Dave, I have an executive placement, coaching and consulting business in the Chicago market. In an effort to market and brand myself better I have launched a blog, but I’m unclear what I need to do to get more traffic and exposure to my blog. What do you suggest?
Let me spend some time answering your question because it’s one of the top queries I get from other bloggers, particularly after listening to one of my BlogSmart! workshops…
First off, the core answer is actually pretty easy: the best way to generate traffic for your blog is to reframe the question. Instead of asking “how to I get more visitors to my site?” you need to be asking the question “how do I become part of the blogosphere discussion?”
Bloggers that don’t get this crucial point end up being tiny islands in a very big ocean. Some of them can gain a readership by being phenomenally good or astonishingly prolific, but that’s a very tough path to travel and for most ends up being the blogosphere equivalent of the old Web site complaint of “I’ve built it, but no-one’s come to visit.”
Instead, you need to get involved! Regardless of your topic, I bet there are already other people blogging about the same issues, thoughts and ideas, even if you don’t agree with them. Join their conversation — on their territory — and you’ll be leaving your island and joining the party.
Here’s an easy tip that I tell my clients: two days a week spend an hour writing one thoughtful and cogent article that’s relevant to your target readership. Imagine you’re going to be having it picked up and published in one of the key trade publications in your marketplace. Good grammar, good spelling, coherent sentences, and a valuable point or insight are all important. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but I promise you, the better you write, the more your potential customers, clients, partners and investors will be impressed.
The other three days of the week? Spend the same amount of time and effort each of these other days, but this time find other blogs that are in your market space and add thoughtful comments to their discussions. Sometimes, when appropriate, link back to your own articles, but other times add your own comments just to participate in the ongoing discussion and, yes, gain some visibility in your marketspace.
Over time you’ll gain a reputation as a credible expert and people will start checking out your blog to see what you have to say. Then you’ll have gained traffic and visibility in your market segment, which is where it’s most important anyway.
I spend a fair amount of my time scanning both blog and news headlines (via RSS using NewsGator Online) and then popping onto other weblogs and adding my two cents. It’s fun, rewarding, and helps me gain visibility in a way that writing even the best darn blog could never accomplish.
I hope this helps you out!
Update: on my Intuitive Life Business Blog I just posted a terrific story about how lawyer Daniel Perry got interviewed for a Wall Street Journal article after posting a couple of well-crafted comments on my blog! It’s well worth reading and reinforces this article perfectly: Comment added to blog leads to inclusion in the Wall Street Journal.
Hi everyone, this is a facinating post and i truly agree.But in reality if you have tried everything you have done to get traffic, what happens next? In my experience the key to any traffic is ultimate patience but this is not good for sales…
great collection. update more
yeah i can say that getting traffic is as easy as hard,,its all about building up a solid content,,but its good to keep tracking your stats like with google analytic to see if there’s any improvement ,,thanks for this nice article
Really nice article, good ideas to get traffic in the beginning stages of a website..
Seven years later and this blog is still relevant. Technology may be changing fast, but how we market ourselves has remained somewhat constant.
Wow, good ideas. Pretty cool that this post was made years ago and people are still commenting. I’m new to the blog scene and looking for advice. If you have a moment swing by my page and give me a few tips.
http://signedsealedanddeliverednc.blogspot.com/
Thanks in advance.
-Theresa
Thanks for your candor, Tim. One recommendation I have: try to write guest posts on other blogs and other Web sites. This is both for visibility (they probably already have more traffic than you do) and for search engine benefit: inbound links from other sites really help you rank higher for your keywords and phrases. And plug along. A reasonable publishing schedule of even one article a week, over six months, will do more for your site than two articles a day for the first month followed by nothing for 90 days. 🙂
Hey Dave,
Thanks for reminding us that blogging is a conversation. I’ve just started out and googled how do I get my blog started and you came up (nice going).
Thing is everyone wants a blog like yours thats got lots going on but I guess it just takes a lot of time and communicating, but when you are at the beginning writing stuff especially if its topical can feel a bit pointless when no one’s looking, but I just tell myself I’m rehearsing and getting better every day!
I agree that commenting is a great marketing tool but i just don’t think it’ll be enough.
Your tips is right on target, posting relevant and informative content regularly is a big boost to any blog, the fun part of blogging is the interaction between you and your readers.
Great advice Dave started doing the same thing . Have a long way to go through. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Wow Dave, you made this post in what seems to be 2005. I am just going by the first comment.
The last comment was just the end of last month, now that is kewl!
I was bouncing around looking for ideas for a capture page and came to your blog which I have done on several occasions in the past.
That definitely deserves a like on your fanpage.
The one thing is that the web changes every day and the ways to get traffic change with it especially in some of the more competiive niches.
I will say this though that just like me looking for ideas when I found Dave’s blog here for the 166th time is that great quality content is king and that I hope never changes. keep bringing it Dave.
I teach people to get fast sustainable traffic on my blog and to try to stay ahead of the competition. I still deliver, I hope what others consider to be top quality content and to be relevent to what is working now!
Just like Daves post here was still on the first page of google 6 years later.
Thanks Dave good stuff.
Great reply Dave, I’m also new-ish to the blog scene and also looking at ways to get the name out and about. as with over I found this on page one from my search so it must be right.
Kind Regards
Gavin
My website is for All Sports, http://sportingparlay.com and it took a long time to get a lot of traffic. I would have to agree that you just can’t sit back and hope people come to your site.
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Very good post. This information is similar to what i did to gain subscribers on my YouTube channel. Getting involved in a community really is the best way to get follower’s. I find that it dose take time to do this, also people should be patient when it comes to gaining followers. Most people want it overnight , and want it right now. Great job. have a good week.
I often write about the benefits of guest posting over commenting. It shows people that you are a credible source and helps drive more traffic than comments do because people want to read more from you – if your posts are good that is.
very thoughtful, thank u…didn’t think it is so important before…i’ll be visiting others’ people blogs and share my opinion 🙂
Thank you for the post and the valuable information. I am new to the blogging world but I love sharing ideas with other moms on how to make our lives more efficient and fulfilling. It’s been a very enjoyable experience so far.
Thank you again for the great advice.