Increasing Traffic To Your Blog

[Riayn]

As a new blogger I really have no idea of how to build up traffic and increase my readership.
Does anyone have any great tips that they can share with a newbie?

[Leigh]

commenting and networking, getting yourself out there would be one of the best/easiest ways.

This is something I really should do, but struggle with. If you went out and commented on your regular blogs most days, and 5 or so new ones as well you will slowly build relationships with other bloggers who will link to you or blog about you etc.

Carnivals can be good as well, participating, and again..going round and commenting on other participants.

Of course it goes without saying that you would make your comments useful, and not make a nuisense of yourself with useless comments.

[Riayn]

I definitely not plan on spamming anyone, but you are right, I really need to start looking up new blogs.
Now where do I find those extra hours in my day? ;)

[Stormy]

Easy Riayn....don't do any housework ;)

[Riayn]

Easy Riayn....don't do any housework ;)

I barely do any housework as it is. Oh well, maybe a dirty house will inspire my partner to do more about the place.

[imported_jeanieinparadise]

Another way is to enter competitions and similar projects. I have received traffic (although I am no freeway) through a few things during the year - apparently Wordless Wednesday and Thursday Thirteen type things are also good for generating traffic.

[Riayn]

Jeanie - You are going to have to fill me in on what Wordless Wednesday and Thursday Thirteen are. They do sound interesting though.

[Leigh]

Thursday Thirteen (http://thursdaythirteen.com/) you write a list of 13 things, on a Thursday. Can be a list of any thirteen things you like, 12 favorite songs, food, places youve been..anything really.

Wordless Wednesday you basicly post a wordless post (so a photo or graphic) on Wednesday.

[imported_Lightening]

You find someone who is hosting one of those "Thursday Thirteen" or whatever and once you have written and posted your post, you should be able to place a link to it on their blog via a Mr Linky box. That way people that visit that blog may come to your blog to read what you've written.

I have one on a Saturday called "Smiley Saturday". Basically you write a post about something that made you smile or post something that will make your readers smile (like a joke or photo etc). Then add your link to my Mr Linky box (it's pretty easy) and people click through to read what you've written.

[katef]

Can anyone set up a 'Mr Linky' and start their own 'everyone post on this subject' kind of thing? Or does it have to be one of the set ones that are around?

Kate

[Leigh]

Sure, you could start your own one up if you wanted Kate..go for it!

[imported_Lightening]

That's all I did. I had an idea I wanted to try and just found the Mr Linky site (via a Mr Linky link box I think). I've only been going for 2 weeks so no idea how successful it is going to be or not.

[DeborahR]

There are lots of ways to increase traffic to your blog and you may want to visit sites like Problogger and the other guys who make lots of money from blogging for ideas.

I'm not sure what the other bloggers think about this suggestion but I heard it's better to have your own domain for your blog. At the very least you have more flexibility with the layout. You are currently on WordPress which has some great plugins for search engine optimisation. The Google XML Sitemap is a good one because it enables you to create a sitemap and then upload it to Google via their webmasters tools on your Google account.

You will find the plugins for Wordpress at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

The other suggestions posted here are very good. The best way to increase traffic to your blog is link to the posts of other bloggers and trackback to them. Posting insightful comments on other blogs is also another good suggestion posted here.

I think it was Leigh who said you have to be patient and gradually build up your site traffic over time and she is correct. I read recently there are over 100 million blogs on the internet all competing for traffic so it will take some time to get noticed. But being here is a very good start and I know you contribute to other blogs and that is also a good way to get your blog to stand out from the crowd.