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Journal of Acuherb in Medicine


Getting Traffic to Your Blog

J. of Acuherb in Medicine By: | 2011.08.04
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The number one rule is to create valuable content. This is really important. You want people to keep returning to your site. But, how do you get them there in the first place? Time and lots of effort. If you keep at it, using these suggestions below, you will grow your site. I?ll cover both online and offline strategies. Try them both. The easiest to start with are the online ones.

Offline Strategies to Get Blog Traffic

  1. Tell all your friends.
  2. Create flyers or business cards to give to everyone you meet.
  3. Write a?press release.
  4. Do some interviews on TV, radio or in newspapers.
  5. Create a local access TV program where you present similar information that your blog presents and be sure to make your blog URL prominent on the show.
  6. Post flyers in places where your target audience frequents ? also try libraries, the post office bulletin board, supermarkets, and community centers.
  7. Merchandise: bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc. You could look intoCafePress.com.

Online Strategies to Get Blog Traffic

  1. Email?all your contacts that might be interested and ask them to pass the info to their contacts that might be interested.
  2. Social Networking.?Join the top social networking sites and grow your network of friends who are interested in your topic and who are willing to support your writing with votes on social network sites. I cover this in more detail in the next segment.
  3. Comment on other blogs.?Every time you leave a comment you will get a link to your blog and people who read comments might come visit your site. Seek out blogs that are similar to your and have a large following which you can tell by the number of subscribers they have and the amount of comments the blog gets.
  4. Participate in blog carnivals.?You can find out about them by searching online or you can check out?BlogCarnival.com.
  5. SEO:?Optimize your site for search engines. This practice is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short. I?m convinced you could read about this for the rest of your life, but at some point you need just the basics so here is a good article by a trusted source on some?basic SEO techniques. (The author also offers a free e-book on identifying the best keywords to use.)
  6. Create a contest?for your readers that gets them to tell other people about your blog.
  7. Write guest posts at other blogs for exposure to new readers.
  8. Build links?to your blog by commenting on?blogs that have ?dofollow??links which means that search engines will see those links. This helps you get more search engine traffic eventually.
  9. Write really good content.?Write really good content. And write some more really good content.
  10. Brand your blog for success.

Here are a few other articles on getting traffic to your blog:

Social Networking Basics

There are so many social networking sites out there that it can become dizzying trying to figure out which ones are best given our limits on time. So I will give you some basic advice that should really benefit you while keeping it simple.

Here are the basic and most popular sites you should consider joining:

I recommend starting out with?StumbleUpon,?Facebook, and eitherMyBlogLog?or?BlogCatalog.

Facebook: Use this to notify your circle of friends and family about your blog and keep them up to date on posts. You can create groups on Facebook of just people who are interested in your content. You could ask them to share it with their friends.

MyBlogLog/BlogCatalog:?Use this to find other blogs and bloggers. You can learn what makes a good blog. You can comment on great blogs, and also make friends with people who would like to help support and promote your writing either on social networking sites or with links to your blog.

StumbleUpon:?This can probably bring you the most traffic. Here?s what to do:

  1. Join. It?s free.
  2. Read about how to use this service for discovering new websites that interest you.
  3. Search for topics related to you blog or particular blog post.
  4. When search comes up, check out the profiles on the right hand side that list users who are interested in this topic.
  5. You can contact or each of these people.
  6. Craft a polite email that says you noticed that they are interested in ?Topic X? and that you write content in that topic. Offer them a link to your site or blog post. Offer to review anything that they may want you to look at.
  7. Of the people who respond, ask if they would like to agree to support you and you support them on StumbleUpon.
  8. If so, add them as a friend, write a positive ?review? of their profile on StumbleUpon, and ask for their email.
  9. Compile a list of emails of social networking friends who would like to support you.
  10. Over time email your list with new posts that you would like to share with them and ask for a review if they like it. Offer to review anything of theirs in return. Be sure to use the BCC feature on your email when sending to a whole list so that your social networking friends emails are kept private.

Over time as you gain more friends, you could see considerable traffic from StumbleUpon if a lot of people review your blog posts. Always be courteous, don?t pressure people, and offer to reciprocate support. Be sure to let people know that you don?t expect them to automatically vote for you, only if they like your content.

14. Learning More About Blogging, WordPress, and Making Money.

All these steps take time, but if you are persistent and write good content, you will have success. And once you have the basics down you?ll probably want to learn more.

Don?t forget to download the free?Blog Setup Checklist?which will help you keep track of the blog set up process and a place to write down notes or questions to follow up on at a later time. (Clicking on the link will download the free excel checklist.)

Here are some basic articles from WordPress.org on getting started with their blogging platform:

Here are a few highly recommended programs to check out:

?Blogging All the Way to the Bank??– this ebook teaches you some advanced techniques for growing your blog and making money. I learned some new and profitable tips from this book recently that I am excited to implement soon.

?Launch the *** Out of Your eBook??– for when you write your first ebook. This is an awesome book that will help you sell lots of copies of your book. I highly recommend it as do many others.

?SEO Book Training Program??– This is a comprehensive training program for learning SEO. It comes highly recommended.?They also offer many free?and very valuable?SEO tools?plus some basic free training. There is a fee for the advanced training.

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