Building up traffic and subscribers When you have first set up your blog, have a topic for the content, managed to get a neat template, (paid or unpaid) and have a short but catchy domain name, it stands to reason you will only have one loyal reader, YOU.
After you have showed your blog to friends, family, your boss at work, and maybe a handful of other loyal insiders, then where does the rest of the traffic flow from? Here are some key ways to build traffic to a blog.
Some take time, others you can just do on auto-pilot.
Search engine traffic The myth that you simply submit your blog to Google and then watch the traffic flow, is far from the truth.
Google traffic takes weeks, if not months, so chances are you will have to be 'active' in the first few months of your blog.
Blog and Forum Commenting Here lies the plan.
Look at the top blogs and forums in the niche you have chosen.
Find out about them, and become loyal readers of the bloggers' blogs - adding them in your sidebar links.
Comment in their blog posts and leave your thoughts and opinions.
If you have something worth saying, say it.
Positive and negative publicity is all good publicity.
It means people are listening to you - even if they are slagging you off.
DIGG AND STUMBLEUPON Chances are you have heard of these sites, and you need to bookmark your site to these, and FAST.
You need to download the toolbar for StumbleUpon and start stumbling on blogs and websites within your niche.
According to another internet marketer Caroline Middlebrook, you can get a rush of traffic from StumbleUpon.
BUILD A LIST OF EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS OFFER something of value on your blog such as a FREE REPORT so that when people come to it, they enter your opt in form on your blog, and become a targeted subscriber.
They are then on the first ladder of your sales funnel.
ARTICLE MARKETING Write short 300 word articles relating to your niche and submit them to ezine article directories - with a link back to your site.
Once your posts are LIVE, it means you will be able to have a residual traffic flow where people keep coming back to your blog through these articles.
Social Media Marketing - Twitter and Facebook If you are using and embracing the power of social media, then you can use this as a platform to drive targeted traffic to your blog.
Set up a Twitter page for your blog, or, a FACEBOOK FAN PAGE, and link to them on your website.
T-SHIRT PROMOTIONS Offer competitions and T-Shirt promotions on your blog.
People will always be willing to be a walking affiliate if your BRAND is worth promoting.
This can be outsourced if you are not very good at design skills.
Trackback and links If you are HTML literate, then linking to websites of a higher ranking actually drags your website higher up Google and the other search engines.
From this comes traffic.
So it pays to learn basic HTML.
It also helps with designing your website.
Learn Javascript too.
Content is king Finally, there's your 'pillar' articles, these are what make a blog attractive to potential subscribers.
Aim to write at least two pillar articles per week on something related to your niche.