Generating Blog Traffic - From “Hello World!” to “Hello Subscribers!” - for Beginners

This is a continuation of my previous post: What One Month of Blogging Has Taught Me (and some stats).

“You might want to expand on your traffic generating methods. So many people are looking for ways to gain more readers.” - Dave Origano

Ain’t that the truth.

What I will do here is provide the exact steps I’ve taken to achieve what I have outlined in the previous post and follow that with some traffic generating tips from some of the nets most prominent. Here we go…

Platform, Design & Theme Customization

I decided to go with WordPress. It’s widely used, therefore documented and supported well and has the ability to go customize crazy. It shines when it’s packed with useful plugins. Pay close attention to ones like “CommentRelish” and “All in One SEO Pack,” in the preceding link.

While you’re finding the theme that suits your needs, remember to always add a subscribe link to the top of the page as well as after every post.

Here’s a few places to find wonderful WordPress themes (both free and paid premium):

1. Brian Gardner
2. Chris Pearson
3. Michael Pollock

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

1. All in One SEO Pack - This WordPress plugin makes the following tasks a piece of cake:
   • Title Tags - This is the text that appears at the top of the page as well as the link that appears in Search Engines. Make sure these are short and descriptive.
   • Meta Description - This is what appears under the links in Search Engines. These should be less than 160 words and full of keywords.
2. Keyword Density - Don’t riddle your writing with the keywords for your subject, it’s unseemly, inappropriate and discreditable - people won’t stick around. If you remain on topic and present original thoughts and views, your keyword density should naturally grow. I also added some keywords to the footer of my page and linked them to my site. I took that idea straight from Maki at Dosh Dosh. Don’t be too shy to borrow from the best. ;o)
3. Title & Alt Attributes (Links & Images) - don’t forget to add them:
   <a href="link here" title=”descriptive title here”> and <img src=”" title=”descriptive title here” alt=”what is the image? add keywords here” />
   They help the Search Engines identify the link you’re using as well as help pull and distribute your images to places like Google Image Search.
4. Google Webmaster Tools - After you’ve created your sitemap.xml using the Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator, go ahead and upload them here.

Social Networks

It’s no secret that social networking is doing wonders for increasing traffic. Here are the ones I’ve joined so far, lets network, join and add me:

• Twitter: jfhscribbles
• Pownce: jfhscribbles
• YouTube: jfhscribbles
• Digg: jfhscribbles
• Sphinn: jfhscribbles
• StumbleUpon: jfhscribbles
• Entrecard - I previously wrote about my Entrecard experience and as of late, I’ve tuned down my drop rate and my category position has suffered accordingly. However, I still get about 100 people a day, and like I’ve mentioned, some of my best readers found me through that medium.

Contact Methods & Conversation Participation (Commenting)

Making it as easy as possible for people to contact you is essential.

• Skype: jfhscribbles
• AIM: jfhscribbles
• Email: Contact page

I’ve also made it a point to comment on at least two posts a day on other blogs. The majority being related to the topics I speak of here.

Passionate Writing

This is by far the most important. You can do everything else in the book and yes, you’ll get plenty of traffic, but it won’t last and they won’t return if your content stinks. A humorous, engaging and descriptive “about page” doesn’t hurt as well.

While there are numerous other methods for increasing blog traffic, these are the ones I have implemented thus far. I hope you’ve found them both helpful and inspiring.

And because I love to string two posts together into one long one, here’s a list I’ve compiled which contains some of the best traffic generating tips from around the net:

10 Traffic Building Tips from The Best of The Best:

Steve Pavlina - Create timeless content.

“While I do occasionally write about time-bound events, the majority of my content is intended to be timeless. I’m aware that anything I write today may still be read by people even after I’m dead. People still quote Aristotle today because his ideas have timeless value, even though he’s been dead for about 2300 years.”

Seth Godin - Be snarky.

“Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.”

Daniel Scocco - Comment on highly ranked posts.

“Suppose you write extensively about ‘web design software,’ ‘logo design’ and ‘futuristic design.’ All you need to do is search in Google these terms and filter all the blog posts that appear among the first results. Once you have that list, just visit each one and leave a comment.”

Darren Rowse - Email readers as much as possible.

“Make it easy as pie for readers to contact you and email them as much as you can. When you’re starting off, I would even recommend emailing people who comment, though that becomes much more difficult as time wears on. Why? These early adopters will likely stick around and regularly comment on your posts, and then new readers will see that you have active commenters and will perceive your blog as an active and lively place.”

Neil Patel - Twitter.

“The cool part about Twitter is that you can add links within your twits, which results in traffic to that linked site…Twitter is a community-oriented service, so make sure you put yourself out there and start getting to know other members. The main way you can do this is through friending other members, which will cause many of those members to friend you back. All of the members that friend you back will then see all of your twits on their Twitter homepage.”

randfish - Reveal as much as possible.

“The blogosphere is in love with the idea of an open source world on the web. Sharing vast stores of what might ordinarily be considered private information is the rule, rather than the exception. If you can offer content that’s usually private - trade secrets, pricing, contract issues, and even the occassional harmless rumor, your blog can benefit.”

Lorelle - Don’t forget to tell everyone how famous you are.
Note: this post was actually written by Lorraine, the alter-evil twin of Lorelle. ;o)

“Yeah, you know how it is. You just gots to remind them how important you are in the whole, whatzit, scheme of things. ‘Hey, Google me, man!’ See how important I am. See how I outrank you, sucker! I always got to remind these blogging twits that I know more than they do cuz I’m in Google. Sheesh.”

Brian Clark - Tutorials and free ebooks.

“Providing resources to your readers is the ultimate strategy, because when it comes to blogging, it’s a win-win-win scenario. Free resources get links. They also convince people to subscribe. And if relevant, they can sell whatever you offer better than almost any other technique.”

Chris Garrett - Guest post.

“Once people know you a bit build on it by guest posting. By writing on other peoples blogs you build contacts, raise your profile and can help other people while helping yourself - win-win”

Aaron Wall - Freebies & Giveaways.

“Hold a contest…Build a tool collection…Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress…Release a Firefox extension.”

What’s your story? How do you drive traffic?

Image credit: Mazda6 (Tor).

Image credit: