This is a guest post on improving blog traffic from Courtney Tuttle. Courtney writes about marketing online at Court’s Internet Marketing School.
1. Create link clusters within your blog
A link cluster is a group of links that you can point at a post or page to improve its search engine ranking. Let’s say you have a post that’s ranked for ‘stupid business ideas’. Edit 10 of your other posts to create links (using ‘stupid business ideas’ as the anchor text) to the ‘stupid business ideas’ post and you will surely move up in Google for that keyword. This process can be implemented in about 10 minutes and can be used for any keyword your site ranks for or is trying to rank for.
2. Rework HTML title tags of trafficked posts
By watching your stats, you can often identify posts that get search traffic from a keyword, even though the keyword isn’t listed in the HTML title of the post. By editing your posts’ HTML titles to add the keywords they cover, you can strengthen the rankings and therefore the traffic that the post generates. You can easily make a difference with this method in less than 20 minutes. This method combines very well with #1.
3. Invite your readers to connect with you on StumbleUpon and Facebook
You can never ever have too many friends on SU and Facebook. Inviting existing readers to find you on these services with a post should take less than 20 minutes.
4. Save your best posts for the best times of the week
Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have good traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog’s stats to determine when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a good day to publish – it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up.
5. Edit your post one more time
How can you improve your title? How can you improve your first paragraph? Small details in your post, especially in the beginning of your post, can make an enormous difference in its ability to draw social traffic and links. You can definitely improve your title, first paragraph, formatting, and grammar within 30 minutes.
6. Stop writing about yourself. Start solving problems
Surfers become readers when a blog provides something that is wanted. A casual visitor may read your blog because they find training, answers to problems, entertainment, or something else they want. This more than likely will mean that they won’t want to read about you, your girlfriend, your cats, your kids, or your catastrophes (unless you have a personal blog that your friends read). Discontinuing the off-topic posts will help you to develop more repeat traffic and takes exactly 0 minutes to implement.
7. Subscribe to the feeds of your industry’s major players
That way, you won’t miss important news releases. When news breaks in your industry, there will be a lot of extra traffic searching for information on the event. Adding your thoughts will almost always generate extra traffic. Subscribing to the feeds of your industry’s top sites should take no more than 15 minutes.
8. Give a great post to a prominent blog
Let’s say that you took the time to write something great. Donating your post to a great blogger can help you to create a win-win. The great blogger gets a great piece of content that will bring him social traffic and links and you can create exposure for your name and brand. Emailing your post to a great blogger or blog takes less than 10 minutes.
9. Go to the store
Look at magazines. Pay special attention to the types of titles that are used on the covers. Write down the most interesting titles and think about what makes them interesting. In order to generate buzz around a post, a great title is an absolute necessity. More on this topic here: The Cosmo Headline Technique for Blogging Inspiration. You should be able to find some good title ideas in about 30 minutes.
10. Answer your email and comment questions
Nothing will show a reader that you care more than answering an question (even if you have already answered that question 100 times on your site). Why do people read your blog? Because you solve their problems. Why will they come back again and again to your blog? Because you solve their problems. Answering a person’s email or comment question should take less than 5 minutes.
Gotta bookmark this one…good advice!
Just a comment on point number 5.
I believe excerpts are very useful in drawing social traffic. When you submit your post to social networking sites, write a special excerpt for it. Do not put the post heading as the description of your article. An excerpt gives a quick overview of your article that grabs the reader’s attention.
It’s Aaron again …
Forgot to thank Courtney for the great tips, great post! keep up the good work.
It is very useful for part time bloggers like me looking for quick ways to improve our blogs.
Darren, thanks for posting this guest post.
Very nice tips. Some of them are just brilliant)
These are great tips for general communications as well. Thanks for sharing and reminding since so many of us just simply miss the points.
1. Create link clusters within your blog
I missed this part,I knew there are something to do with our our keyword ranking and my best post search engine ranking version ..lol
My of my traffic comes from MySpace. I will spend about two hours a day just request new friends and those people will often look at my blog.
My of my traffic comes from MySpace. I will spend about two hours a day just requesting new friends and those people will often look at my blog.
outstanding tips which have worked for me personally
Great Tips! I’m going to have to use a few of these.
Another Great Side Tip Is To Leave Comments On Other Blogs! I Have Noticed That Alot Of My Traffic Comes From Comments That I Have Left On Other Peoples Blogs.
Interestingly, we actually have the blog http://www.stupidbusinessideas.com/ and we will be trying to employ some of your not so stupid ideas in the immediate future. Nice one, thank you!!
great article. I plan to listen to all you said :)
changing headers and keywords for old posts working.
What about updating your posts uploading new media content?
Excellent information.
Well.. feel a bit awkward for no 8..hehe..
need a lot of writing skills to write to make another blogger to accept our post.?
Y not write for our blog instead if its a good article..?
Very informative. Not only book marked, ive printed this out
It sounds so easy–and it is, I suppose, if you pause and think and consider. It’s on my list of things to do. Thanks for posting!
Awesome tips!
Another Great Side Tip Is add your blog and posts on the first dictionary of web content. (http://www.dictionaryofwebcontent.com)
More traffic.
Thanks Darren
This really is useful information for me as a starting blogger. Court’s Internet Marketing School seems like a good place to hang out for a while too. I’m not shure I get the ‘link cluster’ thing but I’ll have a look at it later on!
Great post – thanks !!
Super points, Darren. I’m still trying to figure out how to get more from Stumble….it sends me the highest amount of traffic.
very interesting tips. than you.
Plain English, to the point, common sense advise, that will now force me to alter this weeks schedule. Thanks so much. Folks in my industry are in need of this kind of straight shooting advice. Thanks
Thanks for the great post. I will try #1!
Good information.
I follow some of these tips and they works great. Your post reminded me of others that I should use more often. Number 2 is simple and it can make a huge difference.
About #4 you are right. But I try to enhance my traffic on slower days. So at least once a month, I write about a great topic and submit it to high traffic community sites that work great for my niche. It is a way to boost a slower traffic day. Typically, a topnotch topic posted on the weekend on the right community will bring good traffic until Monday.
Hi’
Great tips, but you know…
With a language as small as Danish, I tell you, that you English writing people, you have it way to easy :-)
Does any off you have any good examples of bi-language personal websites ?
So far I’m only writing in Danish, but maybe some regular English postings could be good for traffic ???
I usually spend about 20 minutes a day at my favorite discussion forums, and during that time, I am involved in the discussions and I get ideas for new blog posts.
I think it’s important to connect with people at discussion forums, and use your signature to drive traffic to your blog. I get some good traffic every single day from discussion forums, and it doesn’t take me more than 20 minutes.
To an extent, I would have to disagree with point #6. Sure people want solutions to their problems, but blogs by nature are very personal and conversational. A relationship is developed between the blogger and reader over time and it’s necessary to talk about what you’re doing to make that connection even stronger.
Sure blogs that go too deeply into personal matters don’t really generate a huge readership. However, there’s still a place for personal matters even on a value-packed informational blog.
I believe that point # 6 may be a source of blog hits as well depending on the subject and how it was handled by the blogger.
Because experience is still the best teacher and having a personal approach towards a topic that has been dissected oh so professionally adds to the flavor and sheds new light to it.
Based on my experience, though I’m not that main stream, the blogs having funny, and very personal takes on topics like tv shows and politics are the ones with more comments and hits.
Again, I guess it’s how you handle a topic that gives it value. I always like reading personal experiences.
About nubmer 6:
I am not sure Dooce.com would be as popular as she is if she followed that one. Haven’t you read about all the blogger’s selling books because there are so many readers following their lives. Another blog that is growing fast is thepioneerwoman.com. She only blogs about her life and not problems. She opens a window up to readers into her life on a ranch. She is fun to read and takes great pictures.
There are many big mommy blogs out there. The readers go there to read about the kids and see the pictures. And, yes, to hear about how the mommy bloggers overcomes problems as a parents, but it isn’t as much about problems as it is about good writing and building relationships with their readers.
I think it all comes back to writing well. Taking the time to write posts that are of high quality no mater what it is about.
I have found that my traffic grows when I follow that one rule. Each time I become a lazy blogger which is more than I care to admit, my traffic reflects it.
I blog about my life and my children as well as other things that interest me and I think will interest my readers. My readers WANT to hear about my kids and how they are adapting to life in a new country and being bilingual. My readers want me to post photos of our weekend trips to large cities in Switzerland.
I think there are are blogs where you have to talk about your life even if it is as simple as what you ate for dinner with a good photo. A good example is an expat blog like mine. My readers are interested in finding out what is different in Switzerland all the way down to the food I eat.
My readers are coming to my blog to peak into my life as an expat in another country. It is a mini vacation for them. So, my job is to make sure they enjoy that mini vacation. ;)
I really have to disagree with you on this one. I don’t think all blogs are sucessful for the same reasons. I think that personal bloggers do need to write about themselves, but they need to do it very well. However, I do agree that blogs like Problogger will need to stay away from personal posts about themselves.
Great post. It’s interesting to get to know the promotion method for blogs. Thanks.
Great work! In my experience Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days to publish your content. At least if you have a lot of readers who visit your blog from work.
Great post! Enjoyed it thoroughly.
I really like number 6 as well, cause I tell people way too often how it can be done easily.
we have to solve our own problems daily, so we can adapt our own solutions to assist others. it actually seems so obvious to me, but the complaints I hear about content creation keep rolling in
i found countless blogs by searching for highly specific technical problems, and vice versa
and contrary to @pumpkin’s belief, great writing seems to be going out the window to me. people dont seem to be reading anymore, and its no wonder considering the available interactivity.
get to the point, present it in an easily digestible manner, and do not bore us with large blocks of copy
Darren – Your point 4 is bigger than most people think! Nice list.
Thanks for the great tips Darren..^^ they are really helpful..I will always remember them and try them out as well..^^
STUMBLED!
I will definitely be using these tips.
VOTED for you at:
http://www.newsdots.com/blogging/10-ways-to-improve-blog-traffic-in-30-minutes-or-less/
as usual,
very very useful post again darren
Number 10 is the killer for me and its easy to see why in a site like yours.
I know people regularly circle for the first comments on a post, but you regularly answer informative questions and posts.
Loving the 46577 subscribers – thats a real testament of the community this blog helps to build.
#2 can also be crucial, especially for heavily trafficked posts and keywords – can be difference from 800 backlinks to getting lost in the crowd
Fan of blogging and Problogger,
Gurji.
hi I often visit your pages …thanks for the info
Since a long time am observing people wanting directions on how to earn from the net. There are avid hunters of sites and there are those that really are lost and don’t know where and how to begin with.
I often collect info and share it via my blog…
thanks
Cool tips thanks a ton.
thank for this article ive beentrying to increase traffic to my new design resources blog and this should help. Good work!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this post! That is a wonderful list of tips that you have put together. #3 is a great suggestion!
Thanks for sharing!
Great article! I found it nice that I was already doing some of the listed things!
Darren I enjoy this guest post. Court is usually right on.
I have seen all these great pieces of advice here and there and of course in my mind I would tell myself ‘I’m going to get to that’ but things tend to get put on the back bench for later.
Maybe this time I will stay focused enough to get these started.
thanks
Great tips as always!
Wonderful! Was wondering how to move up search engine rankings especially when generic terms in my industry are used. Very enlightening! Thank you!
Thanks for the tips. I like number 10. I think it’s very important to keep in communication with those who take interest in your site or blogs!