June 4th, 2010
Many people start blogging and just assume their blog will have readers. They don’t promote much, just with a few social networking and bookmarking sites, and maybe with a few comments in forums. They just assume that if their content is interesting, people will come to their blog. Those blogs usually don’t last very long.
First, if no one knows your blog exists, who’s going to read it? Social bookmarking and things of that nature can help, but you won’t be able to attract many readers solely through those channels unless you have thousands of “friends” on each site or you’re famous already.
There are a number of things you can do to attract readers to your blog. Do them consistently while you’re writing good, interesting content and your readership will grow.
You can wait for search engines to index your blog-this happens automatically with search bots-or you can go ahead and submit your site to search engines. It can show up quite a bit faster if you actually submit it.
You’ll want to bring your blog to the attention of people who might be interested (without making it clear that’s all you want to do) so find places these people hang out, and get the word out. Let’s say your blog is about digital photography. You probably already frequent a number of sites and forums related to that topic. If you’ve already been posting or commenting in a related forum, that’s even better.
Make a few knowledgeable blog posts about the topic or reply to some other posts and include a link to your blog. This isn’t allowed on every forum, so know the rules. With most forums, even if linked signatures aren’t allowed you can put a link in your profile which you may be able to direct readers to. Just don’t drop in and post links.
Another top way to get blog readers is by writing articles about your topic and submitting them to article directories with a link back to your site. And don’t forget one of the best free advertising techniques for blogs or any website, your email signature line. Instead of just your name and your email address at the bottom of every email, add a link to your blog and maybe a very short description.
If your signature line is 12 lines long with 9 links, most people will overlook it. But if you have just one link to your blog it’s more noticeable and many people will check it out. You can go into your email program and add the link to your regular signature so it shows up automatically every time you send email.
Be sure that each blog post is titled properly and contains relevant keywords. Never title a post, “My boring Saturday,” and go on about how you couldn’t find anything to photograph. Make sure photography, digital photography, photography hobby or other relevant keywords are in the title and throughout the post. This makes it easier for web searches to find your blog and read it.
source: BlogTrafficExchange
Excellent, relevant post! :D
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