Some Simple Ways to Increase Targetted Traffic to Your Blog

trafficSo, you started a blog, but so far you haven’t really seen any traffic. It can be pretty discouraging and downright annoying after all that work. But, don’t feel that you’ve wasted your time and money because you have taken action and that’s a lot more than most. You just need a bit more effort.

Your blog will be successful if you are determined to take it seriously and not expect it to be an automated system. It takes time and it takes some tweaking along the way to get people to read it and, once you have a steady readership, more will follow.

Here are five easy things you can do to help improve the traffic on your site.

Write Good Content on a Regular Basis

Now this may seem pretty obvious! Regular, interesting informative content is what will keep your readers’ attention on their first few visits. As a result, they’ll come back again and again and they’ll tell others about your blog.

And, you must post regularly. Readers will lose interest if they check back a couple of times and find nothing new. Aim to post at least twice a week, if not more

Use SEO Keywords

SEO stands for search engine optimization. Simply put, the words that people use when they search for websites like yours on the internet are called keywords or keyword phrases and you want to come up as the top result.

I am not going to go deep into SEO here but, you can also use the free Google Keyword Tool to give you a complete list. Once you have these words, work them into your content; particularly on your homepage and blog titles.

And, make sure you have either the free All in One SEO Pack or Platinum SEO Pack WordPress plugin as that will automaticalled optimize your web site – they are both dead clever

Build a List of Your Readers

Have an option on your blog (and on your sales page if you sell from a website) that allows readers/customers to fill in their name and email address. Don’t try and capture these into your own database. Use a proper autoresponder service such as the fabulous aweber (the one I, and most others I know, have always used)

Send out emails to announce special promotions, and even to let readers know that you’ve updated your blog. But use it sensibly and sparingly.

A proper autoresponder system will add an unsubscribe link to keep you on the right side of the CAN SPAM Act and will manage and backup your database, making life easy for you.

Put an RSS Feed on Your Blog and Make it Easy to Subscribe

With an RSS feed, your loyal readers can instantly keep up with your blog posts. It’s essentially a live snapshot of your blog’s page, with continuous updates.

And, if you are using WordPress (as you should be!), you will see the familiar orange RSS button where you click to subscribe. Don’t hide it away.

Most people use Google Reader to read the feed and, if you have never tried this yourself, just click the link on this blog, follow through the clicks and see what happens. It makes a great way to get your favorite content quickly and easily.

Social Bookmarking and Media

Getting a high ranking on social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumble and Reddit, can also increase traffic to your blog tremendously, and it is free. Use a free WordPress plugin such as Sociable or Digg Digg (as used on JonOnFire.com) to make this easy for your readers to add your posts.

Then, of course, you must have an easy Tweet this Twitter link and a Facebook Share button on every post.

The more people who find you on social bookmarking sites, the more your traffic will go up; especially as they start adding links to your site on theirs. It’s a no brainer!

But, I need to remind you that blogging or internet marketing is not a quick fix system. It takes hard work and patience building up website traffic and anyone or anything that tells you otherwise, is just wrong.

Trying to speed up traffic increases by keyword stuffing your content or spamming people will only irritate those who would have been loyal readers. So, it’s best to do only the things that can legitimately increase traffic over time, and keep hold the readers you obtain.

Also, read top blogs and see how they suggest building readership as they will have started from nothing and got to their heady heights somehow.

Enjoy



Did you like what I wrote? Then make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Email This Post
|
Print This Post

Leave a Reply

CommentLuv badge