How Do You Increase Blog Traffic?
Posted by Michael Stein, Senior Internet Strategist on October 7, 2008
My colleague Britt Bravo, who writes the Have Fun Do Good blog, is a never-ending source of thought-provoking inspiration to me. Not only is she interested in social innovation, but she has a fascination with online social networking and online marketing. Her wonderful in-depth interviews with people doing good online with new media tools offers me a unique weekly view into the intimate work of someone using the Internet to raise money or advocate for a cause. This week, Britt blogs about blogs, more precisely how to increase blog traffic, and she offers a wonderfully detailed list of recommendations for how to make a blog successful on today’s Internet. If I had to capture a few key lessons from Britt’s list it would be to encourage bloggers to write about what they’re passionate about, to connect with your existing community of colleagues online, and to not neglect the many little details of blogging that combined together will make an impact on your success.
I’m copying Britt’s list below, but you should visit her blog to follow the many links that she’s embedded in the list:
- Post regularly.
- Link to other bloggers in your posts.
- Comment on other blogs.
- Have a blogroll.
- Make it easy to comment. It’s ok to have comment moderation, but don’t make people register.
- Allow readers to email posts to other people.
- Enable subscription to your rss feed with Feedburner.
- Enable subscription by email with Feedblitz.
- Include images or graphics with every post to catch the reader’s eye. Blogs are a visual medium.
- Add your blog URL to your email signature.
- Tell Google you have a blog.
- Tell Technorati you have a blog.
- Write titles with phrases that people are searching for (i.e. How to Bake a Cake).
- Write about current events.
- Ask a question in your title.
- Post a list (i.e. Ten Ways to Frost a Cake).
- Provide a way for people to easily share and bookmark your posts by using something like AddThis or Add to Any.
- Twitter.
- Bookmark your posts in del.icio.us, and other social bookmarking services.
- Try writing shorter posts (200-300 words). That’s about how many words the average person can read in a minute.
- Leave more space between paragraphs. Use bold subtitles. Catch the reader’s eye.
- Participate in memes, blog carnivals and challenges.
- Tags your post with Technorati tags.
- Let ping servers know when you have a new post.
- Interview people who have blogs or email lists, and will post a link to the interview.
- Have guest bloggers post on your blog
- Include videos in your posts.
- Install web analytics tools like SiteMeter, StatCounter and Google Analytics. Look at what kinds of posts get the most traffic. Write more of those!
- Highlight your most popular posts in your sidebar.
- Create a MyBlogLog community.
- Participate in social networks like Facebook and MySpace, as well as niche social networks related to the theme of your blog.
- Participate in online forums and communities.
- List your blog in blog directories.
- Run a contest.
- Finally, write posts that people want to read!
Read Britt’s complete blog post with embedded links.
