Monster Guide on How to Increase Blog Traffic for Free

This is the first part of the Monster Guide on How to Increase Traffic to Your Blog for Free.

Beside quality contents, attracting traffic to your blog is also important. There's no point writing a great content only to have no one read it.

Searching from the Internet, you could find tips on how to increase your blog traffic. There are many ways to attract traffic to your site, lets look at the common methods used by experienced bloggers to increase their blog traffic, without paying a dime (read: free):-

Quality Content

Content is KING. Your blog should have good content in order to keep your visitors coming back. By good content I mean well written posts that are unique and useful at the same time. Writing original content is definitely the key.

Do not copy-paste contents directly from other blogs to your blog. Re-blogging is a bad thing and will kill your traffic. The solution here is to write that content in your own words adding your own unique ideas to it. And don’t forget to link to the original post.

The more engaged you are with your content, the more interesting it will be.

Trade links

Many webmaster trade link with other web sites and the site must be related to the subject of your web site. Instead of trading links, you could also trade banner ads, page ads, classified ads.

The more links you have the more traffic you get. But you won't get traffic immediately after the link exchange, traffic from those sites will come at a later stage when their sites nd your site are more mature . In addition, link is the currency of blogs. So how do you go about getting links to your blog?

Well written posts are often linked back by many sites. You are lucky if you get linked by heavily trafficked sites.

Another way is to get links from other bloggers. Link to their blogs and ask them politely to do the same for you. Also visit the ‘links’ section of a blog (if they have one) and check for a link exchange form. If there is, submit your blog after linking to theirs.

You may also take part in other link exchanging programs.


Power of comments

Most of my first visitors came to my blog because I left a comment on theirs. When you comment on a blog leave your blog address. This is called joining a blog conversation. Often people like to know who is reading their blog and will come visiting you.

Readers of that blog will also pay a visit to your blog. But do not comment just for the sake of it. Make genuine comments that relate with the post. In the process you will not only get visitors to your blog but might also make friends.


e-zine or electronic magazine

Start e-zines for your web site. Sign up e-zine directory and publish e-zine to let people read each issue in order to revisit your web site. e-zines are like newsletter. If they cannot read your contents, you delivery your contents to them. The trick is to get them subscribe to your blog first.

However, e-zines or newsletter might be obsolete soon as there is this thing called RSS Feed which allowed subscribers to read your contents from various RSS Reader without them actually visiting your blog. No doubt, you will not get traffic from them, but they are still in contact with your blog !


Online community

Form an online message board, e-mail discussion list or chat room. When people get involved in your community they will regularly return to communicate with others.

If you think that setting your own online community is too technical or a hassle, then you join those popular forums. With your active participation in those forums, you can get more traffic to your blog from those forums.

In addition, post answers to other people’s questions and ask questions and post appropriate information. You may Include your signature at the end of all your postings. See Yahoo!Answers or MyLot.


Write articles for publication elsewhere

You not only write for your own blogs, you can also write articles for other blogs or e-zine sites.

Submit your articles to e-zines, web sites and magazines that accept article submissions. However, expect to submit your article to those sites for free. You can include your business information or signature or web address (URL link) at the end of the article.

How you can get traffic from those e-zines sites is that, search engine will stumbled on your articles or the e-zine members discovered your articles in which when they see your link, they might click on it and they will be redirected to your blog, thus increasing your traffic.


Freebies, Free Stuffs and Sponsorship

Give away and allow your visitors do the same. This will increase your web exposure and attract people to your web site at the same time. Feel free to sponsor anything you can afford in a contest or in any events that you favored.

Submit your freebie to the online directories that list your particular item or service for free. If you’re offering a free e-zine, submit it to all the free e-zine directories on the internet.


Take part in Blog Top Sites

Submitting your blog to Blog Top Sites like blogcatalog.com, topblogsites.net, blogtopsites.com and top100bloggers.com is another way to get more traffic. These networks make your blog easier to find and search for as well. After you sign up for an account on their website, you just need to copy a bit of code and paste it somewhere on your blog. This is called reciprocal link. They link to you and you link to them.

You can also take part in blog traffic exchange communities like BlogExplosion, BlogMad and BlogClicker.

To join these blog traffic exchange communities - visit the site, sign up, confirm your account, add your blog to the member directory and then start visiting other member’s blogs.

Basically, you need to earn ‘traffic credits’ in order to get blog traffic exposure. These credits are often gained by visiting other member’s blogs. When you have enough credits, your blog becomes eligible for promotion. Usually, a link or graphic to your blog will be shown on the main site or in fellow member’s blogs. This is how other people find your blog.

Of course, the more members there are in the community, the more potential visitors. So, if you are part of a blog traffic community, it’s good to promote the communities you belong to as well. Besides, when you promote the community through a referral system, you get more credits too.