How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
A lot has been said about Ways of Driving Traffic to Your Blog. When I started blogging, I read tips online and tried what worked for me. Two blogs that I have started were able to reach the top 100k Alexa ranking. So, I must be doing something right. From experience, here are the things that I have done to increase my blog’s traffic.
1. Content is King. Post useful and interesting content on a regular basis. Visitors would keep coming back to your blog if they can learn from it. (Reminder: Don’t ever plagiarize and if you have borrowed those idea from other bloggers, acknowledge them.)
2. Submit your blog to social blog networks. I would highly recommend Blogcatalog and MyBloglog. When I started blogging, these are the first two social networks that I have joined. I met a lot of wonderful bloggers who had been very helpful in giving me tips and tricks about blogging.
3. Join Technorati. You should claim your blog in Technorati. With Technorati, you would be able to see who are linking back to you. Plus you would be able to see most talked about topic in the blogosphere. Ask your friends to add you to their favorites.
How about you add me to your favorites?
4. Join Entrecard. Entrecard is a free blogging network. If you are a newbie blogger and you really want to be noticed in the blogosphere, be a very active Entrecard member. That would mean dropping cards religiously. It may take a lot of effort and it can be time-consuming, but you would see your Alexa ranking rapidly increasing with the help of entrecard traffic (I will soon eplain in another post the advantages and disadvantages of using Entrecard). By joining Entrecard, you can earn Entrecard credits which allows you to display an ad of your blog on other blog sites within the Network.
Here are my Entrecard Widgets (Go click on them to see my Entrecard Details. )
5. Be active in forums. Choose those forums that are related to your blog. If your blog has something to do with money-making and blogging tips and you are interested with discussion related to search engines, including optimization, marketing, tools and other technical aspects, I would recommend you to join Digital Point Forum. There are a lot of experienced webmasters on the site. If you want to learn tips on making money with Google Adsense, there’s a section of the forum with very active discussion about this matter.
How to gain traffic from forums? Put your blog link on your signature and contribute to the discussions.
6. Post comments on other blogs. Avoid “nice post” and other generic responses. Elaborate on what you have to say about the post. Also, if people leave comments on your blog, reply to those comments. Make your visitors feel that you value them and they will keep coming back.
7. Encourage readers to subscribe to your blog. Well, if you have a good content, this will make them want to subscribe. Make a Feedburner account. You can place the chicklet or the feedcount widget but I prefer to put the Email Subscription form on my blog. (It’s on my sidebar, please subscribe)
8. Learn SEO techniques. Naturally, we want our blogs to be on the first page of the search results when people use certain keywords. Learning SEO or Search Engine Optimization will help you land your blog on the top results of the keywords relevant to your blog.
9. Join social bookmarking sites. There’s a lot of social bookmarking site online, but among those that works for me are Stumbleupon, Digg, Mixx, and Del.icio.us.
10. Join Twitter and follow other twitter users. When you update, mention your blog url. It’s a way of promoting your blog 
11. Blogroll. Link exchange with other bloggers whose blogs are related to your niche. If yours is a money-making blog, please don’t try to exchange links with fashion blogs. That’s a no-no.
12. Sponsor a Contest. Holding a contest, sponsoring a contest or joining a contest can drive traffic to your blog. If you are a contest sponsor, you can also earn a lot of backlinks. There’s a lot of contest and giveaways on the Entrecard network since a lot of bloggers are giving away EC credits and cash.
13. Don’t place too much ads on your blog. I hope you know why.
14. Leave a unique impression to your visitors. There’s a lot of blogs online, what would make other bloggers not forget your blog? Aside from the content, the blog design and layout matters a lot. Make your site look unique and easy to navigate.
15. Analyze your blog metrics. Knowing where your traffic came from is important so that you would know which techniques work for you. I have tried using Google Analytics, Histats, Sitemeter to analyze my blog’s traffic.
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Great tips. I recently learned a thing or two about SEO. I think this is the best way to get targeted traffic to any blogs or static webpages.
I also learned that adsense works best with niche blogging. Once again, you’ll earn much from it by doing SEO or if you have a budget, you can try advertising through PPC campaigns such as Yahoo Publisher Network or Google Adwords.
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November 29th, 2008 at 1:20 amHi Nerd, thanks for adding to these tips! I agree that adsense works best with niche blogging. I only noticed that when one of my blogs which is focused on “girly stuff” is giving me more adsense income compared to my other blogs that has random posts.
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November 29th, 2008 at 1:35 amExcellent tips….
autopinger.com
That site pings different Blog sites to inform them you have updated your blog.
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Elaine Reply:
December 1st, 2008 at 8:08 am
Hi Jimeous, thanks for this tip. I would check it out.
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Interesting tips, I have learnt a few new things. would you like to exchange links with my blog?: earnmoneyonlinetoo.blogspot.com
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Elaine Reply:
December 1st, 2008 at 8:07 am
Hi Marina, I have added you to my blogroll. Cheers!
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wonderful programs, and if you also interested in my free trafic exchange programs, just check my blog back.lol
good luck
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Elaine Reply:
December 1st, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hi Chong, I am headed to your blog now.
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Hi!
I will apply your tips to my blog. Thank you so much!
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Elaine Reply:
December 1st, 2008 at 8:00 am
Hi Fe, I am glad that those tips are helpful to you. Cheers!
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adding favorites in technorati helps in technorati authority or not?? Can any one tell?
Thank You.
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Elaine Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Being added as a favorite does not increase your authority, but it does increase your visibility on other member’s page. Cheers!
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Rocky Reply:
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:32 am
Thanks Elaine!
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Thanks Elaine, I have added your blog too:)
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Elaine Reply:
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
Hi Marina, I have added you on my blogroll.
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Elaine,
Ok nga yang mga tips na yan. However, time constraints are often my problems because of work. Pwede ring gumamit ka ng auto-pinger like ping.fm… try mo pumunta sa site na yun.
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Elaine Reply:
December 6th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
You are right kuya, dapat talga may time and effort.
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Great tips. I will try to use it.
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Elaine Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 5:40 am
You are welcome. Cheers~
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Free PC games download
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December 7th, 2008 at 7:22 amThanks for sharing this traffic improvement tricks. Although I am with few of them already and would like to stick with others too.
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Elaine Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Welcome Gedet! If you have tips, let me know as well. Happy Blogging!
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Your tips for increasing traffic are thought provoking. I would like to try them. Of how successful I will be in employing them and which of the ideas you have posted will work for me has to be seen over time. Thanks for giving this link through your post on myLot.
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Elaine Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 5:39 am
You are welcome. If you have additional tips, please let me know. Blogging is always a learning process. Cheers!
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I’m going to use some of the methods you offer. Thanks for the helpful info.
Helen
flashymania.blogspot.com
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December 11th, 2008 at 6:44 amElaine,
Thanks for the great tips..
Bookmarked your blog already..
Got some traffics though adsense not really works..Wondering how to ..??
YouLin
youlinchng.com
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December 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pmhi
thanks for sharing your experience
this will really help newbies like me
this is my blog opportunitiestoearn.blogspot.com
can we exchange the link
also comment on my blog thank you
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December 22nd, 2008 at 9:34 amHello. I was inspired by your post. I am still learning from my blogs and from other blogs. I also wanna earn from my blog. Can you please visit my blog and tell me what else I need to do? I am open for any suggestions and comments. Thanks so much!
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December 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pmHi,
Your tips are indeed awesome. Surely i will implement them and see how it works. Thanks a lot!!
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August 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 amHi, nice tips there. I am new to blogging and hopefully I can use your tips to help me earn in blogging. i will add your links to my site. please do add me also. thanks
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August 12th, 2009 at 12:58 amhi. good tips. i also have a website but have trouble with getting enough traffic. i know some of the tips you’ve mentioned, and some i’ve done. anyway, i’d like to know more about technorati and entrecard. i have heard about them before but i couldn’t quite figure out how they work, so i haven’t signed up for them. i hope you could enlighten me. thanks.
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September 30th, 2009 at 1:32 am