I strongly believe that engaging in conversations and networking with other bloggers is very important. I find it’s much more important to build a sense of community than monetize your blog or try to get a nice Page Rank. The fun stuff usually happens in the comment section.
But, in order to get new readers you need traffic! You certainly want people to talk about your brand new blog, don’t you? So here are 7 ways to get traffic to your new blog! By now you probably figured out that this post is more for people that are just getting started than the experienced bloggers. :)
Commenting On Niche-Related Blogs
Many will say that commenting on blogs won’t get you much traffic, but commenting often and adding value can go a long way! Not a lot of people will click on your link in your comments, but these people are very likely to subscribe to your RSS feed!
It is also a great way to grab the attention of the blog owner. If you write meaningful and value-packed comments, the blog owner will notice. A lot of bloggers are stats addicts (some are more addicted than others) and I’m sure we all check for new comments a couple times a day.
The Power Of Digg
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you must have heard of Digg. While it’s getting harder and harder to get posts promoted to the frontpage, if your post does make it eventually, you can expect a shit load of traffic!
You have to be prepared though. Imagine 80,000 (or more!) people visiting your site in the span of a day. Most likely a lot of people will talk crap about your site and leave some nasty comments. It’s fine, at the end of the day you got more subscribers (read: people who really liked your blog) and your Alexa rank looks much better!
Tutorial on social media and social networking coming up in the next couple days/weeks :)
The Greater Power Of StumbleUpon
If you’re just getting started maybe you haven’t heard of StumbleUpon yet. If that’s the case just go sign-up, you’ll thank me later! :)
Some of my other blogs have been on the Digg frontpage several times, and honestly, I much prefer StumbleUpon traffic. People tend to stay longer on the site and the subscription rate also seems higher.
But the cool thing about StumbleUpon is that traffic will also last longer! With Digg the traffic will usually slow down after a day or two and almost completely stop after 3-5 days. With StumbleUpon you can expect traffic to keep flowing for weeks or even months after your page has been submitted.
The Even Greater Power Of De.Icio.Us
I personally really like Del.Icio.Us. It’s a bookmarking site, so that means when you hit the frontpage it’s because people bookmarked your post. On Digg and StumbleUpon, many people will just vote after reading the title, and may not really care about your blog. With Del.Icio.Us you know for sure people liked it. Hey, why bookmark something if you don’t like it or don’t think you’ll want to visit again?
While Del.Icio.Us won’t send as much traffic as Digg or StumbleUpon, the traffic is of very high quality (again, it’s a bookmarking site!) And Del.Icio.Us is also great for getting links. For instance if you look in the sidebar on this site you’ll see the ‘Blogging and Design Links‘ section. These are my latest Del.Icio.Us bookmarks. And I’m not the only one doing that, many bloggers display their del.icio.us bookmarks on their own blog(s). Links are always nice :)
Does Your Code Validate?
I know many bloggers don’t care if their code validates or not. But if it doesn’t you’re missing out on some nice traffic.
You see, there are a lot of sites like CSSMania, CSSCollection, CSSRemix and Nice Stylesheet that showcase well-coded and appealing designs. Basically you just have to make sure you don’t use tables and that your CSS and XHTML validates. Oh, and search engines might like your blog more too! :)
Should You Start Guest Blogging?
This is not only a nice way to get traffic but also a great way to get your name out there! Folks like Steven Snell, Ritu B. Pant and James Chartrand are very good examples to follow.
You can see Steven guest blogging on pretty big blogs like FreelanceSwitch, MostInspired and others. Ritu writes on FreelanceFolder, Marketing Hackz, Geekpreneur and many more. And James, when he’s not on Twitter, is writing guest posts on CopyBlogger (that’s kick-ass!), FreelanceFolder and other blogs.
I’m sure these guest blogging gigs are helping them quite a bit in getting traffic to their own blog(s) and projects. :)
Linking Out Is Very Important
You remember I said that a lot of bloggers are addicted to checking their stats? Well if you link to relevant posts from niche-related blogs in your posts, chances are these bloggers will eventually come check out your blog to see what you have to offer and read your stuff.
Of course if you link to Problogger or ZenHabits, it may not work so well because these guyz are crazy busy, but you can go back to point #1 and comment on these blogs instead. Or keep linking to them if what they write is relevant to the post you’re writing.
Your Turn To Talk
I’m sure if you’ve been blogging for a while you’re already doing all of the above, but please share your own tips and tricks in the comment section below so we can all learn from each other. What have you tried already? Did it work as expected or not? Let’s talk! :)
Thank you. I just started my blog on Monday. I will follow these steps and try.
You’ve sold me, I’ll start using del.icio.us next week :-)
@Bloggers Time:You’re welcome! Let me know the results!
@Dave: You’ll see it’s worth it. Oh and try adding the tagometer thing on your blog too :)
As always Jon, you’re straight to the point, relevant and you can be sure I’ll apply all these great tips to my new baby.
Jon, this was an awesome post man! Great job. keep em’ coming!
ohh ohhh ohhhh I missed my name on the post, read it again and there I was proudly displayed ;-). Thanks for mentioning me man :-)
Jon,
Thanks for the mention. I highly recommend guest posting to any blogger. It’s helped me so much over the past year. I’ve never found guest posts to directly bring considerable traffic to my site (although recent guest posts on ProBlogger did get a decent number of click-throughs) but over the course of time it will open up a ton of new opportunities, grow your network, and expose your work to many more people than you could ever reach otherwise.
On the subject of social media, I prefer delicious and SU over Digg. Digg does send the most traffic, but like you said, SU lasts longer and seems to be a bit higher quality. Delicious is great for building links and I also second your advice to use the tagometer badge. WIth Digg I felt like I was only getting immature teenagers to my site, but maybe they were just the only vocal ones.
Thanks for mentioning NiceStylesheet Jon! I definitely agree about engaging in conversation and networking with others. When I first started blogging, I did a lot of networking to build up traffic but have since slacked off for whatever reason.
I think it’s time to start working on that again. ;)
Thanks Jon
This is a great list… how would you go about submitting to digg though without looking too spammy?
Great read and some very good points.
Hey Jon – Nice post! I must say, I do prefer Stumble Upon just for its ease of use and generally good traffic return.
Great post!
few minutes ago, i test StumbleUpon posting http://www.cuoma.com/blog … WOW, seconds later we review Mints statics and have +50 concurrent unique visits, maybe one or to bots, but works!!!
Thanks Again!
All valid points. I would also add two more:
– adding a link to your blog in your signatures on forums, emails, etc. will give you an extra exposure, especially if you’re active and helpful in forums.
– in addition to commenting on other blogs, what helps the most is establishing a relationship with another blogger. Bloggers tend to link out a lot to blogs they read and visit on a regular basis, so establishing a circle of friends in blogiverse is precious.
Outstanding post and article, Jon. Indeed, getting traffic to one’s website is ever challenging due to the nature of the web which is EVER expanding – so even though someone might be getting consistent traffic for awhile, still, the web is growing, creating newer challenges to keep that same traffic coming back. The web is the ULTIMATE challenge – let’s see how things pan out as time unfolds. Thanks Jon!!!
Keith Johnson, M.S. Education
Hallandale Beach, Florida, USA
Motivational Author & Technical Writer
http://greatdocuments.net
http://ommeditation.info
Great post, great advice. I’m just getting started, and the whole thing seems a tad overwhelming, but I’ll be sure to check out del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Digg. Thanks!
Ed
A Talking Ed
http://atalkinged.com
Great article with well thought out suggestions. I’m doing most of them, but I’m going to go tak another look at my del.icio.us account (have not used it in a long time).
I agree that StumbleUpon can be a real winner in terms of high quality traffic.
BTW…I like your experiment with the http://www.jonphillips.ca site. Pretty cool.
I’ve had great success with StumbleUpon, but almost nothing from digg, it seems only the already-popular sites do well (because people now vote through those sites within the posts, and the votes just come rolling in…
Commenting On Niche-Related Blog works very nice and really received some message directly in my mailbox from blog owners after that. And a good thing to get more traffic from other countries is to post comment in other language website using google translate and post message in Netherland, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French…..
I did that with my magento store website ( http://www.website1service.com) and it works nice.
Great post.
I have heard that do follow comment is also a great way to generate traffic is it true?
good tips. Thanks.
I’ve heard the same thing about SU being much better than Digg. Unless you make the DIgg homepage, it doesn’t generate much traffic. For that reason I’m focusing on SU more than any social bookmarking site at the mo.
Great article John, I definitely have to sign up to Stumble upon and check it out
thanks for sharing
ps come say hi on sunday
pab
very nice list, i also prefer delicious
about the digg, well i think many people are doing some kind of tricks or whatever b/c yes it’s really hard to get you going on it
Useful post. Design Float is also good to submit to. Its less used than Digg, and therefore easier to get to the front page, but the traffic is highly targeted.
Nice article, I honestly think backlinking is the one and only way to success cause at the end of the day search engines win and in search engines eyes backlinks prevail.
Thanks for the article though John!
5/5
A very good read. I’m starting one my own and this info is very useful
Thanks for the mention Jon! Nice article too, enjoyed it.
I’ve had a Del.icio.us account for a while, but I just recently started using a lot for more web design related topics.
These tips are great. Very helpful and the article is very well-written.
Great explanation of the differences between Digg, StumbleUpon and delicious. I know about all three of these but didn’t understand the advantages to using one over the other in blog promotion until now.
That’s a solid list of methods to get the traffic flowing. It’s good that you pointed out the differences between the kind of traffic you get from the various social bookmarking options–not all sb’s are created equal!
Hey Jon, great post. I wonder, do you stumble or digg your own posts? Do you have any recommendations on that?
Thanks,
–Sean Patrick Simpson
I would like if you write something about promoting a forex blog like mine
Thank u for sharing but it seems to be so hard to get trafic for my blog.
Ok….Guilty! My name is Denee and I’m addicted to my STATS page. **le sigh**
So YEAY for me…I’m doing a lot of these. YEAY for you for giving us more to do. Truly, people like you who do the investigating and are willing to share will have a special place in Blogger Heaven. :-)
Thank you and happy 2010….and every other year!
Hey Jon, thanks for the post. Any idea how twitter stacks up these days? Also do you have any tips on getting more people to stumble or digg your posts/site?
The only thing that stop me from blogging to my max power is my age.I am just 12 years old now and so I don’t have a bank account,so no credit card or PayPal account.
I’ll now start using del.icio.us from now[on my new blog]….Now,I am plotting ides for my new blog’s name…which is very difficult….
Well good post ….
Can I use these methods on a blogger blod. I’ve known about digg ,stumbleupon and de.licio.us before but never used them. I’ll have to search and see how they work.This is good information though.
I use blog commenting in two ways really. I obviously like everyone else want a backlink, and hope that someone will find my comments interesting enough to visit my blog. The other and in some ways more important reason for me to blog comment is to find like minded people to network with.
I have had many joint ventures in the past with people who have found me through comments I have left on a busy blog.
great article , it shows very clear to me, list is nice , Thanks so much
Good article, I will try a few of these myself.
I totally agree when it comes to using Digg and Stumbleupon, I’ve seen huge increases in traffic when you get it noticed. I’ve noticed with Stumbleupon it almost seems to happen at least for me on a regular schedule like once every 21/2 months I’ve have a huge explosion of traffic for a day or two even if I don’t add new links to that site.