Yesterday was another typical Monday – back to work, back into the routine, another Carnival of the Capitalists. I’ve been participating in the Carnival of the Capitalists (CoTC) for some time, it’s pretty effective at drivng new readers to my blog. I usually pick-up a few new readers each week from CoTC, yesterday was no exception.
Other than CoTC, I routinely pick-up new readers from comments and trackbacks I do on other blogs. Obviously, you can pick-up referer traffic and new audience through trackbacks from your blog and references to your site or a particular post on other sites, but you can’t control those events…they just happen.
I’ve also had some luck in article submissions and noticed some traffic increases from e-zines I’ve given content to. On one ocassion, I even ran a paper direct mail campaign to bring more people to my blog…resulting in about 200 additional readers.
Other than those things I’ve listed above – and excluding search engine traffic – how do you get new readers to your blog? Are there any forums or Carnivals out there that work well for you?
I’ve created some simple business cards with my personal blog and my blog network project URLs on – that way people can find both sites with ease, and everything else is linked from there if they choose to go online. I also give mobile and email (the particular email address is only published on the cards so if it is used I know that person has seen one of my cards and mailed directly). I’ve already given two away to a couple of bloggers I met today, and have been linked to from one of those blogs.
I think these will work quite well, given to the right people, as there’s something tangible about a card – a lot of people keep cards (I do) whereas an email is instantly deleteable.
I guess I get some from links to my blog from comments I have made on other blogs and forums.
I have started to see a lot of traffic from other blogs providing links to mine and from comments I have made on other blogs. I also put my URL on my email signature and anything I send out on the internet.
I post links to websites I like on my blog. Sometimes this leads to them linking back when they notice the traffic.
Hello,
Definitely from comments I mode on other blogs. But also from the best article (the ones that open the doors to blog about) I wrote. Then, when one of your article is featured on ghigh traffic blogs, you get new readers as well.
Salutations,
Fred
I have several websites that use my feeds as an “industry news” section of their homepage where they syndicate my content (headlines only). 29% of my traffic comes via links from those sites that syndicate my content. Another 67% are regular readers who did not come from a site syndicating my news and only about 4% come from search engines.
For example, my General Aviation News site is syndicated by the Beech Aero Club and by the International Aeronauts League.
I’m pretty much my biggest referral. I’ve got substantial traffic coming to all of my sites from linking me; but not like myself. On all but one of my sites I am the single greatest referrer; all in which bloglines is number 2, and Google is number 3.
I did manage to get a huge chunk of referrals from digg on one of my sites. Which if it seems digg worthy I highly suggest it. Because after it was dugg I still had around 100 or so more everyday readers.
I get traffic from the most unexpected of places. First, I use social bookmarking as traffic drivers. And I also use tagging as traffic drivers.
The bulk of my new traffic comes from other weblogs. My best traffic days come when a blogger finds one of my sites and then others pick up on it. I would love to get more search engine traffic.
This is a fantastic topic, worthy of at least a book or two.
I too have participated in a carnival or two, and have seen my numbers go up nicely as a result.
Links from comments are very worthy, as the incoming readers are generally interested in what I have to say.
Being listed on a design gallery site or two sure helps get some exposure as well. Are you reading this Ryan? ;)
Great comments from all! I truly appreciate the insight!
Tim’s comment spurred a thought to productize my headlines and distribute them…very interesting possibilities :-)
Great ideas for all!
Hmm, my traffic comes from various sources I think.
• forums
• blogs I read and left comments
• Project Petaling Street (a blog/ping portal for Malaysians)
• and lastly, search engines.
Most of my traffic is through search engines and then some comes from regular readers and link backs. I also “force” my weekly newsletter readers to my site so they can read the posts in it’s entirety.
For me, different blogs receive traffic from different places. In fact, my newer blogs hardly get any SE traffic right now – mostly word-of-mouth and cross-links. But, I guess, in other blogs SEs still bring in the most traffic.
Anyway, apart from SEs some readers find my blogs through:
– Blog Traffic Exchange communities
– blog ads
– comments I leave on other blogs
– forums / social networking sites
– from other weblogs/websites (cross-links/word-of-mouth)
– directories and registries (not much, though)
I have launched my blog few days ago. So far the traffic is from the blogs and forums I comment on.
I’ve noticed that technorati tags can generate alot of traffic, and I’ve also had success from e-zines.
Forums and Comments draw personalized traffic. Search engines sometimes turn up unrelated results when they index related text from archives.
Yeah Peter I saw your comment and I know its true. Honestly I pay very little attention to outgoing traffic on UMS so I am very unaware of my linking power on the site; however I have been thrown some rough numbers.
I personally had one of my sites listed on CSS Beauty but that’s back when CSS Galleries were infants and didn’t have that much linking power. Yet it did manage to throw some traffic my way.
I ran a very targeted Google AdWords campaign (!) and got about 50 hits in, and 12 new subscribers over the course of a week. Probably not something I would let run forever, but it does give me a good sense of how frequently people are looking for what I have, and how well I’m doing in reaching them. (Which for the keywords I’d LIKE to be indexed on, is not well at all, but improving slowly.)
My primary non-search engine referrers come from other blogs, Technorati tags, and forum postings – that I didn’t even make! I’ve made at least two postings that have turned into somewhat widely spread email forwards and are driving in traffic from all over.
I also look for creative and unique ways to not only keep my repeat visitors coming back but to drive in new visitors. Consider this: http://www.ioerror.us/2005/06/26/homeland-stupidity-threat-advisory-system/
Obviously that won’t work for everybody, but it’s beginning to drive a little bit of traffic for me, and my regular readers love it…
As I get no traffic from the search engines I rely on forum posts, comments and social bookmarking. I imagine though that being though that being comment 20 no one is going to read this. That was a sort of tip by the way.
My number one source of new traffic derives from the posts themselves. If I make a good post, many other bloggers will link to it and/or comment on it on their blogs, and cumulatively that generates most of my new traffic. It’s rare that a day goes by where I don’t find one of my previous posts mentioned on a few new blogs. I setup Technorati feeds to search on my name and the URL of my blog, so I can see whenever new mentions appear.
My blog is about personal development, so most of the posts are intended to benefit the reader in some way, either helping to solve problems or changing the way people think. These kinds of posts tend to generate a lot of interest and discussion across the blogosphere.
My style also runs contrary to the popular attitude of making short, frequent posts. I make some of the longest blog posts out there, with many being 4000+ words, favoring depth over breadth. I know this hurts me in terms of firing more bullets at search engines, but it helps greatly with providing reader value and generating word-of-mouth traffic. Search engines account for less than 5% of my total traffic.
I’m well aware that many people will not take the time to read one of my 5000-word mega posts, but those that do read them are often affected by them, and when people are affected, they’re far more likely to share that value with others.
I’ve also blogged about how posting can help generate substantial traffic:
100%+ Traffic Increase
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Although I don’t run a blog site (more of a community/service site for subaru owners), the concept of traffic management and url promotion is an intereesting one.
When I first started the site, the only way to generate traffic was to self promote on relevant forums. This enabled the site to get established, and now most of my traffic comes via people arriving direct to the url (presumably people who have seen the site, bookmarked it, and are interested enough to keep coming back).
I have recently noticed alot of traffic coming from other indirectly related websites, which is normally when other people have linked to the site because they felt it had relevant content for them.
Google and other search engines throw maybe 6 or 7 referrals a day, which I guess is quite good for a non-mainstream site.
I no longer have to self promote the site as much as I did, which implies that once a site is established, it may generate traffic through 3rd party referrals alone.
I’m considering adding a blog to portfolio, with the aim to drive traffic up at other sites I have that are not blog-driven. Does anyone else use a blog as a primarily promotional tool for other sites they run?
Dave
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I’ve found that tagging my posts can sometimes get a lot of traffic especially from technorati’s top 100? tags.
Comments on others blogs gets comments on mine. First impressions here count. Forums, signatures, trackbacks and links from other peoples blogrolls. My blogger profile can get a few.
Social bookmarking like furl or del.icio.us.
Allowing users to email subscribe to comments on posts gets return visitors when a new comment is added on a post they’ve commented on. Livejournal style… I always wondered why they have so many comments on those blogs, thats why!
People checking their webstats also come to my blogs. :)
Good Tips. Thanks.
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I can’t be bothered with anything recently. That’s how it is. Pretty much nothing notable going on worth mentioning, but I don’t care.
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The main thing, the important maintenance(contents) of pages after that there are many visitors
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I have a MySpace account for my music and once in a while, i post a bulletin with links to music-related posts on my blog.
I have about 3000 friends – they don’t all check my blog obviously when i post a bulletin but i get a traffic spike of 200-500, depending on the posts.
I’m having a difficult time finding the right blog carnivals to submit to. Hopefully once I do it’ll generate some new subscribers for me :)
G-Man