How to get traffic to your blog

So now are getting to the point of this article where I start sharing everything I have learned over the last couple years about blogging. So, if you are like most, you want to create a blog so that others can read what you have to say. Sadly, people will not find your blog (in the beginning anyway) unless you do a little legwork. These are some of the things I did to get traffic and some that I still do. The first thing I suggest doing is writing a few great articles about your topic and feature them in your sidebar. Then I would start working on generating traffic, because you not only want traffic, but you want returning traffic as well.

Guest Posting!!

I think this is one of the best ways to start getting some quick traffic. Almost every blog I know allows guest posts (even this one) – and almost every one of those does not discriminate. What I mean is that most bloggers (that I know anyway) will accept or reject a guest post based on it’s quality, not on whether they know the person or not. This provides a great opportunity for a newbie to write an article that could be seen by 20,000 readers. I don’t know of any other method that could bring traffic as quick. I must admit, I could still do more guest posting myself. I have been pleased with the results in the past. The key is to write a great article – don’t hold back your best stuff. I have seen people grow their blogs very quickly by giving some of their best articles away as guest posts. Also, only submit unpublished content as a guest post. If it has already been published, then the blog that is allowing you to guest post won’t get any search engine traffic for that article. But there are places to republish your articles you have already published – we will get to that in a minute…

Sign up for blog community sites

Just a few off the top of my head are mybloglog.com, technorati.com, and blogcatalog.com. Look for other blogs in your niche and join their networks and ask to become their friends. Networking with some of your fellow bloggers here will send a few visitors your way and is a good way to get started.

Submit to Blogcarnivals

One of the best things beginning bloggers can do is to sign up for blogcarnivals. At this site you can submit articles that you wrote on your blog to be included in a list of articles by the hosting blog. It is kind of like “open mic night.” If you have a good article with a good title, you can get some good traffic from blogcarnivals, not to mention incoming links from other related sites.

Join Directories

If I were starting a blog today, one of the first things I would do is Google “whatever topic I want to blog about” + “directory” This should return a list of web directories about your topic. Getting added to these directories will only help. You may not get a lot of traffic from them, but ultimately they will help you get more traffic from the search engines. A few of the more valuable ones to get you started…

• Yahoo Directory
• BOTW.org
• DMOZ.org
• Blogged.com
• JoeAnt.com
• Greenstalk.com
• Familyfriendlysites.com

Blog Commenting

One of the absolute best ways for new blogs to get traffic is just to comment on other blogs. Commenting with a thoughtful and provocative response will often send a few visitors your way. The blogging community is generally a very social community and those who are active in the community often reap the rewards of it.

Forum Commenting

Becoming involved in forums related to your topic and having a link to your blog in the signature line can send a few visitors. Google “your topic” and “forums” and you are sure to find a few. Just don’t be annoying and go in just to promote yourself. People can see that from a mile away. The new age of the internet (aka Web 2.0) is very much a “give and you shall receive” environment. If you seek to give and be a benefit before seeking your own rewards, you will be much better off.

Linking to other blogs

I don’t know what it is, but everyone wants to know when someone is talking about them. So it is with blogs. When people link to my site, I get a notification and often go check out who linked to me and what the context was. I have had some good relationships form just from this.

Create Squidoo pages

Squidoo.com, InfoBarrel.com, Hubpages.com,  and a handful of others are sites that allow you to build a simple page about a topic. You can do it very quick and the pages often rank well in the search engines. If you build a page that gets a little bit of traffic and have links coming back to your site, you will catch some of those visitors. If that weren’t good enough, many of them allow you to earn money from your articles as well.

Article submissions

Submit articles to article submission sites. These sites collect articles and most allow a bio-section that can include a link back to your blog. Here are a few that are worth looking into…

• ezinearticles.com
• goarticles.com
• articledashboard.com
• buzzle.com
• articlecity.com

Add Feedjit Live Traffic Feed to Blogger

Would you like to know more about the traffic visiting your Blogger blog (Blogspot Blog)? Feedjit is a free tracking tool that tracks visitors to a blog in real time and identifies what pages are visited. In this Blogger tutorial you will learn how to add a Feedjit widget to your blog which will track where visitors originate from and what pages they viewed. Adding a Feedjit widget to your Blogger blog is easy and takes less than 5 minutes. This tutorial is suitable for all Blogger bloggers (Blogspot beginners). Updated 10 October 2009.

Feedjit monitors traffic to your site and ranks it based on popularity and relevance against the traffic received by other Feedjit users in your local area. There is a choice of 4 different widgets: Live Traffic Feed, Live Traffic Map, Recommended Reading, and Page Popularity. Each of these widgets has different functions.

Feedjit Live Traffic Feed Widget for Blogger
Places a widget on your Blogger blog of the last 10 visitors. By clicking on the real time link you can actually view the last 50 or so visitors along with the keyword search phrase used to find your site. The Feedjit's Live Traffic Feed shows statistics in real-time about:

The city and country your visitors are in

The website they arrived from, if any

The page they visited on your website

Which external link they clicked to leave your site, if any

Feedjit Traffic Map
The Traffic Map widget places visitors to your site on a world map according to their physical location

Feedjit Recommended Reading
The Recommended Reading widget makes suggestions to visitors about what other blog posts they might be interested in based on general page popularity

Feedjit Page Popularity
The Page Popularity widget lists the 10 most popular pages that have been accessed by visitors on that day.


How to Add a Feedjit Live Traffic Feed Widget (Gadget) to Blogger

1. Visit Feedjit
   
2. Select Live Traffic Feed.
   
3. Click on the Customize It link under Live Traffic Feed. This will allow you to enter colors to match the theme of your blog. If you are in doubt I have found that the easiest method to get the custom colors of a site is to go to the Layout > Page Elements screen in Blogger and click on Add a Gadget and then Adsense. From the configuration screen that pops up you can get the colors of the background, border, title (heading in Feedjit), URL, text. If you use these same colors in your Feedjit widget it will blend in with the rest of your site. You can preview your widget to make sure it looks as you would like it before adding it to your blog.
   
4. To automatically add the widget to Blogger select the Click to Add to Blogger Link and follow the instructions. Or to manually add it which I myself prefer right click the code in the box under the heading Live Traffic Feed and select copy.
   
5. Navigate to Layout > Page Elements in your blog if that page is not already open
   
6. Select Add a Gadget in the Sidebar and then HTML/Javascript
   
7. Paste the code by placing the mouse in the box and right clicking and selecting paste
   
8. Save the widget and then using the drag and drop feature of Blogger move it to your desired location. Note HTML/Javascript widgets are best placed after your other widgets for faster loading.
   
9. Save Template
   
10. Click on View Blog to view your newly created Feedjit widget
    
11. Click on Options in the Feedjit widget and then Ignore My Browser otherwise the widget will record your visit each time you view your blog. The option on the widget will now change to Stop Ignoring Me which you can reverse by clicking on the link again.If you use more than one browser you will need to tell Feedjit to ignore you for each browser.

This Blogger tutorial has discussed how to add a Feedjit Live Traffic Feed widget, gadget or button to Blogger to track where visitors are being directed from and what posts they are most interested in. A Feedjit Live Traffic Feed will help you learn about the visitors to your blog and what search phrase they used to arrive. To add a Feedjit Live Traffic Feed widget to Blogger is simple and takes less than 5 minutes to install.

10 Tips to Build Blogger Blogspot Site Traffic

This article discusses 10 easy ways Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers can build site traffic and in many cases improve SEO - search engine optimization. By implementing these steps you will improve the likelihood of your site ranking more highly in search engine results of major search engine players Google, Yahoo and MSN and as a result increase the number of visitors accessing your site.

10 Easy SEO Tips for Blogspot Bloggers to Improve Search Engine Rankings

1. Make Your Title Tags Search Engine Friendly
One of the most important tweaks necessary for Blogspot Blogs is the adjustment of the title tags of your website because Blogger.com by default has not optimized these for search engines. To prove this point navigate to an individual post on your blog and you will see that the blogname appears first in the title bar at the top of your browser followed by the post name. As search engines place greater value on the first words of an entry this puts your site at a disadvantage in search engine results. Fortunately it is easy to reverse the blog name and the post name with a simple tweak.



2. Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks
Blogger automatically generates a permalink based on the title of your post each time you make a post. For this reason it is important to craft your title carefully. Permalinks are sometimes less than ideal especially if you have a long title. Take for example the following permalink for one of my posts:

http://blogknowhow.blogspot.com/2009/02/improved-permalinks-for-blogger-posts.html

You will see that it is search engine friendly in that in contains 2 keywords blogger and permalinks. However you may be surprised to know that How to Create Search Engine Friendly Permalinks for Blogger Posts is actually the title of this post not Improved Permalinks for Blogger Posts. I have initially used a title that is keyword rich and then after publishing gone back and entered a more descriptive title. No matter how many times I change the title the original permalink remains.

Not very pretty is it? And as you can see the whole point of the post is lost.


3. Add a Social Networking Button to Your Blog
By adding a Social Bookmarking button to your website you will enable visitors to your blog to create links to popular social bookmarking sites such as Google, Technorati, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Delicious, Furl, Yahoo etc. This means that visitors to your site will be able share these links with others thereby helping you attract more traffic to your site and encourage return visits.

Another benefit of a social bookmarking button is that you will be able to identify visitor trends and social bookmarking behaviour on your site. For more information on how to add a free Add This Social Bookmarking button to your Blogger blog please refer to my article Add a Social Bookmarking Button to Your Blog.



4. Submit a Sitemap of Your Blog to Popular Search Engines
If attracting traffic to your site is important to you then it is imperative that you ensure that your Blogger (Blogspot) blog is properly indexed by popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. One way to expedite this is to submit a sitemap to each of three major search engines. Please refer to my tutorials on website submission, authenticating your site and adding your site feed to Yahoo Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools and MSN Tools.

Google - Submit Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google

Yahoo - Submit Your Blogspot Blog to Yahoo

MSN - Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN Live Search

5. Build Quality Links
If you want to rank highly in Google and other search engines then you need to generate quality in-bound links. That doesn't mean exchanging links with everything and everyone as I see some new webmasters do. A few quality links from authoritative sites will boost your page rankings quickly and are far superior to a bunch of links from low ranking sites.

There are several good ways to generate links to your blog. One easy way is to to submit your site to blog directories. For more information on recommended blog directories please see my article Submit Your Blogger Blog to Blog Directories. Another way to cultivate in-bound links is to submit your best articles to article directories. A third possibility is to actively participate in forums and on other related blogs where commenting affords you the option of adding a link to your site.

I would recommend linking to DMOZ (Open Directory Project). Care needs to be taken to submit your site to the correct subject area. Becoming listed can take awhile so patience is needed.


6. Write Quality Content and Post Frequently
If you have read any articles on the subject of Blogging and SEO you will no doubt have observed writers emphasising the importance of quality content. I can't stress enough how much return visits depend on providing inducements to visitors to come back. If your site content is well written and informative half the battle is won. Make sure you post frequently so that visitors can see the value of subscribing in a reader. Take some care with the presentation of your content and images as this will present a professional image. Avoid common pitfalls like bad grammar and spelling mistakes which stand out like a sore toe and detract from a visitor's overall positive experience of your site.

One leading professional blogger Yaro Starak recommends the use of pillar articles. These are articles that don't change over time and continue to attract visitors. The best pillar articles explain some concept, provide definitions, give advice or present some argument. Your site needs to have at least 5 pillar articles and more if you can manage it. Pillar articles need to be more than 500 words long, crafted to generate interest and provide a welcome resource to your visitors.

7. Ensure Your Content is Keyword Rich
Apart from the quality of your content there is the question of keyword density. The more keyword rich your posts are the greater the likelihood they will appear higher in search engine results. This means it is worth the effort of crafting your content in such a way that you make use of important keywords and keyword phrases frequently used. Don't go overboard however as Google is smart enough to recognise if your pages are littered with keywords and nothing much else. A useful free SEO tool to help you optimise your site using keywords and labels is Google Adwords. Another good tool to help you quickly craft keyword rich material is Live Keyword Analysis which assesses the keyword density of keywords and keyword phrases of any post you paste into the analysis box.

When writing posts make sure your opening sentence describes what the article is about and contains your keywords and keyword phrases. It is important that your first sentence is keyword rich as search engines like Google give more emphasis to content at the beginning of the post. Also it is worth including a short ending statement about the content of the post as there is some evidence that Google also places value on the content at the end of the post.

8. Manage Your Feeds Carefully
Feeds help your visitors find your site so they need to be managed carefully in order to make the most of them. Your site feeds are an important way to create backlinks too. Backlinks from authoritative sites are highly valuable and can boost your page ranking. For information about showing backlinks please refer to the Blogger Help Article About Backlinks

Ensure you have your RSS feed icons clearly visible for visitors to see. The most superior positioning of the feed icons on your site is in the header. Watch out for coming tutorials on how to improve positioning of RSS feed links.

You can redirect your feed to a feedburning service like Feedburner and then add a chicklet to your site (orange RSS feed button) so that the feed is instantly available on click. Please refer to my tutorials about Blogger feeds:Burn a Blogger RSS Feed at Feedburner and Blogger RSS Feeds and Feedburner. To add a FeedFlare to your burned feed check out my tutorial.

If you haven't burnt your feed you can try adding a Subscription Links widget to a sidebar too to encourage visitors to subscribe to your site in popular on-line readers such as Google Reader. You will find the Subscription Links widget available under the list of gadgets.


Display your most recent posts by configuring a feed widget. Under Layout > Page Elements add a feed gadget to a sidebar. Enter the URL of the default feed of your site which will be:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Enter Recent Posts in the title and then Save.
You can do the same for comments if you wish to have a list of recent comments displayed in your sidebar. In this case you would enter:

http://yoursitename.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

Ensure you set up your site feeds to show the full text. To check this navigate to Settings > Site Feeds and select yes from the dropdown box for all three feeds.

Consider having a feed specifically for a popular label if it contains 20 or more posts.


9. Optimize Your Use of Images
Chances are you don't give a thought to images when you insert them into your posts but images can be optimized by careful use of filenames and the alt attribute. When naming images avoid long names. Instead give your images distinctive filenames rather than something generic like 00045.jpg which has no meaning.

The alt attribute allows you to specify what text is displayed when a visitor's mouse hovers over an image. The alt attribute also gets displayed if the image is not available for some reason. By optimizing your alt attributes you are increasing the likelihood of your images appearing in Google Image Searches.

Optimizing your alt attributes is easy. Every time you insert an image into a post look for the alt attribute which will be empty by default

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Fill in the alt attribute with a useful description of your image

style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 122px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="Blog Know How Sidebar Showing Add This Bookmark Button" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/abcdeefgBxA/4560/sidebar-add-this-bookmark-button.JPG" border="0" />

Depending on the subject of your site you can gain a lot of traffic from the images you post on your site. The more unique the content of your site the greater the likelihood that your traffic will stem from images. Without going overboard ensure you have a good mix of images to support your articles.


10. Take Advantage of Web Analytics Services
Having implemented some strategies to improve crawling and indexing of your site by search engine giants Google, Yahoo and MSN chances are you will want to see how these changes have impacted on the traffic reaching your site. Web Analytics programs are a valuable tool for gaining insight into visitor behaviour and trends. The kind of information that a program like Google Analytics will provide is:

how users reach and behave on your site

the most popular content on your site

the impact of optimizations you make to your site (e.g. by how much did changing the order of title tags improve traffic from search engines?)

This article has discussed 10 easy ways to build site traffic and improve SEO for Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers by addressing the following areas: feeds, images, social bookmarking, title tags, permalinks, content, analytics, submitting your blog to search engines.

Add Google Analytics to a Blogger Blog

If you are new to blogging at Blogger.com you might not be aware that tracking and statistics software can be linked to your site to give you details about your visitors. The process of adding a free tracking program such as Google Analytics is relatively straightforward. By following the simple steps below you will gain access to very useful data about the kind of traffic accessing your site. This will help you grow your site and target your content to meet the needs of your visitors.

Steps to Add Google Analytics to Your Blogger Blog

1. Login to Google Analytics
Login to Google Analytics at http://google.com/analytics with your Blogger.com login. If for some reason you wish to create a new account you can do so but be aware that you will lose the advantages of accessing other Google services such as Google Webmaster Tools and Google Adsense without having to log out.

2. Sign Up to Google Analytics
Click on the Sign Up button and you will be taken to the Analytics - New Account Signup page. Enter your blog URL, account name, country, and time zone on this page.

URL
The URL of this blog is getadsonblog.blogspot.com

You would enter nameofyourblog.blogspot.com

Account Name
It is a good idea to choose a general name such as Mike's Account because this will be the account name for anything from 1 to 100 websites.

Click on Continue.

In the next screen you will be prompted to enter your personal details: your name, phone number and country. Complete these and click on Continue.

The final sign up page is the Terms of Agreement screen. Once you agree to these your sign up is complete.

3. Copy the Code Block
After completing the signup process Google Analytics provides you with a code block of javascript to be added to your site.

To copy the code highlight the code block and use the command Ctrl + C to quickly copy the code to the clipboard of your computer. Leave the window open as you are going to return there.

4. Login to Blogger.com at http://www.blogger.com/
In a new window login to your site at Blogger.com and navigate from the Dashboard to the Layout tab.

5. Navigate to Edit HTML in the Layout Menu
From the Layout menu select the Edit HTML link (third from the left after Page Elements and Font and Colors). You are going to be adding a little bit of code to your template so care needs to be taken here not to overwrite any existing code. As a precaution it is advisable to backup your template at this point. You will see the option to do so.

6. Add Code Block to Your Blogger Template
To add the code block to your template you will need to locate the code that closes the body tag. This will be very near the bottom of the template. You will need to paste the code block immediately before the tag.


To paste the code block position the cursor in front of the tag and use the command Ctrl + V. Once the code is placed in your template and you are sure it is positioned correctly click on Save Template. All going well you have now successfully added Google Analytics to your Blogger blog.

7. Return to Google Analytics
Go back to the Google Analytics window. On the Overview page you will see details about your blog such as Reports, Status, Visits etc. If there is a tick in the status column your Analytics code is working correctly. The screen should look something like the one pictured below.



If the Status contains a yellow triangle symbol with an exclamation mark inside don't despair it just means that Google has not yet updated details of your site. Check back in 24 hours as it can take Google sometime from installing the code to actually providing reports.

Once Google Analytics is successfully receiving data about your site you can begin to make use of the wealth of information at your fingertips.

8. Troubleshooting
If after a day the status still displays a yellow triangle you may need to troubleshoot. A yellow triangle is displayed when the code is not detected or not verified.

Check your Blogger template to ensure the code block is pasted in the correct position.

Further help:
You will find excellent help from Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/support/analytics/.

For details about why Google Analytics is not able to track your site check out
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en_US&answer=57053&utm_id=ad