There are a million articles on how to increase your blog traffic. Here are 21 steps I have found that work to increase blog traffic that you should employ from the start in order to build your chances of having a wildly successful blog.
1. Valuable, searchable, relevant content is the #1 item you need in order to have a successful blog.
2. Create about 6 months worth of content prior to launching your site. What does this mean? If you think you would normally have the time in your day when you get going on your site, that you would post 3 items per day, then content for 6 months would be 540 posts. Creating a large amount of content in advance of posting it on the site, will save you money because you don’t want to pay for hosted site fees for a website that doesn’t have any traffic because there isn’t much searchable content.
3. Make sure you routinely and consistently add new and relevant content. This will drive increased traffic which helps you bring better numbers to potential advertisers. Write extra content whenever you can and save it for a day when you don’t have any time to create new content then you can have it set up to publish automatically at a later set date and time. No excuse for not having new content each day or week. Whatever timeline you determine is appropriate for your blog.
4. Spread out your new content. If you write like crazy for three hours act night and then immediately post it all, those regularly visiting your site will become familiar with your posting patterns and have no reason to visit multiple times per day. An excellent example of staggered posting is Perez Hilton. He posts numerous items throughout the day, keeping you interested and coming back for more, sometimes many times per day.
5. Post each blog link to sites like Digg, Reddit and Facebook. The more links you create, the more visitors you will be rewarded with.
6. Comment appropriately on other similar blog posts that are discussing the same topic. If you leave an interesting, thought-provoking comment with a link to your post, you will generate consistent traffic to your blog. This is especially true if the topic is popular.
7. Have an RSS feed on your site. This allows subscribers to receive updates on a regular basis (how often the updates are provided, is up to you). I also suggest you subscribe to your own blog through the RSS feed in order to have a record of the writing in the event that something happens to your site and the content is lost forever. It’s a way to back up the information instead of relying on a third party’s business capabilities.
8. Make sure your site has a privacy policy and disclosure policy. If you don’t have this, search engines won’t properly index your site. This will have a negative effect on your SEO efforts. You can find mine here.
9. Use quality pictures. People are visual. They love to look at bright colors. Items that illustrate the valuable content of your blog.
10. Attribute all photos that you didn’t personally take. Underneath the photo, state clearly who owns the photo. Consider including link to the owner’s page.
11. Create links to quality sites. Random links unrelated to your blog’s content will do nothing to help your blog’s performance in search engine results and may even reduce your search result performance.
12. Some argue about the effectiveness of guest posts. If you have the opportunity to post on a site that you think aligns with the goals of your blog, then you should take that opportunity. Many bloggers feel that guest blogs are a waste of time. If they work for your blog, by all means, take advantage of them.
13. People love reviews. Write them. Be honest. If you receive items that you review for free or are paid for your review, be sure you let people know within the post or that you have an appropriate disclosure notice prominently listed on your site.
14. Affiliate programs are a way to make money from advertisements, commissions, linked traffic, etc. Don’t over populate your blog with ads. This will turn off visitors. Consider using only color-rich ads, those with photos. People love photos and are more likely to click on them.
15. Experiment with ad placement and affiliate revenue streams so you can test what works for your blog. What makes one blog successful may not work for your blog.
16. Reach out in a reasonable manner to ask for relevant coupons, samples or items you can use for giveaways on your blog. This will increase your readership and provide low-cost advertising on behalf of the provider.
17. Do keyword research and use it to your advantage.
18. Monitor your site visit data and identify trends. Determine where you are receiving your visits from and use that information to continue to build upon and drive further success. Monitor site visit information when you attempt to deploy SEO tactics to see what is working over time.
19. Continually research best practices for successful blogs. Zero in on blogs you aspire to be like, and figure out what you can do to emulate that success.
20. Don’t give up. The majority of bloggers quit before one year. Blogging is very time intensive, but in the long-term it may pay off. If you want to make it to the “may pay off” point, you probably need to blog for at least 1-2 years before you can even get to the point where you can appropriately assess whether your blog will be successful.
21. Have fun. If you don’t have fun creating your blog, that will show. People want to read items someone is creating passionately.
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