Top 10 Traffic Ideas for your Blog

Blogs are popular ways to create an online presence for personal and business reasons. You can build a blog for free and begin posting content right away. But, what good is that content if no one is reading it. Here are ten ideas to bring in the traffic your blog needs to survive.

Of all the successful blogs on the Internet, hundreds more have failed. Running a blog is like running a business website. Unless you are willing to put the time in and treat it seriously, you won’t be blogging long.

That is not to say that the failed bloggers weren’t serious about blogging. Mostly, new bloggers aren’t prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful blog. Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you. You pursue the audience and give them a reason to see what you have to say.

1. Fresh Content – no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times.

2. Article Marketing – the niche you’ve chosen for your blog is one that interests you. If it is interesting you will spend more time doing it. Create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories. Use the resource box to advertise your blog so people can find you.

3. Social Networking – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of likeminded people who are also bloggers or entrepreneurs.

4. Viral Marketing – this is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers. Give out business cards that have your blog address on them.

5. Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

6. Submit Blog to Search Engines – doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google, Yahoo! and Bing are the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages. It doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that.

7. Joining Forums – as a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Right now you are marketing yourself to find traffic and then profit. Become a member of business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. You can add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can find you.

8. Visit other blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. Your name links to your blog home page in most cases, and those using the CommentLuv plugin also link to your latest post.

9. SEO Marketing – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Keyword density between three and ten percent is good for getting higher page rankings in search engines. Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche.

10. Social Bookmarking – submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want. Getting more traffic to blogs is an empirical endeavor – blog traffic builds over time as more and more links to your blogs are found by the search engines and targeted surfers alike.

Technorati Tags: blog marketing, marketing blogs, blog traffic, traffic to blogs, building traffic, traffic building, article marketing, viral marketing, SEO marketing, social bookmarketing

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What one factor is common to every successful Internet business? Targeted Traffic. Every article you will find about making money from your web site or making your company successful online will always include the importance of generating targeted traffic – and lots of it!

So, as every successful Internet marketer, affiliate marketer, niche marketer or profitable blogger knows, targeted traffic is the most essential asset to a successful internet-based business company. Aside from ensuring that you have a great product to sell, and you have your web site support well taken care of, it’s time to focus on generating targeted website traffic.

If you already have a site and you feel you’re not getting all the targeted traffic you should be getting, then its time to put more time, effort and money into boosting your targeted traffic. If you are in a highly competitive business arena, you should always be a step ahead of your competition… so increasing your targeted traffic flow should have been done starting yesterday.

Timing is everything. But when it comes to generating site or blog traffic, you should always be on your toes and be a day ahead of everyone else in your industry. Never think of today or tomorrow as the starting point for building traffic, it should have been started yesterday – or last week, more likely.

To help you generate tons of targeted traffic to your sites & blogs, here are some seven surefire ways to increase your targeted traffic almost immediately:

1) Invest in good advertising on the search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture provide great advertising programs that are very effective and can deliver great targeted traffic. While some will shy away from spending money to increase their traffic, it is imperative to using advertising to boost website traffic.

2) Trade Links with other sites & Blogs

More targeted traffic is the usual result for both partners when you trade links on your sites, or add each other to your blogrolls. First you benefit directly from each other’s existing web traffic, and you also benefit by having another links to your site for the search engines to spider. And the more closely related the topics of your sites or blogs, the more targeted the traffic you receive will be.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product little or no outlay on your part. Simply produce or aquire a downloadable resource others will value and make it available from your site or blog. BE SURE to let the people who download it know that they can pass it along all they want – encourage them to, in fact. Every time they hand it out or have it downloaded, your links are being put in front of others who might otherwise never have known you existed. For more on building traffic virally, visit Jeff Dedrick’s Viral E-Book Explosion.

4) Search out and use targeted keywords and tightly-targeted keyword phrases for your site’s or blog’s content

Find the keywords being searched for most in your field, and the ‘long-tail’ keyword phrases most used – then write your content with those keywords in mind. If you aren’t able to write keyword-laden content to attract targeted traffic from the major search engines, it’s wise to hire a good copywriter to do that for you. While it IS very expensive to get great copy written, the extra targeted traffic you attract should definitely make up for it before long, and leave you sitting pretty from that point forward.

5) Write & Submit Articles that draw targeted traffic to your sites & blogs

Create even more great content relative to your topic, and submit it to the article directories and any sites in your niche that accept article submissions. Putting your website or blog link in the author’s Resource box both boosts your visibility with the search engines and drives in more targeted traffic from the directories themselves. Another win-win, with you on both sides!

6) Join forums and form online communities

Forums and online communities help boost targeted traffic in tremendous ways. First, your signature file usually has links to your sites, so the more helpful and active you are there the greater number of links to your sites, and the higher the volume of targeted traffic directly from the community to – you guessed it – YOUR sites and blogs. Secondly, that’s more links on other sites for the search engines to find, giving you a better chance of being indexed, and of ranking higher in those engines that use such criteria. And if you ARE truly knowledgeable in your field and give of yourself generously in the forums, you’ll quickly brand yourself as an expert, everyone’s ‘friend in the biz’ as it were, and not only generate more traffic but increase your sales conversions as well!

7) Last, but far from least, BUILD YOUR OPT-IN LISTS!

Opt-in e-mail lists for e-courses or e-zines are A MUST for successful Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, niche marketing or power blogging – and by far the best way to drive targeted traffic back to your online properties again and again. DO NOT expect to be truly successful at boosting your targeted traffic and your online profits unless you start, maintain and constantly build your own in-house opt-in mailing lists!

There are other ways to build targeted traffic, and infinite refinements on the list above – a blog like this one is just one example. But start with the 7 Traffic Building Tips here for now, then read more about targeted traffic generation and maybe even invest in my Top Traffic Tips Bootcamp. It’s time to boost your traffic, your sales and your profits online!

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Doug Champigny is a well-known Traffic Master with over 100 websites and a number of blogs under his control, including the Top Traffic Tips Blog and the Top Traffic Tips Bootcamp. Doug has also authored numerous e-books on increasing traffic for Internet, niche and affiliate marketing. Be sure to bookmark his sites for the latest in targeted traffic generation to bring a flood of traffic to your web sites and blogs.
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Technorati Tags: website traffic, generating targeted traffic, building traffic virally, viral marketing, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, forums, articles, links, advertising, Doug Champigny

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