5 Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic

by Mike Paetzold – Copyright 2010 all rights reserved

Why Increase Your Blog Traffic?

One of the big problems for new bloggers is to get people to visit their new blog. Unlike the movie “Field Of Dreams” if you build it they will not come unless you let them know it exists. So if you have started your blog and you feel that you are talking to yourself here are 5 ways to increase your traffic.

Blog Comments

Commenting on related blogs is probably one of the best ways to get targeted traffic. When you comment and take part in the conversation you are getting known in your niche. If you are actually participating and adding value the visitors there will be more likely to follow your link to see what else you have to say.

Articles

Writing articles and submitting them to the various article directories is another great way to get traffic to your blog. If you are providing good content and use a signature to get more information on that topic visit my blog. Others can use your content this way and when they do they will need to keep your signature so you can get additional traffic from any number of sources.

Forums

Taking part in various forums that are related to your topic and adding in a link to your blog in your signature (where allowed) can be another way to get traffic to your blog. The more quality information you add to the forum the more likely people will click through to read your blog.

Social Bookmarking

Taking the time to bookmark your posts to some of the bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, et al. Now here it is important that you are regularly using these sites to bookmark quality content and not just your own. That way you will generate a following that will trust your recommendations and increase the chances of people clicking through to your post.

Twitter

Letting your Twitter followers know when you have added new content is another great way to get extra visitors. Telling your Twitter followers about content other than yours within your niche will increase the chances that they will click through to read your posts.

In summary all of these ways will help you add visitors to your blog easily. Your blog and all of these ways are based on being part of a community and the more ways that you take part in the community the better resource you become. As you build your credibility within the community your traffic will increase.

Mike Paetzold is a long time blogger and you can find more ways to generate traffic to your blog regularly at 15 Minute Blog Traffic.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy. After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

 

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Technorati Tags: article marketing, blog comments, blog traffic, bookmarking, increase your blog traffic, traffic, twitter

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Blog Commenting – A Great Traffic Strategy

by Mike Paetzold – Copyright 2009 – All rights reserved

Blog commenting is a great way to generate traffic and back links to your blog. Though most people know this they tend not to do this because it seems like it may be a bit of that 4 letter word – WORK.

Because of that you see lots of services that will sell you commenting or PLR packages that come with pre-written blog comments. Not some of my favorite things.

Blog commenting does not have to be hard but you do need to provide value to others to generate value for your blog.

There are two ways that blog commenting helps your blog.

The first is the back link from leaving your comment.

The second is from people clicking through on your signature because of the comment you left.

Now there are plugins like do follow and comment luv that can make your comments more powerful. If you find blogs that do follow and use comment luv keep a list of them or add them to your feed reader as they will be more valuable links.

You still can and should add comments to other blogs even if they do not use those plugins. The reason is if you are participating and adding value to other blogs on your topic you will get traffic from your commenting efforts whether they do or do not.

The key is to be adding value and being on topic.

As an example commenting on a blog about horse training and linking to my WordPress blog will probably not get a lot of that blogs readers to be interested and follow to my blog. These are not the targeted readers I am looking to attract. If I had left a comment on another blog that was about blogging it would have much more power and the people clicking through would be my targeted audience.

It is easy to find blogs on your topic. Here is an easy 4 step way to find them.

1. Write a blog post on a specific topic
2. Go to Google news,
3. Search your topic
4. Click on the blog link on the left hand side.

You will see the most recent blog posts on that topic. (It is better to comment on newer posts and you are more likely to be approved.) Go read the post and add your comment.

Do this on a regular basis and you will increase the targeted traffic to your blog.

Mike Paetzold is a long time blogger and WordPress expert who has created 15 Minute Blog Traffic to help you generate more traffic to your blog easily.

You may use this article as long as it is unchanged (including the resource box) and all links are maintained.

 

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Technorati Tags: blog comment, blog commenting, blog traffic, targeted traffic, traffic

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This is the last post in the blog traffic series this time through .

Quite often I see people not use the most powerful part of their blog – the feed.

Here are just a few places and sites that you may be using where you can add in your feed and give people a chance to find your blog from things you are already doing. (This is not an all inclusive list by any means.)

• Facebook Profile
• Friend feed
• Squidoo pages
• Hub Pages
• Wet Paint pages

In almost all of these you just need to add the url to your feed and they will start updating your listing on all of those pages each time you update your blog.

If you have not set up feed burner or done anything special with plugins the default feed url for your self hosted WordPress blog will be http://yourdomain.com/folder/feed.

Now if that is not your feed look for the feed link, right click and check properties and you can see exactly what your feed url is.

Adding your feed into all these places will give more people the chance to find your blog while just doing what you normally do anyhow.

Even better especially for the various sites like Squidoo, et al your lens is getting new content added each time you post to your blog. Gotta love things that allow you to automate updating and we all know how much Google loves fresh content when the spiders visit.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, Facebook, FriendFeed, hub pages, rss, rss feed, squidoo, traffic

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If you are blogging Twitter is a must. It incorporates quite well with any blog traffic strategy. Twitter is basically micro blogging. You can post as often as you want but have to keep your post to just 140 characters.

It makes you get your thoughts into a very compact format. This makes it perfect as a lead in to your blog and like all social media others blogs.

Now lets look at how you can get traffic for your blog from Twitter. As there are books written on all of the ways that you can use Twitter for promoting you we will stick primarily to promoting your blog.

First like all social media you need to be participating in the community not just promoting your blog. Otherwise you are nothing but a spammer and people will not continue to follow you and no one will see your message. Nuff said.

There are some tools that can help automate the posting for you. Tweet My Blog will automatically post to Twitter and also allow you to show your latest “tweets” on you blog in the sidebar. You can also use Twitter Feed which will automatically post when it monitors a change in your RSS feed. There are probably others but those are two that I have used.

You should also remember like bookmarking it does not hurt you to “tweet” about posts that you have commented on. All of these can bring you increased traffic and enlarge your circle of influence.

Like all social media it is a matter of being a good resource and not just promoting your items solely.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, traffic, tweet my blog, twitter, twitter feed

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MyBlogLog is a social site for bloggers. Started originally as a straight social site they have continued to add more items to it. You can join it free.

Now how do you get traffic from MyBlogLog?

MyBlogLog allows you to add a widget to your blog that will let you see who is visiting your blog that belongs to MyBlogLog. More importantly you will show up on other blogs showing the widget that you visit. These link to your MyBlogLog page and allow people to find out more about you and the blog/s you have.

You can add others as contacts through MyBlogLog just as you can add friends at Facebook or MySpace. It is another way to connect with others.

The real power though is that you can add your other social sites to MyBlogLog. Sites like Facebook, Stumble Upon, Digg, Furl, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

The nice things is that each of these creates links that Google finds that go back to your various blog/s from these social sites.

Here is an example by just looking quickly at my profile this am. The following links were created and do get indexed because they show up in my Google Alerts all the time.

• 4 Stumbles I made yesterday
• A comment I made on someone else’s blog
• A new video I added at YouTube
• 5 Twitter conversations
• Feed of my latest blog posts
• Latest updates at Facebook

So just by using MyBlogLog all of the other things I do to create backlinks gets amplified automatically. That is the real power of MyBlogLog.

I can also look and see the latest things that all of my contacts have done too. (So add me as a contact so we can interact.)

You get to network with others and create extra links on autopilot. Definitely worth the time to set it up once to help you generate more traffic.

There is one more thing about MyBlogLog though. If you upgrade they provide you with some excellent tracking of what is happening on your blogs. You will be able to see how people found your blog, which pages they viewed and what links they clicked.

Free members get to see the top 10 but paying the $25 a year lets you see all of the stats available to you. Truly invaluable information to help you improve your blog’s performance.

There are other similar type sites like Blog Catalog but noen that are as powerful as MyBlogLog.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, commenting, linking, mybloglog, traffic

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This is the continuation of the series on blog traffic. I was using the 5 comment rule here and stopped it because of a lack of comments but comments have picked up considerably so I have decided to continue the series.

First a bit about what social bookmarking is. There are hundreds of sites out there that allow you to bookmark your posts. Digg, Stumble, Propellor are a few of the bigger ones.

Here is a definition from Wikipedia

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata.

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.[1]

So just like the bookmarks you keep on your browser to be able to return to at your leisure social bookmarks are similar except that others can see your bookmarks and rate them accordingly.

Here is the key though. You need to bookmark regularly and not just your sites. If you find a quality post let others know about it.

If you are sharing lots of posts and your quality is good on what you save others are more likely to pay attention to what you are saving. If all you save are your sites you will soon get branded as a spammer and in some cases may lose your account with that service.

So like most things in the Web 2.0 world the key is to be participating in the community. Trying to game the system may work short term but usually comes back to bite you.

That being said here are a few things you can do that will be helpful both to you and to the community. If you are commenting on other blogs and participating in the conversation make sure that you are bookmarking them.

This helps both the blog owner and you. More traffic for them is likely to see more people follow through to your blog. This is especially true if you are adding to the conversation and not trying to spam them.

So start bookmarking regularly and watch the traffic increase.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, social bookmarking, traffic

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One of the things I love is tracking where my visitors come from so I know what is driving my traffic. It helps me to understand what is working and what is not.

Now I use both Google Analytics and for blogs My BlogLog. Was there today as usual (yes I am always checking stats a bad habit – NOT unless you use that as an excuse not to do what needs to be done) and noticed something.

The other day AWeber announced their new feature that allows you to tweet your email broadcasts automatically. Relatively simple even for an Old Bald Guy like me.

So………

I wrote about it as soon as I saw it and tracked back to their blog from another blog of mine as it fit what I had been writing about at Three Turtle Marketing.

Because I was doing this very shortly after they announced this on their blog it ended up as the 5th comment on their blog. So now I am getting visitors stopping over from that.

Getting out there and interacting on topics that will get a bit of play early can make a nice difference in your traffic. Are you doing it? If so how regularly?

Just a few thoughts to help you improve your traffic.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

If you have not left a question please leave one for the Blog Talk Radio Show tomorrow at 3pm on the post below this.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, trackbacks, traffic

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Just finished reading a great post from Alex Syseof who I met last June in Philadelphia, Alex has guest posted here a while back and has a blog I follow regularly.

The post was titled ” Allow Google Tell You What Search Results To Dominate“.

I strongly recommend you check it out. This blog uses comment luv and do follow. His post will show you how to let Google tell you what to write about next and then you will be able to use that info for more traffic.

My traffic tip series is stalled due to lack of 5 comments (hint, hint) but this is an article worth your time to read and implement.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: alex syseof, comment luv, google analytics, traffic

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Before I start on this topic a special thank you to Joel Osborne who added the 5th comment on the last traffic post. Thought the series was going to die for lack of response.

You can also see that I have added comment luv to this blog which shows your latest blog post when you leave a comment. Go check out Joel’s to thank him for continuing the series.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Video has become huge and is increasing in usage daily. Look at the traffic stats for places like YouTube. See how many video sales letters and squeeze pages you run across now.

The reason is the spread of high speed connections. Back when most people accessed the internet by way of a phone modem it was not possible. Now it is and people love video they are trained to like it by watching television.

Now how can this help your blog get traffic?

When you add a video at places like YouTube add your full link into the start of the description. ie – http://wptutorial.com/blog It is important to add the http:// or it won’t be clickable.

You can also add it as part of your video when submitting them. Now I use my videos that would promote this blog for my products because I have created products about WordPress but could use the same techniques to drive people here instead of to my products.

Videos also can be very useful when added to your blog. Each time WordPress issues an upgrade I tend to bring back my video that shows people how to upgrade here and as it promotes my product it works both ways.

Remember this post needs 5 comments before the next part of the traffic series will be posted and now I will even promote your latest blog post with comment luv.

Mike Paetzold

Technorati Tags: blog traffic, traffic, video, youtube

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Many of the questions I get on a regular basis here and on the monthly Q and A have to do with generating traffic.

Every one is looking for a magic button. Guess what the magic button is a 4 letter word you really don’t want to hear but I will tell you anyhow – WORK.

When is the last time you did any of these for your blog?

1. Wrote an article and submitted it to various directories linking to your blog
2. Commented on a related blog with a thoughtful comment and a link back to your blog
3. Posted a video with your link to You Tube, Revver, et al
4. Added a podcast and submitted it
5. Bookmarked your content and others at Stumble Upon, Digg, et al
6. Commented on others pages at MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, et al
7. Posted on Twitter about your latest post
8. Use Facebook and added your RSS feed
9. Added your RSS feed to a Squidoo lens, Hub page, Wet Paint, et al

If all you are doing is posting to your blog once a week and wondering why no one stops by guess what?

Spend a few minutes each day doing just one thing on the list above and you will see an increase in your traffic. Do 2 or 3 and see a bigger increase in your traffic.

Stop looking for the BIG RED EASY BUTTON and do something and do it regularly.

In future articles I will be going into detail on some of these items and how if you are willing to put in just a little bit of effort in a few minutes each day you will have found the button but…

Creating the button requires – EFFORT.

As always your questions and comments are welcomed.

Mike Paetzold

P.S. For these traffic posts I am implementing a 5 comment rule. I will not address any of these topics unless I have received 5 comments on this post. So if you want me to continue to add valuable tips and tricks leave your comment below.

Technorati Tags: backlinks, generate traffic, traffic

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