Blogging can be a great deal of fun for some, but for most bloggers, a blog is a potential source of income. Whether this income is earned through AdSense, paid advertisements, banner ads for CPA offers, ffiliate marketing or some other form of revenue generation, one of the key elements to maximizing profit is by maintaining traffic to the blog.
Obviously, the more visitors a blog gets, the more opportunities there are for visitors click through the banners or other advertisements on the blog. There are a few basic techniques which bloggers can rely on to promote their blog and increase web site traffic.
Active Participation in Relevant Forums
A simple way to increase traffic to your blog (and get incoming links from your signature) is to participate in forums related to the topic of your blog. Over time, you’re likely to make some online friends, many of whom will visit your blog, and/or add to it via comments and guest articles.
Be sure, of course, to abide by the rules of any forum you join, avoid blatant self-promotion, and be sure that any comments you post are relevant to the topic of discussion, and provide value to other participants. A few good contributions will earn you tons more respect than a bunch of junk posts obviously submitted only for the opportunity to display your link in your signature.
Comment On Other Blogs
Commenting on relevant blogs has essentially the same benefits as posting in forums. Many blog owners leave comments open on their blog posts to invite discussion, as well as to add additional content to their blog when comments are submitted.
Follow the same rules that you would in a forum. Be sure to avoid “comment spamming” such as “hey I like your blog”, or “nice post” … the whole point of allowing comments is that the blog owner wants relevant, thoughtful additions to the content they produced themselves, and/or an ongoing, informative discussion.
Article Marketing
A great way to get incoming links to your blog, as well as more traffic, is to post some articles in one of the major article directories, such as EzineArticles. You can write an original article, or simply reprint one of your blog posts with a few minor revisions to make it unique.
Social Marketing
If you’re on Twitter, grab the “Tweet This” and “TweetMeMe” plugins for your WordPress blog, and make it a point to set things up so that you announce each new post to your Twitter followers. You’ll be surprised at the amount of traffic you can get this way. You can also post links to your blog on your Facebook page, and set up a “Lens” linking back to your blog at Squiddoo. Also be sure to install the “Socialize” plugin on your blog, so that your visitors can bookmark your posts. Finally, “claim” your blog at Technorati.
Optimize Your Blog for the Search Engines
The great thing about search engine listings is that you don’t have to do anything to maintain them, other than to follow a few simple rules when setting up your blog. Take some time to do a little keyword research, and make sure to use high search volume key words in your post titles and content. It’s a good idea to think in advance when you write an article for SEO purposes, and center it around just one or two keyword phrases.
If you’re blogging on WordPress, make sure to include a “Tag Cloud” on your blog. A tag cloud is nothing more than a collection of the key words and phrases that appear frequently in your blog posts, but can give you a big boost with the search engines.
Also, use the Title, Description, and Keyword features that are built into WordPress. Some search engines use these when evaluating your blog, while others don’t, but it can’t hurt to have them filled in.
Finally, make sure you are “pinging” at least PingOMatic when you write new posts, and that your RSS feed is included at least in Google and Yahoo. The easiest way to do that is to go to your accounts and include your own RSS feed in your favorites.
Keep Your Blog Interesting
Finally, one of the simplest ways a blog owner can maintain traffic is by regularly updating the blog and keeping it interesting. Post regularly (at least once a week, up to several times per day) so there is always fresh content for both human visitors and search engine spiders. Add some automated content from Yahoo answers, or relevant YouTube videos, and/or post a photo archive, if your blog’s content warrants it (some don’t)
While hardly a comprehensive list, paying attention to the points above gives you some good, basic, blog promotion, and over time should lead to increased web site traffic to your blog.
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