by The Green Fairy

Created on: March 02, 2009

Here are some tips on how to generate traffic to your blog. You want readers to find your blog on the internet, to come across it when searching for information about a subject they are interested in and which you write about.

Setting up a blog can be a disheartening experience, particularly if you've not got much experience. You spend hours at the keyboard, pouring out your knowledge and experience onto the virtual page. You select some great pictures which bring your material to life. You attach a hit counter to monitor activity. You tell your friends that it's ready to go - and then you watch the traffic begin to pour in.

Except that it doesn't. There are millions upon millions of webpages, and there's probably already a stack of sites that address the issue you have written about. Why should anyone come to your page, other than friends and family who want to support you but who probably aren't that interesting in your subject matter? Don't be disheartened.

There is no guaranteed solution of generating web traffic to a blog, but these tips are based on experience:

Deliver great content: It doesn't matter how hard you promote your blog, if the content isn't great then people won't read it. Don't be put off - great does not mean Pulitzer prize winning standard or stunningly original material (although this helps). It means considered, well-written pieces. Make it immediately obvious to the reader what you are trying to say - most people don't bother to read blogs in detail unless they are confident it's worth their while.

Check your spelling: Great content can be ruined by poor spelling, typing errors, rogue words left behind in the editing process, grammatical errors and poor use of English. Invest the time in proofreading your posts. It may be tiresome, particularly late at night when you just want to get it posted. But do it.

Outbound links: There are different opinions about the value of outbound links (that's link from your blog to other sites). Whether search engines rank your site higher because of outbound links is unclear. But readers like them, and they'll come back to your blog if they know it's a doorway to other relevant sites.

Inbound links: These are harder to generate because the best links are those from other popular sites to yours. Take advantage of all linking opportunities - most social networks allow you to add a URL to your profile. Forums allow you to include URLs in a signature, but they don't want people to sign up solely to promote their site. Be prepared to do some work to win credibility. You might even make new friends online!

Keep it up to date: If you want readers to come back, keep adding new material. This also helps with site ranking, and with attracting new readers. If you find an interesting blog but the last entry was in 2007, are you likely to go back to it?

Make it search engine friendly: Otherwise known as SEO or search engine optimization. Think of the words and phrases you would input to a search engine to find material like yours. Then use those as tags for your blog and your posts, and incorporate them into the text as much as possible without comprising the quality of your writing.

If you follow all the suggestions above you might still not achieve massive levels of traffic in the first few weeks of your blog's life. But keep at it, and give it time. If the blog really is worth reading people will find it.

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