30 Blog Traffic Tips From Daniel’s Daily Blog Tips Group Project

Daniel of Daily Blog Tips had the briliant idea to host a blogging project, where the participants would give Daniel a traffic tip and then he would post them all on his blog. Not only that, but all of the participants would then post the tips on their blog thereby giving out mass link love to eachother’s blogs. Anwyay, what resulted was a really nice list of traffic tips.

Here is the list of blog traffic tips and my comment under each one in red:

1. Daniel
   
   A simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.
   
   My Thought: I hadn’t really thought of this, but I bet it does increase traffic. I may have to test it out sometime.
   


2. Brian Auer
   
   According to my Google Analytics, about 35% of my traffic comes from other people’s blogs and 25% comes from the forums I’m active with, while search engines provide about 15%. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums.
   
   My Thought: I use this all the time to get extra traffic.
   


3. Kat
   
   I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like” community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.
   
   My Thought: Being involved in the community is a huge key to quick success.
   


4. Tillerman
   
   Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.
   
   My Thought: Wow! Now this is a great idea. I did something similar to this once, but I should do it more often when I start a blog in a new niche.
   


5. Eric Atkins
   
   Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.
   
   My Thought: Cool idea. I will have to keep this in mind when I get my blog redesigned.
   


6. Sridhar Katakam
   
   Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. How do you know which blogs to keep track of in the first place? Add the MyBlogLog widget/code to your blog. When you notice a MyBlogLog user visiting your blog, visit that person’s in turn.
   
   My Thought: I do this all the time. I also keep track of blogs using bloglines.
   


7. Dennis Coughlin
   
   Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.
   
   My Thought: Yet another thing I do.
   


8. Guido
   
   Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.
   
   My Thought: All things I do.
   


9. Grant Gerver
   
   Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.
   
   My Thought: Humor is a good way to drive traffic to your blog. If people find you funny, they are bound to return to your blog. I REALLY NEED TO REMEMBER THIS ONE. I keep thinking I should use humor more on this blog (see next note for example).
   


10. Megan Taylor
    
    Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience.
    
    My Thought: This is one I love using, not because of the traffic, but because I like having conversations on my blogs (often with myself).
    


11. Ramen Junkie
    
    Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup.
    
    My Thought: Interesting thought. I never use newsgroups and don’t plan to, but I am sure it works.
    


12. Ian Delaney
    
    Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Making a post along the lines of ‘Evaluated resources for XYZ’ is useful. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page.
    
    My Thought: I Agree!
    


13. KWiz
    
    Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works.
    
    My Thought: I have a post sitting in my drafts folder that would certainly be controversial. I will probably never post it, but occasionaly I think about. Controversy is a great way to get traffic.
    


14. Splork
    
    I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic.
    
    My Thought: I have done this and it works well.
    


15. Alan Thomas
    
    Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now.
    
    My Thought: Really good idea. I plan on doing something similar sometime this year.


16. Brandon Wood
    
    A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.
    
    My Thought: Me too.
    


17. Engtech
    
    Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs” but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.
    
    My Thought: If you have been reading my blog the past 6 months you know I agree with this tip.
    


18. George Manty
    
    Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or setting up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.
    
    My Thought: Totally lame tip. I mean come on George, what were you thinking?
    Oh wait, that’s my tip… On second thought… AWESOME TIP. BEST BLOG TRAFFIC TIP EVER!
    


19. Mark Alves
    
    Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.
    
    My Thought: I don’t ever talk about this technique (well once to my newsletter readers), and yes this works.
    


20. Andrew Timberlake
    
    A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.
    
    My Thought: This works for any website, it’s a good way to get extra traffic.
    


21. Inspirationbit
    
    Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.
    
    My Thought: I will have to try that one.
    


22. Scott Townsend
    
    Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources.
    
    My Thought: Do it all the time, it’s important.
    


23. Jen Gordon
    
    I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site.
    
    My Thought: Deja Vu.
    


24. Chris
    
    Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense, you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages, including some of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.” Including your own webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.
    
    My Thought: If you read my blog, you know I use Squidoo.
    


25. Kyle
    
    Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog.
    
    My Thought: WOW, something to keep in mind.
    


26. Nick
    
    Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.
    
    My Thought: Phew, this is taking a long time! How many tips did I say there were?
    Oh, and yes this works.
    


27. Jester
    
    Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.
    
    My Thought: Deja Vu again (is that Deja Vu Vu?)
    


28. Cory OBrien
    
    Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).
    
    My Thought: Yes, yes, yes. All good tips. I need to find a way to get traffic from Digg. Maybe everyone that reads this should Digg it, but also Digg Daniel’s post. That way we can both get extra traffic from Digg.
    


29. Shankar Ganesh
    
    Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog.
    
    My Thought: I have tried this and it does work.
    

If you follow the tips above, you should get some good traffic to your blog…