Yaro’s put together a good post on How To Launch A Brand New Blog that will be of use to PreBloggers wanting to think through their first day or two of blogging. Here’s part of his great advice:
“One of the problems new bloggers of today face is the hype generated by established successful blogs. You read stories about bloggers earning thousands of dollars per day, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, huge exposure and big profits. Bloggers enter the blogosphere chasing big goals. Once their blog is set up and they have made their first few posts they stop and wonder why nothing is happening. The impatient bloggers head out looking for quick fixes – methods that promise huge amounts of traffic in a few days or weeks.
The reality is you have to pay your dues for success online just as much as you do in the real world. Nearly all big time bloggers have a history of hard and consistent work, only as a snapshot in time *after* something great has been built does it look easy.”
Solid Advice from Yaro there.
In my experience the only real way to fast track a launch is to leverage traffic from somewhere else.
Option 1 – This is a little easier if you already have a web presence and the ability to directly influence current readers (especially if your known in the area your new blog is about).
Option 2 – If you don’t already have such an influence your options are more limited and things might be a little slower to grow. One such option is to pay for traffic via some form of Advertising. You might try AdWords, BlogAds or direct ad buys from other relevant bloggers. If you’re smart with your ads you can actually do quite well from this – but of course it costs you – cold hard cash.
Option 3 – If you don’t have direct influence or you are not willing to pay for traffic another option is to leverage the traffic of others via the links they give you. This takes time as you build relationships with other bloggers and as a result of producing quality content gain traction for your blog from them linking to you. While a slower start, it’s this last option that probably has the bigger lasting impact as you not only bring new readers in but also have a little link love that continues to do it’s magic into the future in terms of helping your search engine presence.
Ultimately all three options are unlikely to bring you overnight success and will take sustained work. Each will not work if you don’t have quality content that meets a need of potential readers.
Excellent points Darren.
I’ve done a combination of 1 and 3 because I just want to leave spending out of it, to see how a natural website can develop. I’m finding that the traffic from related websites and blog commenting is very productive. The blog is also well-loved in search engines, with no appearance of any Sandbox.
Right now, blogging is like magic. If you’re willing to put in the work, I don’t see how anyone can fail. People come here and get excited about blogging, and that can only make the whole thing grow faster.
I find tagging my posts using Technorati tag is also very effective in getting the needed attention.
In addition, I’ve replaced AdSense PSA ads on my popular sites with ads pointing to my new blogs. Both these methods can bring hundereds of visitors to my new blog easily.
Services like Digg can be good promoting point for completely new blog. If you write really interesting things, of course.
I find that my personal habits include one on one relationships and building them up. We can scratch each other’s backs for instance. Cross linking within the content of your blog is helpful and not just slapping a link in your sidebar.
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Thanks for this entry it’s just keep getting better. I also bn to trafficblogschool site and it was very informative as well, First time bloggers should must visit that site. Lotsa of information how to promote your blog.
Brilliant Tip for Newbies, Keep it up darren
Boy is point #1 true. When I started my main blog I struggled for a year and a half to nurture what few readers I had. Once my traffic began getting larger, I found it way easier to start new blogs and build traffic rather quickly.
Steve’s got a point about not just sticking up links in your sidebar.
He’s picking up on your point, Darren, of leveraging other folks’ traffic.
We all move around the Internet from blog to blog having conversations. If someone wants to be included, he or she only needs to start writing and saying things that are refreshing and thought provoking in the places where folks are listening.
Quality content extends into the comments too. Great post, Darren. I never stop working this long to comment. :)
Prebloggers – I’ll be sure to add that to my blogging lingo. Damn right about that though. Anything worth having is worth working hard for.
More and more I’m discovering the best way is to write a really good article of some sort…that is hopefully fresh. Submit this to a few social bookmarking sites (but don’t spam em) and if your article is really good you could get a gob of traffic…
Thanks for the link mention Darren and for everyone dropping by my Blog Traffic School pre-launch site.
The three points you make are spot on and pretty much mirror real world marketing as well. When you launch a new business you can use publicity (which can be free or cost money), buy advertisements or direct your current prospects and customers to your new business, for example via an established mailing list you have build up.
One of the best examples I remember of an online company launch publicity stunt, which wasn’t free but it certainly was very good from a return on investment standpoint, was back in the dot com era.
Joshua Koppelman was the entrepreneur behind half.com (later acquired by eBay) who paid the town of Halfway Oregon $100,000 and 20 new computers to change its name to Half.com (the name of his website). The ensuing media blitz was of course huge and the instant exposure generated a lot of traffic.
Not a bad way to launch a business, not sure you would go that far for a blog though.
I wrote an article at performancing.com about what I call ‘side-kicks’. Side-kicks are all the modern tools which are i.e. available by publishing your RSS feed via i.e. ping-o-matic and using (tagging) services like Flickr (with backlinks), del.icio.us, Technorati and calendar tools like AirSet (with backlinks). The philosophy behind the side-kicks is to see them as individual blogs with special purposes but always linking to the main site. The experience I have made is that you get immediate attention from the search engines which will bring you real readers. You may find the article here: side-kicks for more blog traffic
I think posting (link baiting) is one of the best things you can do.
If you have written a good blog post then post it in related forums/news sites.
careful not to spam or you will be blacklisted!
I also made the experience that you just have to keep blogging, then the traffic will drop in. It’s rather frustrating, but constantly blogging and commenting other’s blogs are the only good ways to get quality traffic.
One can’t get away easily in any sphere. One has to pay for the success whether its online or real. Its a sorry state when one has to encounter traffic but this pass away with time….
Hello:
I’m new to blogging and learning a lot, especially through this site. Yesterday I discovered Wists (sorry, don’t know how to make a link here, http://www.wists.com) and it’s really something I can utilize with my blog (home and garden, gift ideas, etc.). But, I’m wondering if anyone has experience with Wists and what potential there is as a revenue stream.
Wists was founded by David Galbraith, davidgalbraith.org.
I’d really like to hear comments, ideas…and lessons.
[…] As many of you will be aware since you came from the link in the last few days, Darren Rowse from Problogger.net published a blog post – How to Find Traffic for a New Blog – which linked to my last article – How To Launch A Brand New Blog. […]
Oh my god I looked at my blog log and over night june first i got 586 hits. I got it from http://www.126hits.com Im not kidding i was so surprised I thought it was a scam till my site got approved. This is good for and im earning more costumers as I type. If you need some fast costumers for free use http://www.126hits you might get some readers. I got 172 readers out of it. They’re are other sites like this but I would recomend this one you surf other people sites for 20 seconds
I’m a new blogger and have no traffic at all at the moment. I just tried, and will keep trying, the above points and see what happens. I will post a follow up in a week (or two when it appears I need more time :) ) to let you know what happened. Thanks for the great tips!
though i am a new blogger, i am getting some bit traffic from technorati because of using tage…
Thanks for the info. I have a new blog and I’ll try this one.