Andyrew

9 Ways to get traffic to a new blog

Since i have recently started this blog, I thought I’d make an educational post about how to get traffic to your new blog. Blogging can be fun, and very rewarding.. but if no-one is going to read the content you provide, it all seems pointless after all of that hard work?

Link people/Link exchange
Probably the most obvious way, is to create link exchanges. Chances are, there’s a good handful of blogs that relate to yours in one way or another. It doesn’t take long to request a link exchange, add their link to your site before hand which makes the whole thing more legitimate. Of course, mentioning a particular site in your blog post could earn you back a link from that site.. they’ll feel obliged.

Link yourself, elsewhere
If you’ve requested a link exchange and heard no response.. there is no harm in leaving a comment to one of their blog posts. After all, it will help you for things such as page rank and SEO. Even if you don’t get any immediate traffic back, it will help in the long run

Forum Signatures
Many people absolutely underestimate the effects that this can have. Imagine having a small link in your signature on a forum? Thousands of people could potentially see this per day, which gets gets stored in the archives too. It’s free traffic for nothing! Link to your blog with relevant words.. it’s all SEO.. and I’m sure that you can find PR7 and maybe PR8 forums to post on?

RSS Feeds
The main reason new blogs don’t do very well, is non-returning users? No-one listens to the ‘Click here to bookmark’ links anymore.. indeed, nowadays RSS feeds are all the rage. A user will be reminded every couple of days about your site. Many users on the Internet will just have a handful of sites they browse every time they log on. It’s very hard to incorporate your website into their routine. With RSS, it makes it so much easier.

Digg your own posts
There’s nothing wrong digging your own blog posts to add it to the system. I don’t think you should wait for other people to Digg your site, if they don’t know about it? Adding it yourself will add you to the queuing system for people to view your post. I think whilst getting onto the front page is highly over rated, it’s not a problem if you do get there. Don’t assume that because 20,000 have read your blog, that you will get an extra 100 people subscribed. In-fact, sites like Digg and Reddit don’t really have a higher conversion that any other traffic

Run a contest
Everyone loves to win something. Usually, even if it’s just a $50.. people will take interest. One method could be having a review contest - people writing a review on their blogs, about your blog. Then, choose a random winner over a set amount of time. It’s almost a guarantee that you will have gotten your $50 of traffic.

Submit articles
Find an article on an article site, and then grab 6 or 7 words from it, put it in quotes and Google it. If the author has properly submitted these articles, and the content is good enough.. a couple of thousand link-backs isn’t too hard, in-fact - it’s not hard at all. With your website link thrown in there.. you can’t go wrong.

Update regularly
Obviously a reason 99% of the blogs fail is because of the lack of updates. It goes the same for pretty much every website. Updates = traffic. If you’ve managed to get some regular visitors.. people will quickly get sick of coming to your website if it’s not updated, and delete it from their daily routine.

Be unique
People who stand out, are the people who are different. It does not hurt to have different views. Once in while, make a fuss about how you disagree with something.. people don’t want to read blogs with the same content, and making a fuss over something could get you allot of exposure.