If you are stuck and don’t know what to do next to increase your blog traffic, this list of hand-picked resources is going to come at the perfect time for you! If you are on track and growing your blog traffic, there’s still going to be some things below you haven’t read or done.
I’ve left out some tips. There are many more. Please feel free to share your favorites with fellow FTR readers below!
1. Commenting: The importance of commenting and engaging on other blogs in your niche cannot be overstated.
Tactics and Resources:
2. MyBlogLog: Join MyBlogLog and then join communities.
Tactics and Resources:
3. Blog Catalog: Join Blog Catalog and participate in threads.
Tactics and Resources:
4. SEO for Bloggers: This is for search engine optimization. Your main keyword should be early in your title and then repeated somewhere within your first paragraph. First sentence preferred. Shorter titles generally are better than long ones.
Tactics and Resources:
5. Feedburner: Convert your feed to Feedburner and make sure to use their badges to build your RSS subscriber base. Feedburner will give you good stats if you upgrade to Pro and will expose some good info on where to put your feed next.
Tactics and Resources:
6. RSS Feed Syndication: Put your RSS feed on all the social profiles you own that allow it. Examples: Facebook, Mashable, TwitterFeed.com, and many others will allow your feed so when you post, you update on multiple sites, not just yours.
Tactics and Resources:
7. Video: Create and syndicate video. Make sure to use good descriptions and titles with your main keywords on all video submissions. Use a syndication service like Traffic Geyser or TubeMogul.
Tactics and Resources:
8. Podcasting: This opens up entirely new channels for you. You get a new RSS feed to promote and you get to insert yourself into Podcast-only directories to find new, targeted listeners who will end up on your blog and subscribed to your main feed.
Tactics and Resources:
9. Trackbacks: Essential in building backlinks and participating in conversations around you. Use TrackBoost to do this properly or you will become lazy and stop doing this important tactic regularly.
Tactics and Resources:
10. Social News: Make sure remind your fans to submit you to the important social news sites like Digg, Propeller, Yahoo Buzz and specialty news sites targeted to your niche (e.g. Sphinn) Use ShareThis and buttons on your posts provided by each of the big social news sites.
Tactics and Resources:
11. Communities: Find communities at Ning.com centered around your niche and make friends, fill outyour profiles carefully and completely, and interact on those sites regularly to pull people to you.
Tactics and Resources:
12. Prize Contests: Massive traffic and subscriber potential here.
Tactics and Resources:
- Blog Boost: Perfect example of a value-packed contest.
- ProBlogger’s excellent guide for running blog contests.
13. Writing contest: Different than above.
Tactics and Resources:
- How to run a writing project contest (example)
14. Linkbait: Learn what it is and how to write it.
Tactics and Resources:
- How to Linkbait (example)
- Andy Hagan’s (STILL) Ultimate Guide to Linkbait
- Problogger Linkbaiting Series
- Search Engine Journal on Linkbaiting
15. Twitter - Microblogging: Twitter rocks. Find out why and then start using it.
Tactics and Resources:
16. Remote Blogging: Remote blogs on communities and blogging services help.
Tactics and Resources:
17. Ning: Set up your own community attached to your site and encourage your people to join. They will invite hundreds, even thousands of others immediately giving you a huge boost, if you promote it properly.
Tactics and Resources:
- Ning.com
- Social Marketing Central (example)
18. Networking: Ask questions directly to other bigger bloggers in your niche and try developing relationships with them to get powerful links and mentions on their sites.
Tactics and Resources:
- Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It) | Hint: Writing great content isn’t the final answer!
19. Guest posts: Through your networking you should be able to offer some bigger bloggers a guest post proposition. Guest posting piggy backs on their success and readership and can drive huge amounts of regular traffic.
Tactics and Resources:
20. Bookmarking: Yeah it still has purpose. Here are the latest tips on social bookmarking.
Tactics and Resources:
- Authority Black Book (to find out what’s worth doing and what’s a waste of time)
21. Consistency: Blog WELL every day. I don’t care how hard it is. The most successful blogs ALL post every day and post really good content on most days. This is blogging. Get used to it.
Tactics and Resources:
- Use Utility Poster and Video Utility Poster to make the job easier.
- Tips for Blog Traffic - How to Increase Traffic Levels
Bonus:
22. Join Social Power Linking: This is where you keep up to date on the latest social / blog marketing tactics. It’s clean, powerful, to-the-point information on a level that other courses and communities cannot touch.
Inspiration: 21 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic, SEOMoz.com
Got a good tip? Add to this list by following the advice in #1 above and commenting below!
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{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Arun Pal Singh 08.25.08 at 12:04 am
Very well written Jack. I like your point about consistency. If you do not write, its not blog any more.
I am sending you a track back.
Scott Bradley 08.25.08 at 4:08 am
Jack,
This is an awesome list! I just bookmarked it to reference it later! Thanks for such a valuable post that I will be able to reference forever!
Scott Bradleys last blog post..My Top 15 Networking Principles
Writer Dad 08.25.08 at 7:33 am
My favorite: This is blogging, get used to it.
Nuff said.
Writer Dads last blog post..Red Furry Monster Vs. High School Musical
rheyanna 08.25.08 at 9:28 am
Great Post packed with great info.
Thanks Jack
Rheyanna
rheyannas last blog post..The Spider web marketing system brings you cash- With no opt in fee!
Tequila Al 08.25.08 at 10:15 am
Best article i’ve read. I’ve been blogging for about 1 month and i’m loving it, i just wish i could get it out there in front of more eye balls. Thanks for the post.
Tequila Al
Susan 08.25.08 at 10:58 am
What a list! All of them are quite useful and some of the sites I haven’t seen before.
Susans last blog post..The Simpsons Theme
Kaye Dennan 08.25.08 at 1:51 pm
Jack, such great help. Where else can you get such a list? Thanks!
I have been doing this internet stuff for about 8 months and still find some of the work a bit difficult to understand. As for blogging itself, once you get the hang of it the fun really starts.
I neve thought I would really take to this writing blogs, articles etc. but just love doing it.
Gary McElwain 08.25.08 at 4:15 pm
Thanks for such a versatile post. You are the man.
I can read it, Write to it, Hell even watch it.
But the best part is it’s all usable info.
Thanks for keeping me aware !
Gary McElwain
Gary McElwains last blog post..Follow Mentoring For Free System for Gold Medal Performance
Nick Stamoulis 08.25.08 at 6:09 pm
This is some great stuff - love that it’s all in one place! Bookmarked!
Lening 08.26.08 at 1:57 am
Thanks for sharing this Jack. I have read the articles for the first three tips and it seems it will take some time to fully implement all these in my blog traffic strategy. However, some of these tips are really useful, thanks!
Chris Hartzog 08.26.08 at 1:59 pm
Hi Jack,
There are so many useful looking suggestions here, I am sure I am going to have to return to this article a number of time as I reasssess my own methods. I stared my site in March 2008 and so far I have had slowly growing traffic, but only minimal commenting. I think I need to spend a lot more time on commenting, trackbacks, community building and networks.
Chris
http://www.chris-hartzog.com
Chris Hartzogs last blog post..Can You Find Me On iTunes?
Davin-Viral Marketing Maniac 08.26.08 at 9:31 pm
Hey Jack, awesome list with some great reminders. Sometimes I forget about a few things from time to time, so it’s great to have a quick list to refer to. I’ll keep this bookmarked. And yes, Social Power Linking rocks!
Cheers and take care Jack,
Davin
Davin-Viral Marketing Maniacs last blog post..Are Internet Gurus A**holes?
Marjorie 08.28.08 at 7:15 pm
Wow - so many great tips! I’ve bookmarked this. Now I just have to find the time to try some of this. Thanks!
Jon 08.29.08 at 1:35 am
Thanks Jack, great to have all those resources listed in one post
For me, Technorati does well, despite a lot of criticism in the blogosphere recently. I’ve joined about 10 Blog/RSS directories but technorati sends most traffic and gives the most authorative backlinks (at the moment)
Cheers, Jon
Jons last blog post..Your Salon Website - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) basics
DR's Money Management 09.01.08 at 9:53 am
This is a great list, particularly the resources you’ve included under each tip. Very helpful. Thanks.
DR’s Money Managements last blog post..50 Ways to Make Money Blogging
Solo 09.12.08 at 4:26 am
Holly Molly! Hope you don’t mind if I come back to this post a thousand times. Great info and definately I am going to use every single one. As a new blogger, I hope after few month I will be in a better position with useful info like this.
Thank you.
B 12.01.08 at 1:38 am
Xcellent tips. Most articles only stop at a few points. But this one clarifies a lot of qs in depth. Thank u for this post