101 FREE Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic

Written by George Manty · May 17, 2007

I am a bit behind where I would like to be with my blog traffic series. So I decided to write this post listing 101 ways to get traffic to your blog. Then I will take some (not all) of these points and talk about them in detail in my series on getting blog traffic.

Here goes, 101 ways to get traffic to your blog:

1. Join MyBlogLog, add friends, and join communities.
2. Sign up for Technorati and ping it when your blog content changes.
3. Use a ping service like pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators.
4. Submit your blog to all of the directories on Robin Good’s list of RSS directories.
5. Use trackbacks.
6. Leave comments on blogs in related niches.
7. Tell your friends about your blog and specific posts.
8. Put your blog URL in your forum signatures.
9. Create link bait.
10. Tell Your newsletter subscribers about your blog.
11. Write press releases for your blog.
12. Link liberally to other blogs in your posts (many bloggers check who links to them).
13. Tag your posts using Technorati tags or a tag plug-in.
14. Submit your posts to multiple social bookmarking sites using OnlyWire.
15. Use Stumbleupon to stumble your posts.
16. Answer questions on Yahoo answers with the answers on your blog.
17. Answer questions on forums related to your niche with a link to one of your blog posts that answers the question.
18. Set up a feed on MyYahoo so that Yahoo keeps better track of your blog.
19. Make lists (My Top 5…, Ten Things…, etc.). Many of the most popular blog posts are lists like this one.
20. Use pictures. Most of the top trafficed blogs use pictures in their posts.
21. Use video on your blog.
22. Find out what people want to learn about in your blog’s niche and write about it.
23. Be the first to break a news story.
24. Use keyword research to find good keywords to use in your posts.
25. Write controversial posts.
26. Strongly Agree or strongly disagree with other bloggers and write about it with a link to their post.
27. Make it easy for your readers to sign up for your RSS feed.
28. Make it easy for your readers to Digg your posts.
29. Ask your readers to submit your posts to social bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, etc.).
30. Interview well known people in your industry (it’s working well for me).
31. Give credit to the blogs that inspire your posts.
32. Don’t be boring.
33. Write for beginners.
34. Participate in group writing projects.
35. Participate in blog memes.
36. Create a blog meme and tag your friends.
37. Participate in blog carnivals.
38. Post at different times of the day.
39. Submit your best posts to article directories.
40. Write Killer Content .
41. Start a group blog. These tend to get more traffic, because more people are creating conent and more people are promoting it.
42. Have guest posters.
43. Create a blog meme and tag an A-list blogger who you like.
44. Submit your blog to regular web directories (like DMOZ, etc.).
45. Join SpicyPage and promote your blog on it.
46. Join a blog webring.
47. Sign up for BlogWoods and promote your blog on it.
48. Join LinkAndBlog and do link and blog challenges.
49. Submit your best posts to Netscape.
50. Exchange Ads (not blogroll links) with complementary blogs.
51. Trade blog roll links with related blogs.
52. Sign up for Rojo. Subscribe to your feed and click “add mojo” on your better articles.
53. Add a plug-in to notify users of new comments (I REALLY need to do this).
54. Make it easy for your visitors to submit your post to ALL social bookmarking sites (not just Digg).
55. Add a tell-a-friend script or plug-in to your posts.
56. Make it easy for your visitors to bookmark your page in their browser.
57. Make it easy for people to link to your blog.
58. Use easy to read fonts.
59. Use a professional looking blog design.
60. Make your blog easy to navigate.
61. Highlight your most popular posts.
62. Write posts that ask provocative questions.
63. Use questions for the title of your blog posts (you knew that was coming).
64. Use good keywords in your post titles.
65. Reply to every question you get through email.
66. Reply to every question you get on your blog.
67. E-mail other bloggers about your really good post(s) (breaking news posts).
68. Offer free stuff related to your niche (tools, ebooks, etc).
69. Run a contest.
70. Publish videos on YouTube with the URL for your site at the beginning and end of the video.
71. Install a translation plug-in or use a translation service to translate your blog into foreign languages.
72. Put Your URL on everything that goes out of your house (business cards, stationary, mailing labels, etc.).
73. Go through listible.com’s list of web 2.0 sites and promote your blog on all web 2.0 sites that apply.
74. Search for Wikis related to your niche to submit your blog to. For example, for this blog the search phrase would be “make money online wiki” or “internet marketing wiki”.
75. Give regular polls (use a poll plug-in like democracy for this).
76. Add trivia quiz pages.
77. Add ecard pages.
78. Add a forum for your visitors to discuss more on your niche.
79. Add a wiki to your blog .
80. Join Hubpages and post links to your blog from articles you write.
81. Join Blink List and make a list of blogs with your blog in it.
82. Join 43 Things and write a list of 43 things you want to achieve (include your blog url in the list).
83. Join Blogger Party (and/or other free blog systems). Then write posts that link back to your blog.
84. Make a Squidoo lens (or more than one) with a link to your blog.
85. Provide Wikipedia articles with links to your blog where it makes sense.
86. Tell people you will link back to them if they review your blog (like John Chow).
87. Join Blog Catalog (kind of like MyBlogLog).
88. Create a MySpace Page. Put your blog on it, and get some friends.
89. Use SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
90. Use good grammar. People will be happy with your writing.
91. Submit your blog to directories in your niche.
92. Email or Instant message your friends to Digg, stumbelupon, etc. your post.
93. Link to your blog from other websites and blogs you own.
94. Write a post about the top x bloggers in your niche or state or country, etc. Then tell them about, so they will want to link back to you.
95. Promote your posts on related newsgroups.
96. Post frequently.
97. Submit your site to free website review sites like coolsiteoftheday.
98. Search for .edu sites with link pages, forums, directories, and wikis to submit your link to.
99. Give out blogging awards and tell the bloggers you are giving the awards to about it.
100. Pray. (That’s just always good advice)...
101. Make a 101 list.

BONUS:
102. Think outside the box.

Filed Under Blog Promotion, Blog Traffic, Blogging, Blogging Tips, Make Money Online

Comments

54 Responses to “101 FREE Ways To Increase Your Blog Traffic”

Daniel on May 17th, 2007 9:56 am

Good one George. I love 101 lists, you probably know!
Daniel on May 17th, 2007 9:57 am

This is great! Alot of these I never thought of. Thanks Manty.
George Manty on May 17th, 2007 10:03 am

Thanks Daniel and Daniel.
Mike on May 17th, 2007 10:15 am

And when these ideas don’t increase your traffic, then what? What’s the back up plan? And when the back up plan doesn’t work…

I’ve tried increasing traffic, but every idea I’ve tried never worked.

Mybloglog is just about people wanting you to visit their blog. They leave general comments but don’t read your blogs or join your communities. It sounded good when I first heard about it but it didn’t work.

Technorati, I won’t even get started on how useless that site is.

All these ideas sound good, but they don’t actually work.
George Manty on May 17th, 2007 10:23 am

Have you tried number 40?

I actually had more than 101 ways, but didn’t want to make it into a 117 ways list or something like that.

The best ways I know of are number 40 (write killer content) and Networking (which might not have even been on this list) but it’s in my 4 simple steps list:

http://www.canimakebigmoneyonline.com/index.php/20070411-the-4-simple-steps-that-doubled-my-blog-traffic-in-4-weeks/
George Manty on May 17th, 2007 10:26 am

Also, I just visited your blog and the ads on the side are not for everyone (not family friendly). But the biggest thing is that it looks like you haven’t been blogging long. It takes time to build up a readership. Although, some of the things on this list (especially number 40), will get you there faster.
Amanda on May 17th, 2007 11:32 am

I love lists, however i would get lost in a 101 list that must have gotten tedious.

i should make a list… i just made a brief one on networking. i think that should be the big thing right now teaching people how to network on top of promoting their sites how to do it properly. i did it today on accident..
George Manty on May 17th, 2007 11:46 am

Yes, it took a long time, because I kept repeating things on accident.

Thanks,
George
Zellman on May 17th, 2007 5:30 pm

Thanks for this post! It could be useful to promote my blog.
Million Dollars Quickly on May 18th, 2007 12:04 am

Excellent list…though I am supposed to know something about getting traffic to blogs, I found I did not know quite a few ideas discussed in your list…thank you!

NS @ Mill Doll Quick – how to make a million dollars quickly – http://www.billdoll.com/dir/biz/fin/q/million_dollars_year.html
tony on May 23rd, 2007 12:02 am

well, thanks for the list.

it also needs sincerity to start earning money.

take care
http://www.sumitkar.org
Dave on May 23rd, 2007 1:45 pm

Hi George, thanks for the great post. I just blogged about your site and linked to this post in particular.

In regards to Mike’s comment about Technorati being useless, I have to wholeheartedly disagree. Technorati is a fantastic service for bloggers and tagging your posts for technorati will definitely get a new blog indexed quicker in Google.

Also, MyBlogLog and blogCatalog are great places to find new readers, but you have to be friendly, leave nice comments for people and generally be social in the community if you’re looking to get anything out of it.

Anyway, thanks George. Added you to my Blogroll and I’m going to buy a TextLinkAd from you for the new blog directory/rating/community service I’m working one.
George Manty on May 23rd, 2007 6:48 pm

Thanks Dave. I agree about getting traffic from Technorati and MyBlogLog. I get traffic from both of them.
dian on May 24th, 2007 12:04 am

Thanks dave …I will follow your tips
kweenkong on June 2nd, 2007 5:42 am

Wow, this is excellent. I’ll post this to Blog Band-Aids, and thanks for visiting there. Hope you found something equally useful.

kweenkong

http://blogbandaids.blogspot.com
George Manty on June 2nd, 2007 7:06 pm

kweenkong,

Thanks. I am glad you liked it. Your blog was a good read. I can’t remember how I came across it, keep up the good work.
Brilliances on June 13th, 2007 5:54 am

Nice. I must write a list myself…

How long did it that for you to come up with this?

Jerry—Road to Mega Millions
George Manty on June 13th, 2007 6:43 am

I am not sure how long it took to come up with. I did it in bits and pieces.

George
Brad Trnavsky on June 27th, 2007 10:51 am

Great post! I am really new at this, but am learning quickly! I think I have about 75 things to implement now! I will definitely be back!
George Manty on June 27th, 2007 11:31 am

Brad Trnavsky,

Glad you got value out of the list and thanks for stopping by.
cooliojones on July 6th, 2007 8:44 am

This is a great list! What people need to understand is, there is no one fail-safe solution. Owning and running a blog is work…and there will be constant tweaking to get yours to work. Everything isn’t for everyone also, because we are all different. At the end of the day, you will have to find the right formula that works for you. I may write a guest post about that shortly! (If it hasn’t already been done).

Great site, and good job!
George Manty on July 6th, 2007 8:54 am

cooliojones,

Thanks for the kind words. It is definitely a lot of work to run a succesful blog.
jimmy on July 21st, 2007 8:43 pm

yes this is a great list of resources.

Thank should get you going.

The one thing I was very successful at doing was to go to other blogs…(the good ones) indexed highly on google….go to alexa and find out where they are getting their links…and hey presto, you will find where you need to get your links from.

but overall lots of good quality post, that you tag and ping is going to help out tremendously.

cheers
James Mann on September 4th, 2007 11:58 am

Well I have to say that you have just about the best list for blogs and traffic I have seen all in one place. That makes it extra great, thanks

I didn’t stumble upon this page, I was actually looking for stuff like this but your post is definitely worth a good StumbleUp. I will get right on that.
George Manty on September 4th, 2007 12:11 pm

James,

Thank you. Glad you like the list and I appreciate the stumble!
Nixus on October 19th, 2007 1:22 am

Thanks for the tips. I actually started an experimental blog which will share the community each step taken and results as income. So I will use those tips also and will share the results.
Keep up good work.
George Manty on October 19th, 2007 7:07 am

Nixus,

Sounds great! Look forward to seeing your results.
Bryan on November 6th, 2007 11:11 am

Hi George,

Amazing 101 list. All these suggestions are very helpful and I have already seen an increase in my daily traffic just from doing about 10 of the above items.

Thanks again I love free help,

http://internet-business-world.com
Spointz on November 6th, 2007 3:34 pm

Great List! Lots of great ideas to try out.
knut on November 19th, 2007 9:15 am

Still working on my blogg, think I have to make a 101 list my self!
Thanks for the idea!

Knut- http://killingmydayjob.blogspot.com/
Check out my blogg now and then for improvments
tmlsuperspice on December 17th, 2007 5:54 am

This is SO perfect!!
Thanks
John on January 3rd, 2008 4:56 am

Great advice for anyone starting out blogging and on how to get traffic to their blogs. A lot to think about. Thanks for the advice.
juka14 on February 6th, 2008 10:07 am

Thanks for all the great tips. I’ll try them all and see if i can boost the traffic for my blogs.
Mark on February 11th, 2008 3:53 pm

Great tips. I always love reading a great 101 list especially if it is useful information for me to use.
Rebates on February 15th, 2008 9:37 am

Wow nice article.
Love the blog and have added you to my digg account…
TrafficGuru on February 20th, 2008 8:54 am

Amazing 101 ways to increase traffic.keep it up.
100 “Top 100″s for Writers | Real Words on March 13th, 2008 1:50 pm

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Stephenie on March 17th, 2008 4:37 am

*takes notes *
really spiffy list!
I’ll have to make sure to try and put a lot of these into play…though I’ll probably have to start up some form of system to track all the blog sites I’ve signed up for!
Thanks so much!
Claude on March 20th, 2008 4:19 pm

nice tips. applied some of them on my site as well as blog
Bob on March 30th, 2008 5:19 pm

Excellent suggestions. Might I add that a short burst of paid traffic can create residual traffic well into the future. I recently purchased a URL that had absolutely no past traffic. I dropped $20USD for paid traffic over a couple of days. Right after that my daily traffic jumped from 0 before the $20USD to, on an average 40 hits per day and growing.

chasemortgagegroup.com
George Manty on April 2nd, 2008 8:42 am

@everyone,

Thanks so much for the kind comments.

@Bob,
Buying traffic can definitely help, but the focus of this post was getting free traffic to your blog.
fortunecookienotes on April 3rd, 2008 12:29 pm

Great list, I will utilize everything on here to let everyone know about my blog.
trafficmaniac on May 7th, 2008 8:02 pm

wow i’m suprised. i don’t know if there are so many free way to increase traffic.Good for you. This will be advantage to increase my blog traffic. Thank’s You
Dr. Jarret on June 7th, 2008 7:26 pm

Thanks for the advice… I blog on wordpress.com with no ads or anything, so I’m not even trying to make money blogging, but it’s still a big challenge to generate reliable traffic. Currently, most of my traffic comes from Geogle on some bizarre words that have little relevance to my blog like ‘fat’, ‘bart simpson’, and ‘women’s shoes.’ http://jmorrow50.wordpress.com/
Gabriele Piccioli on June 8th, 2008 9:18 am

This is a great list and I am going to get started on these methods quickly! I have put a blurb about you in my Blog because I think this is very helpful information.

I have put you in my Blogroll so I can keep returning and see what else you have to offer. Thanks for the great post!
Moin on June 9th, 2008 7:49 am

Hi George,
When i was about to click your link after search engine directed my keyword search of free traffic to your site at first glance i thought this site will also contain the same content as many other sites i have visited but truely a very important 101 ways of getting traffic for free.Thanks a lot for posting this.
Review Boss on June 13th, 2008 9:14 am

Thanks for the list…I haven’t heard of few sites you mentioned in this post. Let me add couple of tips here …

1> Make a hubpage…it’s an excellent traffic magnet.
2> Join Zimbia and Bumpzee blog network
mitoman on June 13th, 2008 9:25 am

this is really hlepful, you forgot post on ebay’s forum =)
Meka on June 15th, 2008 5:57 pm

I have favorited your blog. It has some very good information and I will try to go through every last step you have there. It might take a while but i think it will pay off in the end. Thank for putting this together.
Ali on June 16th, 2008 12:35 pm

Hi George,

THANK YOU for an amazing 101 list!!

All of your suggestions are very helpful and I have already seen an increase in my daily traffic. And I have only implemented about 10 tips so far!!

Thanks again for the
Ali
justni on June 16th, 2008 8:39 pm

Wow, that was comprehensive! Wouldn’t have thought of creating a Myspace for my blog, but that’s a good one.
555 Ways To Build Your Blog Traffic on June 17th, 2008 2:54 pm

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Observer on June 23rd, 2008 4:34 am

Nice thought provoking post.

Another big way to increase your Search Engine ranking (and therefore increase traffic) is to get as many other sites linking to you. That is, produce good content that others will reference on their sites.

There’s many tools available that checks how many external links a website has. These are usually a good indication about how popular a site is and they are free. See here:

http://www.info-express.org/website-popularity-checker
http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/link-popularity.html
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/link-popularity
Voice in the Dark on June 30th, 2008 3:20 am

Even after a year, this is a great post. However, all these tips are nothing without the number 40! If you got no content or your content’s too similar to that of other bloggers, you should not bother using the remaining 100 of tips.

I would also add to the list that it is good to disable NoFollow tag on your comments (like George does) and to reply to comments. It helps building the relationships and traffic.