How to Get Blog Traffic

Blog a few posts first before trying to get traffic.

You set up a free blog account, write a few posts and nothing happens. No one seems to be reading, commenting, or caring about what you're writing. It takes some time to build up a blog audience, but there are a few things you can do at the start to build up blog traffic so your personal musings reach readers.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• A blog
• A blog obsession

1. Blog regularly. The more you post, the better chance you have to reach an audience.

2. Add the blog to blog search engines. Create a good, concise description for your blog, as well as relevant keywords.

3. Write comments on other people's blogs. People are always grateful for a comment. More often than not, they'll click on your link and return the favor.

4. Comment on people's comments. A blog is meant to be a community. Respond directly to people's comments, either in the comments or in a new blog post. This will engage readers so they'll come back more often.

5. Post on forums. If you write a niche blog, post answers to questions on forums; put your blog address in your signature. Don't spam forums; make sure your posts are relevant.

6. Write to other bloggers suggesting a link trade. Put up a link list of your favorite blogs and let those bloggers know about it. They might just reciprocate.

Tips & Warnings

• Put up a site meter. You can gauge where you're getting the most referrals. If you get a lot of traffic for a particular post, write another post on the same topic.

• At the same time, write about topics that you enjoy, rather than just aimed at generating traffic. Your enthusiasm will come across.

• Add some graphics via Flickr or another service. It makes a blog much easier on the eye than blocks of text.

• Blog posts can remain in a search engine's cache even after the blog has been deleted. Don't write anything that could come back to haunt you.

• Don't get too attached to that site meter: it can be very tempting to check it every ten minutes.