How to get traffic to your brand new blog

Marketing, SEO

Disclaimer: This blog has had only about 500 visitors since I started it last Saturday so you may want to consider if I am really the right person to listen to…

We all blog for certain reasons: to express ourselves, to share a passion or just to make money. Whatever your reasons may be, we all blog to be heard. And for that you need an audience. In this post I’d like to show you how I got those 500 people to my blog, and what I am going to do to get even more.

First step: Make your blog Search Engine Friendly
This is one you can’t do without. Once you’ve been up and running for a couple of weeks search engines (Google) are likely to deliver at least 50 percent of your website’s traffic. With most blog-software (like Wordpress, Textpattern or Expression Engine) search engine friendliness comes standard. All you need to do is turn on those pretty URLs and you’re done.

Second step: Feed synchronization
If your blog is up and running the next step is to submit your RSS (or Atom) feed to services like Technorati and Google blogsearch. There are many other services but personally I don’t think they’re worth the effort. Eventually you may want to consider adding an XML-sitemap to your website.

Third step: Directory submission
Whatever you may have heart, directories can still be valuable. Don’t expect tons of traffic but do it mostly for the backlinks, those links eventually make you rank in Google. Every now and then you might stumble upon a directory that actually sends you visitors (a friend’s directory sent me 25 visitors today). You can submit your site to all those directories by hand but it’s a lot faster to use a submission service.

Don’t submit your site to DMOZ or the Yahoo directory (yet). Changes are very slim that they’ll list a new site. It’s better to wait a couple of months, create a lot of valuable content in the meantime, and not to upset the editor.

Fourth step: Use social media sites
There are plenty of so-called “Social Media Sites” like Digg and Stumble upon. Write a great article, submit it to these social media sites and have a couple of friends vote for your article. If you make it to one of the front pages it’ll get you tons of traffic. If not, write a better article and try it again ;-)

Fifth step: Reply to other blogs
There are probably hundreds (if not thousands) of other blogs about the same topic which you can find through services like Technorati. Let them know you exist by replying to their posts (with your link). Try to actually write meaningful replies, the chance of someone clicking your link are a lot bigger if they are triggered by your reply. Don’t care to much if a blog adds “nofollow” to a link, if your reply was good enough the author might link to you in future postings.

Sixth step: Appear as “guest author”
The best way to build a name is to write for blogs that have more readers then yours. You can either ask up front or just send them an article. Don’t worry if they don’t post it, you can always use it for your own blog.

Seventh step: Ask for links
Once your somewhat of an established author it becomes easier to just ask for links to your website. Send them an e-mail and see what happens, if they want a link back you can always add their site to your “blogroll”.

Eight step: Submit your site to DMOZ & Yahoo
Be the time you reach this step you have probably built a well read, quality content weblog. If you have then now is the time to submit your site to DMOZ and the Yahoo directory. Search the directories to find the best suited, well edited category. Don’t sweat it if it takes a while, DMOZ can take up to six months to get you listed. Be patient, you will get there eventually…

July 25, 2007 - RSS for Comments