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 Increasing traffic to your
blog is fundamental to your blog's success on the
Internet. As you'll soon find, it isn't all that
hard to increase traffic to your blog, but it does
take time.
The first and most important rule for increasing
traffic to your blog is to post, post and then post
some more. Posting new and unique content on a
regular basis to your blog is crucial to success.
Another critical method for getting traffic to your
blog in through by establishing links to your site
on other people's webpages. This serves two
purposes for your blog. First, a link on someone
else's site can be clicked on thus bringing a
visitor to your site. Secondly, links on other sites
pointing to your site factor into the equations that
Google, Yahoo and MSN use to determine the order in
which sites are listed in searches conducted on
their site. These types of links are referred to as
"inbound" links.
When you try to develop inbound links it is
important to make sure that the links are relevant.
For example, if your blog is about cars then it
doesn't do a lot of good to have an inbound link
from a website about vacation spots. Your goal is to
get inbound links on sites similar to your blog or,
at a minimum, sites that target the same type of
people (age, gender, interest, etc.) as your blog.
To begin developing inbound links, do a search for
other blogs that are relevant to your blog. If your
blog is about cars then search "cars" in Blogger
Search or Technorati
(two of the bigger blog search engines). Browse
through the results that you get and make a list of
those that you think are well designed and
interesting. In order to get a link on those blogs
you will most likely have to give something in
return and usually the easiest thing to give is a
link to them. So from that list add a link on your
blog for each of the blogs that you liked. Then,
after doing so, email the owner of each of those
site and write something along the lines of:
"Hello, my name is John and I write for Crazy
Cars, a blog about cars. I've recently added a link
to your site on my homepage because I feel that my
readers are in a very similar demographic to that of
your site. If you get a chance check my site out and
if you like what you see please link back.
Thank you, John"
Remember that these blog owners don't owe you
anything for you linking to them, but often if you
ask nice you'll get a link back.
Another way to build inbound links to your blog is
by submitting your blog to blog and web directories.
These directories contain literally thousands of
websites and very rarely will someone come to your
site by clicking on a link in one of the
directories. However, including you blog in these
directories can in many case help your ranking in
search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). Don't
spend too much time doing this but if you have a
little free time they are worth looking into.
Finally, and maybe the biggest key to increasing
blog traffic is to write interesting and excellent
content. The most powerful way to get people to your
blog is to write content that your readers want to
read. This will not only make people want to come
back but it will also make them want to tell others
about your blog. Anyone can get someone to come to
their blog once but getting someone to come back
again and again, that is the key to increasing your
blog traffic.
So post often, build links so people can find you
and then make sure to keep it interesting. They'll
come...for now, work hard and be patient.
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