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As we all know, it doesn’t matter how bright and shiny and full of excellent advice your blog is, if no one is visiting. And while I won’t belabor the point on a few of these techniques, there are others you might not be aware can bring in steady streams of visitors.
So, here are some of the best blog traffic techniques you can use to ensure Web Success with your blog, your small business and your online efforts.
MyBlogLog and MyBlogCatalog are just two examples, but there are many blog aggregators out there where you can create a profile, add friends and broadcast messages when you post new content.
These services also provide *widgets* you can place on your blog to highlight who’s visiting from that community. And since these communities feature other bloggers in your niche, you can connect, create cross posts, find folks to do a joint venture or just connect on a personal level.
A side benefit of just browsing the related blogs in these communities is that they are notified you visited. Many will visit back to see what you are about.
Newsgroup first appeared on the web long before personal blogs, and are still going strong. Though they go by different names now, the concept is remarkably simple. A newsgroup or forum is a group of people that gather together to share ideas, discuss issues, request help and otherwise communicate.
Create a profile in one or two of the more popular forums within your niche, create a signature line and post! That’s it.
Add to the conversation, ask questions, answer questions or post relevant content related to the topic and your signature line will be sending people that click on your link to learn more about you, to your blog.
Not only are you keeping your finger on the pulse (so to speak), but by leaving comments (and backlinks) you are increasing your exposure to people already reading content like what you offer.
Every blog likes it when there is conversation on a post, so take the first step and *prime the pump* for other bloggers by leaving valuable comments. They might return the favor, but even if they don’t, you are getting additional exposure which means more eyeballs on your small business content.
I personally keep a list of my favorite blogs in my Feedly RSS account so I can visit, comment and stay abreast of what’s happening in my niche or business model.
This also sparks fresh ideas for posts on my own blog.
Just having it isn’t enough, you also have to submit it to Google and Yahoo! This ensures the search engines crawl all the pages in your small business blog and will deliver your content when it is relevant to a keyword search.
I would also suggest you add the sitemap to your Google Webmaster Account Dashboard so you can track any warnings or errors Google finds.
My personal favorite for WordPress is a plugin by Arne Brachhold called Google XML Sitemap Generator.
Many bloggers forget this since they are focused on online techniques, but offline adverts are a great way to generate blog traffic. Including your Blogs web address in all your offline literature will ensure a whole different set of *eyeballs*. Some examples are
The Wiki Definition
In blogging, ping is an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated.
Plain English
Tap the search engines on the shoulder after every post and let them know they need to come crawl your site again, there’s new content.
By updating your WordPress Dashboard with additional ping servers, you ensure a timely re-visit to your site, which keeps their indexes fresh with your content.
A little can go a long way, so I use MaxBlogPress’ Ping Optimizer. There are some major flaws in WordPress’s pinging system that can get your blog banned (which will cause you to lose traffic!). The Ping Optimizer ensures you are pinging the right people, at the right time, without pissing them off.
MySpace, Yahoo, and Google all feature an area on their sites that allow folks like you and me to join or start a group in our niches. Creating new topics with summary’s of recent blog posts and a link back to the complete article adds another steady stream of visitors to your small business blog.
Groups are a lot like forums (just slightly different web software), but offer a lot of the same benefits such as a signature line, profile exposure, introduction to a new community and an outlet to discuss topics near and dear to your heart.
It probably goes without saying, but I am verbose by nature, so I will say it anyway. Your content should be stuff you can be proud of, delivers real value to your target market and gets talked about on social sites.
Some example types of posts:
I hope by now, one thing is clear. It’s all about community. Joining. Promoting. Participation. Conversation.
I really hope this post has helped you consider some new blog traffic techniques for your small business blog. If it has, I would love to hear about it. Found something unique that brings in traffic and willing to share with others? Leave a comment and let us hear your brain-child.
