How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog: A Guide for Beginners

Blogs are popping up all over cyberspace. You don't even have to know how to build a website to start a blog. In fact, you can literally start a blog in five minutes and be on your way to being read by thousands or even millions of people in the blogosphere. Sure, you can start a blog, but the whole purpose of it is to be read, right? Having the secret key to a flood of traffic is what every blog owner wants. Just like any website, you need a strategy to get more people to read your blog. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Register your blogs with Technorati (www.technorati.com). Technorati is the haven for all bloggers, if you didn't already know. People come to Technorati to find out what others are saying on a particular subject which they call "tags". Add these Technorati "tags" to your blog posts and you'll make it easy for the search engines as well as other bloggers to find your blog. All the cool kids are doing it ;)

2. Network with other bloggers. Become a social butterfly and build relationships with other bloggers. Leave comments on other blogs and let your voice be heard. If people find that you have something interesting to say, they'll visit your blog. The important thing to remember here is that you want to build conversation in the photosphere, so leave meaningful comments, not just "Nice blog!" which most bloggers consider to be spam comments anyways.

3. One useful tool to connect with other bloggers and bring traffic to your blog is MyBlogLog (www.mybloglog.com). This website allows you to keep statistics on all your blogs, build mini-blog communities, and see who has been visiting your blog.

4. Focus on one topic. The best blogs out there are the ones that stick to one particular area or subject. Become an expert at something and let others know everything you know about it. You'll establish credibility and people will come back to read your blog again and again.

Focusing on one particular subject is also good for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. Many search engines rank websites and blogs according to how relevant the overall content of the blog is to what search words people are using. For instance, if someone does a search for "blog marketing", the search engine will see if your blog contains enough content related to blog marketing. If your blog is focused on that subject, the search engine will believe that your blog has enough value to rank it high.

Focusing on one subject doesn't mean that every single post has to be about that topic. You can mix it up a little with anecdotes, rants, news, etc. Just don't blog about real personal stuff and nobody wants to read about how your boyfriend dumped you for a Playboy bunny. On second thought, that may be quite interesting. Just kidding.

5. Write interesting blog posts. When you have something interesting to say, people will feel compelled to link to your blog. Your posts don't necessarily have to be a particular length. Remember that it's quality over quantity. I've known bloggers who can say something very important in less than 100 words.

6. If you really want to become popular in the blogosphere, write "How To" and "Top 10" articles. People are always wanting to learn how to do something and where do a majority of people go to find how to do something? Yup, the internet. People love lists"Top 10" or any "Top (enter any number here)".

7. Link to others. This piece of advice can be damaging to some people with big egos. After all, we don't want others to leave our blog and go to someone else's website, right? Let me ease your worries by saying that if you have followed the previous four tips, then believe me, people will come back.

When you link to other blogs or useful websites, it adds value to your own blog. Bloggers like to call this "link love". Be a giver. Be generous with your links. Most people keep up with their blog stats, so they'll see that you have linked to them. Who knows, they may find your blog of interest to them and link back to you as well. Eventually your blog will become this big resource. People can count on you to provide useful information and will return for more.

These are just a few ways to get people to visit your blog. As you spend more time blogging, you'll find many more ways to create traffic. However, don't spend so much time counting how many people come to your blog. After all is said and done, it is about the quality of people that visit over the quantity. You don't want to become so obsessed over your stats that you don't focus on your blogging! Unfortunately it happens to many bloggers. The most important thing is to have fun!