Increase blog traffic

How to increase blog traffic is the most important thing every blogger is looking for. For increasing blog traffic, bloggers try hard looking for information and ways and spending lot of time on socializing sites, directories, discussion forums etc.

I find lot of sites have come up giving paid services for SEO, SMO, link building etc. Moreover they advertise openly with proofs, testimonials and google search engine policy is against buying and selling of links, buying paid traffic etc. So only google knows what is legitimate and what is not.

As google search engine algorithm has become more smart nowadays, it is not easy to trick the search engine for top ranking. So it is better to follow google webmaster guidelines
and google search engine optimization starter guide.

To increase blog traffic there are already two posts on my blog related to Search engine optimization and building blog traffic published in 2007, so you can go through these articles to begin with.

As in last two years things have changed. There are now more ways to increase blog traffic using different methods and resources.

So I would like to mention few more tips to increase blog traffic.

1) For search engine traffic, do not depend only on google search engine. Please confirm that all your posts / pages are listed in major search engines like search.yahoo.com, bing.com, ask.com, aol.com.

2) You should know basics of SEO to get top ranking in these search engines. Different search engines give different weightage to factors like meta tags, title, etc. You should also know how to get all your posts / pages indexed in bing.com

3) Keep your template SEO friendly. I have seen some templates with missing h1 tag and missing basics of  SEO.

4) Facebook traffic is now almost equal to google so you must use facebook efficiently to drive traffic to your blog or site. You might be having facebook profile and group but creating facebook page and using facebook application is must for this.

5) Learn how to use twitter to get more followers and how to write tweets.

6) Keep commenting on do follow blogs related to your category with genuine comment given after reading their post.

7) There are other high traffic sites, also giving search facility. You should enter your blog information and create a page for your blog on these sites.

8) Write articles related to your subject and submit to good article directory sites which has high traffic and allows you to give link to your blog. Find the list of few article directories here. Do not worry about whether the links given are do follow or no follow. Please read their submission guidelines before submitting the article.

ezinearticles.com - PR 6
articlesbase.com - PR 6
isnare.com - PR 6 (needs 500 words article)
buzzle.com - PR 6
articlesnatch.com - PR 5
sooperarticles.com - PR 5
approvedarticles.com PR 5
goarticles.com - PR 4
abcearticledirectory.com- PR 4
internetwebportal.com - PR 4 (needs original unpublished article)
articledashboard.com - PR 3
articlesss.com - PR 3
amzines.com - PR 3
articlewarehouse.com - PR 3

9) Everybody knows submitting to bookmarking and socializing sites like delicious.com, stumbleupon.com, digg.com etc. But you also need to know efficiently using these services, type of link they give to your blog, how it is indexed in search engines, etc. You also need to find better bookmarking and socializing sites which work better for subject of your blog because some subjects / niche has limited target audience. e.g. for a pregnancy related blog you can find directories and socializing sites specific for mothers.

Please send your comments and share any new traffic source or methods you find out !