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How to generate traffic to your blog

  1. drmike
    Member

    Designergrl in this thread wonders how one generates traffic for a blog. I'm starting this thread so that we can bounce ideas off of one another. I'll list mine shortly (I'm in the middle of Drupal upgrades over here) but I'm sure some of you have ideas that you would like to share. Feel free to post. I'll probably do up a FAQ later this weekend.

    Note that I'll remove the illegal stuff. Anyone who suggests spamming the entire planet gets their email address forwarded to some spammers I know. :)

    Thanks,
    -drmike

  2. cornell
    Member

    Firstly, visit other blogs and leave comments.
    Secondly, participate in these forums.
    Thirdly, technorati (other other tagging service) your posts. Don't rely upon the category tags.

    How's that for a start?

  3. designergrl
    Member

    Ok, I searched and couldn't find. How do we add one of those technorati, um things to our blogs ?

    Also, sometimes when I navigate via the
    "Next blog"...I come across quite a lot of sites that have some of their text that looks like up-ended boxes....this concerns me, or should it. It's not a virus or something ? Also, can one pick up a virus just by visiting the blogs here ?

    designergrl

  4. farlane
    Member

    designergrl: you would add your blog to technorati by going to technorati.com, create and account and claim your blog. I believe that all wordpress.com blogs are indexed by Technorati already. I typed in a search for "designergrl" and found posts from your blog.
    http://www.technorati.com/search/designergrl

    The virus looking things are just language sets your computer isn't configured to see (Korean, Chinese, etc)

    I echo the "visit other blogs and comment" recommendation. Comments are really the thing that holds the blogoverse together. It's important, however, not to just go out and comment for the sake of being seen - you need to add to the discussion somehow.

    It's also a good idea to link to other people's posts - they see you as a referrer and may feel inclined to link to you. The same goes for adding blogs you like to your blogroll.

    You can also try to get your blog noticed/linked to by something like bestblogs.wordpress.com

    Good luck!

    -farlane aka andrew mcfarlane

    PS: Visit my blog!

  5. cyclequark
    Member

    I use Oddiophile's tag bookmarklet to generate Technorati tags. It is described here.

    You type any topic you think applies to your entry into the bookmarklet and it makes a little piece of html that you can cut and paste into your post. Make sure that your are in html mode when you do.

    If you write about news stories then try to find them in the Washington Post. The Post will link your blog to its story. When I comment on a reasonably popular story, I can see the extra hits. However, on a very popular story they might link 50 blogs. You can get buried down int he list and not get any traffic.

  6. dashboardspy
    Member

    When leaving comments on other people's blogs, please don't spam. You should leave a comment that is truly value-add and boosts the content of the article. Don't post just to leave your link. Good blogosphere citizenship, and all...

  7. designergrl
    Member

    Ok, I signed up and everything...where do I add the code ? I put it in a link and I think that is wrong, so nowwhat ?

    designergrl

  8. marc
    Member

    Ok, I searched and couldn't find. How do we add one of those technorati, um things to our blogs ?

    A Comsuming Experiance also has a Technorati bookmarklet. He/she also offers a tutorial on how to modify Oddiophile's bookmarklet to accept multiple word tags.

  9. designergrl
    Member

    Well...I read abit here and I just realized something. When I try and make sense of any of this, and cannot(and beat myself up for it...like trying to learn sign language in Japanese)...I get answers that roll off of yall's tongue's like honey...and surely Everyone *should*understand if one reads it long enough-Not!

    Which is why I plead to explain simply and tell me Exactly where to put codes. I know that you are doing a wonderful job offering your knowledge-when you don't have to. And it Is appreciated. Only don't Assume I know what you are talking about.

    Now...back to my original question: Where Exactly do I add the code...like do I click onto View at the top and go to Source ? And if so...where in the code do I put the
    Technorati code ? Or do I add it somewhere else on my blog, starting with my Dashboard page ?

    Shoot, I'm tired.

    designergrl

  10. wank
    Member

    OK. Calm down. You know, you don't have to do any of this technorati and affiliate linking stuff right now. Just post regularly and put your posts in appropriate categories. Read other people's blogs, and comment on them when you have something to say.

    When you're comfortable with that, you'll figure out tagging bookmarklets and sidebar widgets and all the other extras. Or by that time you might be so involved in actually blogging that you won't care about that stuff anymore. Just relax, enjoy it, and don't try to run before you can walk.

  11. vivianpaige
    Member

    I don't see my blog in the technocrati search :(

  12. drmike
    Member

    For the record, I don't use the T. tags and rely on the category tags. T. still picks me up fine.

    I was reminded that one of my clients did a "class" on this very subject in my support forum. I'm trying to copy over his opening lecture but he's rather protective on his writings.

    Vivian, I went ahead and requested an update for your blog with T. Just a quick note that if you didn't know, you have someone who likes blogging about your blog. :)

    I'm taking today off. I'll follow up on this thread Sunday.

  13. cornell
    Member

    I must admit that I started to use the T Tags in my posts.

    One day I forgot and I haven't bothered since...

    Lorelle has a tutorial on how to use T tags in posts...

  14. iskoblog
    Member

    if you are not seeing your posts on technorati, you can always manually ping them by going here:

    http://technorati.com/ping

    add your url and they should pick up your site pretty quickly.

    and if don't want to manually add tags, you can use a blog editor like qumana. there's an easy 'add a tag' feature that i find very helpful.

  15. jaotte
    Member

    Technocrati offers a good Help section on post-tagging at http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html

    This excerpt applies to wordpress.com blogs:
    "If your blog software supports categories and RSS/Atom feeds (like Movable Type, WordPress, TypePad, Blogware, Radio), just use the included category system and make sure you are publishing RSS/Atom feeds and your categories will be read as tags."

    Mine shows up just fine - once you log in, you can click on your profile to view the tags that it's registered. The larger the font of the tag, the more posts you have made under that category.

  16. daibach1952
    Member

    Hi guys
    My name is Dave and I live in the UK, actually on a valley wall in the depths of Wales.

    We are picking up a RSS feed FROM our Article Directory, and FEEDING our Blog. However the Tags are not being picked up and posted either on the blog, or to the bookmarking sites.
    We want to have tags, specific to our niche blogs , auto-added to each incoming article, from the Article Directory, into our blog via the RSS feed.
    Is this feasible? Is there a Plug-In for this anywhere? If not, is there an alternative?
    Any help and or advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Cheers guys
    Dave

  17. timethief
    Member

    @daibach195
    OOPS! I thought you were in the wrong forum but I can tell you weren't by drmike's response- sorry. Happy blogging! :)

  18. actorblogger
    Member

    What about putting your blog into the search engines? I'm new to the enitre blogging world, but I've been reading up like crazy, and isn't there a way to put meta? tags on your web page? Is that what technorati does?

    I've signed up with them, but what about getting into Yahoo and Google, etc?

  19. drmike
    Member

    Yahoo and Google should pick up your blog fine after a few weeks. The wait is normal. It won't happen over night.

    Meta tags are pretty much useless now a days. Don't worry about them.

    For information about the Tech. site, please go read it. :)

    Tag are just the categories you use to tag your posts. Make sure that you categorize it well with specific categories instead of just general ones. Tech. reads those categories to categorize your site. So do the search spiders.

    I wrote a few months ago an article on getting folks to your blog. You can read it over at http://pimpmyblog.wordpress.com

    Hope this helps.

  20. marcys
    Member

    So, you are saying that after a few weeks all this will naturally occur? I've put up three posts on my blog, and I'm waiting to see if this is worth it, if there'll be enough traffic for me to keep this up. Does that seem like a logical strategy, or should I be doing something else?

  21. drmike
    Member

    It takes a while for any site, let alone blogs, to show up in the search engines. I've noticed that usually it will show up in MSN first and then the others.

    edit: Heck, you've already have a few pages in MSN.

  22. raincoaster
    Member

    You should be posting more.

    Nobody is going to be all overwhelmed with the urge to link to a blog with only three posts; it looks like you're not committing, which is in fact the case.

    Google and the other search engines will find you all right, even with three posts, but you won't rank very high until other people start linking to you; connection to the community is the key.

    Out of curiosity, what is your minimum "worth it" number of daily hits? What makes one number worth it to you and another not?

  23. timethief
    Member

    @marcys
    It usually takes 4-5 weeks for blog articles to be picked up by the google search engines. In that time most bloggers will have generated 30 or more posts. The top bloggers at wordpress seem to get over 1100 hits per day and write every day.

    If you're running ads elsewhere you may be interested to know that it is estimated that 10-20% of clicks from paid search ads on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN are fraudulent.

    If you would be kind enough to respond to them, I am also curious to hear your answers to the questions raincoaster has posed about your expectations and requirements for becoming a "committed" blogger.
    No pun is intended although I'm fairly sure that from time to time most bloggers feel it's "crazy" for them to continue their commitment to blogging. ;)

  24. bjaywalter
    Member

    This is the first time I've visited or read a forum. I've been blogging three weeks (about a dozen posts) I've really been doing it to keep a personal journal and maybe get some informed comments about my subject. But the experience is interesting. Years back when I use to do chat rooms, I was always the most verbose poster, so blogging is really more up my alley. BTW, It's mind boggeling that someone averages a thousand hits.

  25. christinabarefoottrimmer
    Member

    I guess it is the nature of my topic, but all my traffic is from outside the blogosphere. The method I tout is somewhat controversial in the field, so it generates a good bit of traffic. I post on a forum that is related to my subject and my sig file contains my blog address. From the stats I can see a lot of my traffic is generated from there. I also asked someone who has a website on the same subject to link me, (of course I linked her back on my blog), and I get a decent amount of hits coming from there too. I also see the search terms people use (very interesting and sometimes bizarre) that brings people to my site. They are MSN Live searches usually. I have a page that is a "product review" of a product of interest to my readers. I asked people to submit their experiences with the various brands and people search on brands and they find my site. I'm not selling it or endorsing it so it is perceived as objective info, and then they probably go to the rest of my site.

    Quite frankly I am shocked at how many hits I have already received. I thought I would get a few a day in the beginning; I've only been up about 5 weeks and I have about 1900 so far.

  26. gavilan1010
    Member

    Well I dont see Anyone talking about Search Engines? Their at least 40% of my hits, here are some links for you guys to submit your blogs

    http://www.google.com/addurl/
    http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
    https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
    http://technorati.com/ping/
    http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
    http://www.alexa.com/site/help/webmasters#crawl_site
    http://pingomatic.com/

    And if you also want to submit Feeds, its your lucky day here is a gigantic list of RSS submittion

    http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm

    PLEASE, when submitting, just submit once in a while, every 5 - 7 days, eventually the crawler will go to your site without you having to submit.

    Maybe this will help you guys :|

  27. gavilan1010
    Member

    Ohh, I forgot, also submit the WebPages of people that link to you, trust me on this one.

  28. raincoaster
    Member

    With the new domains, do we have to re-register at all of those? My hits have dropped by over 50% over the past week, and I'm becoming rather concerned.

    Also, I'd not submit other pages to these search engines, whatever it does to your rankings. For reasons, just search here under PRIVACY or similar titles; quite a LOT of people don't want to be listed in search engines, and won't be happy if they find you've put them in there.

    Technorati and Pingomatic are already notified automatically by WordPress. If you want a complimentary service, I use Pingoat.com.

  29. gavilan1010
    Member

    Hmmm well, back to the topic of more traffic

    check out this post I made, may help
    http://wordpress.com/forums/topic.php?id=5090

  30. drmike
    Member

    Gav, please read the article mentioned in the tenth or so post that I placed on http://pimpmyblog.wordpress.com Search engines are a big help and a source for incoming links.

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