| Letterbox | Posted – 3/4/2008 4:47:54 PM | show profile You probably want to get a domain name. They're pretty cheap and it's far easier to just type and remember www.johndoe.com than a long URL. It also lowers the chance of your URL being misspelled by other bloggers. You might also want to dress up your blog a bit and add some photos or illustrations. There are literally ten million blogs that look like yours and the majority of those ten million only get read by family and friends. Content is the main reason. You need to appeal to a broad audience. Web design is another reason. Flash it up a bit. Fabricate some kind of masthead. And do daily updates. I seldom frequent blogs that only update once or twice a week. |
| bendigedig | Posted – 3/4/2008 8:17:02 PM | show profile Offer something unique If you want readers to return to your blog you have to offer something a little different to what's already out there, both in design and editorial, so do your research and don't duplicate what's already online. You do have to patient though. I've been writing 4-5 entries a week for my green travel blog (www.jamblemag.co.uk) for about five months, and its only in the last six weeks that it has started to get some media attention, gain a good amount of readers and earn some money from ads. Another reason for offering unique editorial is that it will be easier for your blog to get picked up RSS syndication services such as Blogburst - since I signed my site up my blog posts have appeared on sites such as Reuters and Chicago Sun Times, which is obviously a great way to gain exposure and more readers. Regarding the original posters blog, however, my first auggestion would be to add images and seek out a different blog template. |
