You’ve Built It, But Will They Come?
So, you’ve launched your blog, but will the visitors come? Probably not. Blogging isn’t a Field of Dreams, so if you want to start getting traffic to your blog, you’ll have to be aggressive and go out and get the traffic yourself. My blog is still new, but my traffic stats are consistently going up. Continue reading to find out what I do to increase traffic.
First Things First
Before you start getting aggressive in your quest for more traffic, you need to write. It’s pointless to promote your blog if you have no content for the visitors to read once they get to your blog. If I remember correctly, once I had what I considered five good articles, I started doing promotion.
What Kind of Promotion?
Well, there are all kinds of ways to promote your blog. I will share a few of the things that do on a regular basis to try and get my name out there as much as possible in the blogosphere.
1. Comment on other blogs
It makes more sense to comment on blogs in your niche. If your blog is about web design, don’t comment on blogs about gardening. You might get lucky and find a few gardeners who are also web designers, but I wouldn’t bet on very many.
When you comment, actually put a little thought behind it. Don’t just write “Nice post!” or something similar. Take a moment and think of something intelligent to say that adds to the conversation of the article. Blog owners are more likely to comment back to you and are more likely to visit your site since you took the time to contribute to the conversation.
2. Introduce yourself to other bloggers and ask for link exchanges
This is one that’s really helped me in getting more traffic. Thanks goes to Nate Whitehill for this idea.
It’s been my experience that most bloggers are more than willing to help out other bloggers and a link exchange is an easy way they can help. I’ve been lucky in this area in that I’ve been able to get quite a few sites to link back here. Here’s what I use when I email bloggers to introducing myself and ask for a link exchange (feel free to use it if you like).
Hi, my name is [insert name]. I recently discovered your blog and I was curious if you would be interested in a link exchange with my blog [link to site]? If not, I understand. I hope to see you around the blogosphere.
Thanks,
[insert name]
That’s it. Very straight forward and to the point.
Extra Credit
If you read my Random Jabber Featured on CSS Mania article, you’ll know how I increased my traffic by nearly 5000%. This has got to be one of the easiest ways to increase traffic. The catch is, you’ve got to have a tableless site which validates. I’m still seeing good traffic numbers coming from CSS Mania even after being bumped off the homepage.
Well, so far in my short blogging career, that’s the methods I’ve used to bring in more traffic. Have you tried these? Did they work? What are you doing now to continue bringing in more traffic?
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Comments
My English is still limited , i think. Otherwise, i seem not to have many thing to write. I don’t know where i can get the ideas from.Serious...me..
Your article is really good for blogger as me. I will try to follow some of ur steps.Thanks 
Posted on Fri Aug 3, 2007
Brian: I agree with what you’re saying, but how do you know you’re writing a quality article? With over six billion people online, there is a better than average chance that someone will enjoy what you’re writing. The hard part is promoting your site so more than a handful of people are seeing your content. What you consider quality, someone may consider crap. I think it’s a personal preference just like anything else. I like Pepsi, but not Coke but that doesn’t mean Coke isn’t a quality product.
I agree with the look of the site too. Some already established bloggers can get a way with a bad design because they’ve got a loyal following that would follow them not matter what the site looked like, but if you own a relatively unknown blog and have a design that screams 1995, you will probably have people clicking the back button in about 2.2 seconds. 
Daravuth: I know what you’re saying. It is hard sometimes to come up with article topics. Ideas can come from anywhere. Driving, shopping, reading, surfing the net...anything. I always try to have a pen and paper and as soon as an idea hits me, I write it down.
Posted on Fri Aug 3, 2007
It was great to find your blog Deron and you offer some good tips for us blogging noobs!
Posted on Sun Aug 5, 2007
Hi Linda. It’s always nice to see a familiar name commenting here.
I’m still very new to blogging myself, but I’m glad you’ve found some of the tips I’ve shared useful. Hope to see you back, maybe us noobs can learn something together. 
Posted on Sun Aug 5, 2007
I thought your advice was rather interesting. I am also a new blogger just starting out. I do a sports blog with other things on my mind. I will come back and check other ideas you have posted this blog is rather interesting.
Posted on Tue Aug 14, 2007
sportsdork36: Thank you! I hope to see you back.
I’m a sports nut also, so I’ll definitely be heading over to check out your blog.
Posted on Tue Aug 14, 2007
I find getting the highest quailty of traffic to your site comes from commenting on other blogs. The visitors coming from these comments tend to stay on my site longest and are most interactive. Nice post stumbled this one
Posted on Wed Aug 22, 2007
I agree Shaun. That’s my favorite method and how I’ve received a lot of my traffic.
Posted on Wed Aug 22, 2007
For me the main sources are : forums and sigs, comments in blogs ( its one of the most interesting ways), very few froom Google, because I don’t have good keyword rankings and link exchanges with my friends
Oh I forgot to mention, that for some of my sites I use traffic exchange services, because they are free and sometimes brings me permanent readers
Posted on Wed Feb 6, 2008
aislandas: Yes, I’m the same. Forum sigs and blog comments bring me a lot of my traffic, although here lately, I’ve been seeing a jump in search engine traffic and it’s gave me a boost in numbers.
Never tried traffic exchanges though, I’ll have to look into that.
Posted on Wed Feb 6, 2008
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
Hm…
I find the best way to get readers, and not just one time visitors, is (like you reccomended) to comment on other topic-related blogs.
Topic related forums are also good - and even more so if you become one of the leading posters.
But quality and regularity is needed.
Oh dang it…
There was another tip that I had… But I forgot…
At any rate - quality is the most important quality ot have in your site. If you don’t have anything worth looking at/reading, you won’t acquire any regular visitors.
Something that helps is asthetics. If your site doesn’t look very good, then most visitors won’t take the time to look at your content - no matter how good it is.
But the looks isn’t the most important component of your web site/blog - like I said, the content is.
Ok, I’ll stop rambling.
Posted on Thu Aug 2, 2007