There are several ways you can drive traffic to your blog. How much traffic you want can vary. If you want to make money blogging you need traffic in millions of page visits. A percentage of those (usually small) will either click your ads or buy your products. Those are only two models.
But even if you don’t blog for money you still need traffic to come to you blog. From the traffic you get comments and potentially more traffic.
To get traffic to your blog, people have to know about you. You need to get indexed by Google to get organic traffic and there are articles on this site which show you how to do that, using strategic linking so I won’t go into this.
Forums
You can also join forums and become an active participant, ensuring you use your blog url as part of your signature. Even after just a few interactions in two of the forums I visit I still get quite a bit of traffic to my blog. Make use of the tools to introduce yourself in any forum you take part in.
Get a Facebook Fan Page
Practically every entrepreneur I meet these days is on Facebook. With over 62 million users, Facebook can’t be ignored for exposure and driving traffic. I have been on Facebook for about a year and for a while I’ve hesitated at putting my business blog on my personal Facebook profile. I set up a Facebook Fan page, but never published it. Facebook Fan Pages are pages you set up for your business profile.
Through Twitter I recently discovered Mari Smith. Mari has published an excellent article (in fact several articles) on her blog Why Facebook? She also has an excellent video tutorial on how to set up Facebook Fan Pages. After reading these resources I’m probably going to set up a Facebook Fan page and that will be one more way of exposing my blog. They are completely separate from profile pages, so you can keep the two separate. You can import your blog posts with RSS and a lot more. If you want exposure and potential traffic for your blog Facebook Fan Pages are worth a second look. They are also indexed by Google.
For driving traffic to your blog Twitter gets a definite thumbs up. My Twitter traffic to my blog has increased exponentially Twitter is fast becoming my second biggest source of referral traffic. On Twitter you register and select people to follow. After a while people will follow you and it grows from there.
You soon create an audience interested in what you have to say. To use Twitter effectively however (in fact any Social Networking Site) sharing useful information, giving, networking, and aiming to build relationships are the key things to keep in mind. It does require patience and work. If you only ever tweet your own stuff, people will be less than impressed and you won’t gain much. Find and share information in your niche and jump into the conversations and it becomes a two-way experience. Whenever you do a new blog post, you can ”tweet” about it on Twitter – giving you more exposure and traffic over time. You can even have your posts re-tweeted if someone finds them interesting enough and wants to share with their own followers.
I joined Twitter a few months ago when my own Special Report on Social Media Copywriting was “tweeted” about by someone who was reading it. He emailed me to say he was reading my report and was I on Twitter as he was going to re-tweet it. I thought I’d better join.
Driving and increasing traffic to your blog is part of marketing your blog. If you don’t market it, it doesn’t matter how good it is, no one will know you exist. So if you’re blogging, get out there and introduce yourself.
How do you drive traffic to your blog or site?
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Great article summarizing ways to generate traffic (in fact, our interaction on Chris Brogan’s website has led me to read this article today).
One comment I would add regarding FB as a promotional tool is the boundaries between professional networks and friend networks.
FB in many ways is still an informal site and encourages informal interactions. Be sure that if you decide to market through FB, that your message meshes with your audience.
If it is a professional blog, having a not so professional FB pic could work to your disadvantage.
In a recent article of mine, 15 Pages of Infamy, I touch upon this boundary in regards to networking and the precautions that should be taken in an age where anyone can ‘google’ you.
Ah, the power of commenting on other blogs, John. Thank you for visiting. You touch on an excellent point about Facebook. In fact, I personally don’t market through my Facebook profile at all, though everyone else seems to recommend doing so. I actually had my FB profile before my business, and it’s still more or less a personal connect with friends and family and past colleagues etc. I am very much more informal and personal on Facebook, than on Linked In (which is totally professional) or even Twitter and I am still very reluctant to turn it into yet another marketing channel.
My plan to drive traffic Facebook,however is to set up a Fan page which would be specifically the business and professional. That way I could get the benefit of of FB promo in a business sense without it being on my profile – we’ll see. That’s where I see the happy medium.
Even so, your point about FB being for informal interactions still, I think holds true – I think people often forget this. I will check out your post.
Thanks for your comment.
your article has directed me to a worthy resource ! thank you for sharing im deep in Africa but learning alot and now i want to optimize my facebook account!
thanks
Nairobian Perspective’s last blog post..The Power of Public Speaking!
I noticed that fora are the most effective way of getting high quality traffic, since most of the time, all people on the forum are interested in the same thing. Something that is not always the case for other Social Media Websites…
iCan’t Internet’s last blog post..Starting with Adsense
Forum merketing is a good way to get traffic but the best traffic source for my online business still remains the search engines.
Search engine optimization really does yield great results if done right
Niche Marketing Blog’s last blog post..How To Add Your Blog Feed To Your Facebook Profile
Great post! Blogging is a great marketing tool and it helps to expand your business if your blogsite is teeming with traffic. I have been doing some of these suggested tips myself. One of my favorites is posting on forums. Forum sites are good platforms for exchange of information. Although they can also be likely targets for spam, but there are many out there who actually contribute new information and seriously join in discussions. I’ve learned a lot of information and ideas just by reading forums. This had been an enjoyable read.
Great info, certainly a treasure for a newbie..thanks for sharing this