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My blog has been up and going for a few months now, but I have only had less than 10 visitors to find my blog and fewer to comment. How can I improve the stats on the number of visitors to find and view my blog?
The blog I need help with is aaronrking.wordpress.com.
Hey Aaron!
Don't be dismayed. There are literally millions of blogs out there by now and yours is pretty hard to stumble upon in the middle of that haystack. For example, I have had one up for almost a year and a half, now [http://thejazzmonger.wordpress.com] and I bet YOU have not stumbled across mine. :^)
You have to do a little work getting your blog's name and material out there. Explore some of the facilities like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc. for exposing some of your better posts. Check AlphaInventions.com and Blogiche.com as places to let readers discover your blog.
Look around for similar blogs where you might become a regular contributor and put your blog address in your signature line on those posts.
Add blogs you really enjoy to your Blogroll, or better yet, create a set of links to "Blogs We Like." Then ask those publishers to check out your stuff and consider reciprocating.
The more you comment in the Blogosphere, the more your name, handle and blog title will be exposed on Google and other major search engines. It takes a while, but it will start to feed traffic your way.
Of course, the biggest key is to write INTERESTING ( and original) CONTENT.
Here's one thing that is of primary importance. Get used to putting the URL to your blog in everything you post. In fact, it is supposed to be a requirement for getting your questions answered here. But I broke a rule.
thejazzmonger
URL sig removed -Slik
Just like thejazzmonger says, there are millions of blogs (probably many millions exactly the same as yours) out there. If you want your blog to be read, content is KING. You gotta stand out from the crowd and give something interesting. Blogging about all random things (or one's life) might be nice for your friends and family, but whats in it for me as a stranger? Another way of helping this is blog in the area of your expertise (or hobbies), niche blogging. That way, you focus on a specific topic and can connect with others in the same field.
A blog is just like a book or a magazine. If it ain't interesting or appealing, people won't read it. If you are handy with graphic apps, give your blog a nice design (that way it has characters and style) (cus honestly, a blog like yours, I've already seen it a million times over). You gotta think like am author/magazine editor and market your blog. It kinda works like advertising (and Im not talking about spamming).
Once you have done that, then you can think about how to get your blog out there. thejazzmonger already explained how.
g'dluck and happy blogging!
Great feedback. I really learned a lot from these ideas.
I learned:
-content is very important
-sharing on forums is key
-having a signature with your URL is important
What I can add:
-it takes time
-focus on having fun while blogging
Here is my URL
url sig removed -Slik
Thanks.
How many blogs have you visited and commented on? How many blogs do you read daily? Do you have your blog URL in your email signature?
To attract an initial traffic flow that will hopefully convert into regular readers and subscribers, new bloggers who have good writing skills need to focus on:
1. Learning and understanding SEO (search engine optimization) and optimizing blog post titles, sub-titles, and keywords.
2. Mastering use of the blogging platform that matches their goals and is easy to use.
3. Choosing a niche and staying with it.
Interesting content is an attractor and in blogging content is king but promotion is queen. There are 10 standard tips to get traffic:
(1) You need to have expertise in a niche.
(2) You need to know how to write very well.
(3) You need to verify your blog with search engines and structure a reader friendly and search engine friendly blog by learning how to apply basic SEO techniques.
(4) You need to build an archive of high quality original content and keep adding to it.
(5) You need to update your content frequently with new posts in order to hold reader interest.
(6) You need to learn how to promote your content effectively through social media, social networks and RSS feed sites, thereby encouraging other bloggers to backlink to your posts.
(7) You need to comment, comment, comment on other blogs in the same niche and backlinks to related posts in posts of your own.
(8) You need to form relationships with other bloggers and create a blog centered community around your own blog.
(9) You need to encourage your readers to comment on your posts and respond to their comments ASAP after approving them.
(10) You need to participate in blog carnivals in your niche and become a guest blogger on blogs with a higher PageRank then your own blog has.
If you need help with any of those please click my username and visit my blog because I have blogged on each of those individual topics.
Just stumbled upon this while posting on another topic...Good suggestions from all, thank you!
You're welcome from me. :)
@timethief,
Can you tell me (or tell me who to ask) why my post which is featured (!) on the travel and photography tag pages doesn't have an accompanying photo? (It's a photo essay, so I'd really like to have a photo with it...)
I posted this question under a different forum but don't know if I choose the right topic.
The post in question is 'La Dolce Vita' on my blog The World Of Dew at http://www.pamelanmartin.wordpress.com.
Thanks for any help you can offer!
Pam
@Pam
Staff make these "feature" selections. You will have to go directly to them and ask your question just as the others who have posted on this same issue have had to do. Here's the link http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/
Thanks for the info. It's flattering to be featured, but I didn't know why a photo was (or was not) included--wasn't sure if I omitted something...
I'll contact staff directly.
P.
Good. There's nothing we Volunteers can do about this so I'm glad you are contacting Staff.
Best way to get people to look at yours, is to look at other peoples, that are related to yours, and the comment, subscribe etc.
that way you'll be able to make a good set of communications and your blog will start to get more hits
so as mine is about my photography & film work, id look for other blogs like mine, then subscribe, after a while, visitors :)
Matty
Photography & Film -
url sig removed -Slik
@mattymajor
Here at wordpress.com we do not post signature links to our blogs at the end of our comments because they are redundant when the blog linked to our username is already linked to the same blog in the signature link. Here at wordpress.COM we can only promote free hosted wordpress.COM blogs.
BTW here's the report on your broken blog
http://ismyblogworking.com/www.mattmajor.co.uk
To get support for that broken blog you will have to post to http://wordpress.org/support/
wordpress.COM and wordpress>ORG - the differences http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/please-read-me-first-before-posting?replies=1
@wellcraftedtoo
I had a peek at your blog and its also a photography blog (I also have one, and also the same theme as you!), tip for you: I know you want your photos to be seen by viewers. But dont overkill. I've counted the number of photos in one of your post, and if it wasnt for the purpose of counting, I wouldve clicked away after 2 seconds when it still didnt finish loading. 56 photos in one post. Make a smaller selection of the best ones (cus do you really need 6+ photos of the same kind small alley street?). This way you dont drive people away (and people dont like pages to load forever nor posts with 56 photos). Remember, its a blog, not Flickr.
Well said, starsquid. I think load-time is absolutely critical. A hot blogger might have the latest, fastest machine in existence but the "clientelle" out there surfing the web is going to be on all manner of compiuters, and surfing with some VERY slow connections.
It's a good idea to find an older slower CPU and connection and see what that type of user experiences.
thejazzmonger
url sig removed -Slik
@thejazzmonger
On the subject of visiting blogs this is what I see:
thejazzmonger <<<<< username linked to blog
COMMENT TEXT - BLAH - BLAH -BLAH
thejazzmonger <<<<< redundant repetition of username
thejazzmonger.wordpress.com <<<<< redundant blog linkThis is my response to what I see <<<<< do not visit blog
Moderation Notice: Link broken to discourage site advertisement -Slik
waw,, nice info..
I agree with starsquid and thejazzmonger with regard to page loading time. A long page load time is a turn-off to visitors and so is scrolling. It’s important for bloggers to keep in mind that at least half of all internet users are currently using dial up connections.
What that means to us is that half of our visitors are downloading the pages at about 3-4 kilobytes per second. And it’s estimated that if a page has not loaded with within 8-10 seconds we can stand to lose one third of our visitors.
Be sure sure you also avoid these pitfalls:
1. Too many posts on the front page (too slow to load)
2. Too many images (too slow to load)
3. Too many animated icons, embeds, etc.
4. Broken links
Thanks to those above who shared their comments re scrolling, and numbers of photos, etc. I'll keep them in mind.
I can see the rational behind the idea of limiting photos to keep loading time quick...On the other hand, I am patient with loading pages, if there is something interesting to look at 'at the top'. And I sometimes find blog posts too short, or incomplete-feeling, if they are just a handful of photos (had that reaction yesterday to several travel blogs I looked at). With this particular post, I know it is long, but indicated at the top that I wanted it to be something a reader could look at anyway they wanted--from start to finish or jumping around it, or taking a second look at...
The real issue, I think, is intent. I intended the piece to be a photo essay, and a way to describe and recall a memorable trip, for both family and friends, and general readers. It could be I'm trying to accomplish too much in one blog post...
Perhaps I'll make a shorter version of the post for general posting, and keep the longer version for family and friends...
Thanks!
Great tips Timethief!
Wellcraftedtoo
The trick is to think from a visitors perspective. Believe me, the majority does NOT have patience with loading pages. Like Timethief already said, if its not loaded within 8-10 seconds, people turn away. I read somewhere the actual time was even shorter. A blog is not like a book or magazine (contend-lenght-wise), simply because one is looking at a monitor (strains eyes). Even though if it was interesting at the top, people would start reading but eventually just scroll right down (maybe occasionally glancing). People these days read in a selective manner. They only pick out whats interesting to them similar to zapping TV. So unless you deliver the goods fast and effectively, people'll just 'zap' right away. Think about that and goodluck!
(thanks for the comment btw)
@starsquid
I'm with you. You have 8 seconds to load the page and keep the attention of the average visitor after they click the URL. If your page load time is slow they will click out.
Even if they do click in then you had better have an organizational structure that places the focus on your content rather than on colorful sidebar "tat" that not only destroys theme design but draws the eye away from your content.
Cluttered, busy looking blogs, with inconsistent font colors and formatting are a total turn-off. Upper case lettering in blog titles - SHOUT! at visitors.
Well I could but I won't ... as no one here has hired me as a consultant lol :D
@aaronrking What is a great source of traffic for me is actually this forum. And I like that you 'meet' people with all kinds oa blogs which you ouldn't have found otherwise.
Also @timethief, thanks for the page-load info! Very good point.
Oh what the heck here's more. It amazes me when I see people complaining that themes aren't wide enough to display their images. Apparently they are not aware how many are using mobile, notebooks, and ipads, etc. to view their blogs. Maybe they assume we are all on desk tops with movie theater sized monitors. If scroll bars appear on any theme I am history.
Worse still is when I experience a blog with huge in your face images rather than thumbnails that I can selectively click on to see the full size or not. Once again I'm history.
@taleterrin
What is a great source of traffic for me is actually this forum.
I think you really mean the Showcase forum as opposed to the technical support forum. Anyway here is some advice. Promote elsewhere. Do not rely only on the piddling bit of traffic you can get from posting to the Showcase Forum and Off-Topic Forum. Promoting your blog here behind the garden wall within the wordpress.com community may provide a good start but if you want to have a successful blog then recognize that a start is all it is.
If you do not create and activate a social networking time management plan but the time your blog is 3 months old you will have missed the train. Also do be aware that each and every post you publish must be individually promoted on multiple social networking sites, and in online groups and in forums, as part of your traffic building strategy.
Hi Aaron......
I just now clicked onto your blog and ran over some of the posts on the first page. Really, you have touched on some issues and topics which I find very interesting. Several hours ago I left a Comment about whether or not a god exists on someone's blog. I think that once people start seeing what they will be able to talk about and read about on your blog, they will return. You bring up real life issues. I like that.
--LK
url sig removed -Slik
@lornakismet You have been using the forums long enough to know that (Link Signatures) are not allowed here in the forums Please re-frame from posting link sigs in your future replies.
Thanks,
-Slik,
Slikbones.... I did not know! Truly I did not. Sorry.
-LK
Hi! just want to know where I can edit that "Yramjin's Blog" and that line below saying "just another wordpress something.." I want to change my blog's name and that line under it...Where can I find it?
by the way, thanks for the info you've given to Aaron..I learned much...:)
@-LK That's okay I thought you did well now you know... = )
This topic has been closed to new replies.
aaronrking
thejazzmonger
wellcraftedtoo
sl1k
myjopy