Now, that you know what is a blog and what is blogging and that you’ve started a blog, then the real question comes in and that will be what are the ways of generating the traffic ? Now, that’s a valid question, if you’ve got your ideas published then what’s the use of publishing if there is no one to read about it!
Well, there is just one rule which you need to follow and that is do what you want others to do! Now, I’ll give you some detailed information on that and you’ll come to know that how you can generate the traffic on your blog -
Ok I know this post is going to be real long, so for experienced bloggers I’ll just mention the main points and if you just want to read a particular point (because you already know about others) then scroll down to read more about it and skip the others but I’ve tried to make it real meaningful, so I’ll suggest to go through it completely. Here are the points I’m going to elaborate in this post :-
- Leave Comments.
- Use Trackbacks.
- Use Social news networks.
- Taking part in contests.
- Hosting blog contests.
- Group writing projects.
- Email is your best friend.
1. Leave Comments : This is the best way of generating the traffic. Although, it can be slow but if you have the capability of writing great content then you’ll just do with this 
tactic only and you’ll be able to draw lots of visitors. Now think this way that someone comes to your blog and leaves a comment and with that he leaves the URL of his blog, won’t you visit that blog to see that what else that person has to say. I’m sure you will if not for reading it but at least for checking the design. That gives you the traffic. Now, if you do it on 10 blogs then you get 10 visitors and again, if you leave something meaningful in the comment then you may attract more visitors too of that blog.
I myself found pretty reluctant in leave comments but over the period of time I learnt this and found that it is really helpful in building the community around the blog too and thanks to Nirmal who constantly left comments on my blog and made me leave comments on his posts and that way I came into the habit of leaving the comments.
2. Use Trackbacks : This is another way of generating the traffic. It works exactly in the 
same fashion as comments. Trackback is basically linking to another post (which you may have liked or not liked) and the author or owner of that blog automatically gets notified about your post and the urge to read that post will increase in that blogger and he’ll read the blog post. PlasticBag.org has given a great visualization of what exactly Trackback is.
If in doubt think this way that I linked to your post where you are talking about how your boozo (your dog) plays with ball and you get the notification that TipsoSaurus has written a post and linked to you, then won’t you try to find that what exactly TipsoSaurus has written ? So, you see that leaving comments and trackbacks can get you the traffic.
In a live example : Ken linked to Ashish’s post in a very smart way, where he was talking about web hosts and he dragged the story to Alexa rank and linked to the post written by Ashish on alexa rank. Oh my gosh! I just left two trackbacks, earned two readers :)
(I’ve seen many experienced bloggers not to do this. But, one blogger makes a real good use of this feature and she is Lorelle).
3. Make use of Social networking & social news networks : Social networking is important 
in blogging and if you can’t do social networking then it’s a rare chance that you’ll be successful in blogging. Leaving comments and trackbacks is part of social networking. Apart from that be part of one of the popular Social news networks i.e. Digg.com or Stumbleupon. I’m not saying that go ahead and start spamming these social news networks (it doesn’t work that way, believe me. I’ve failed myself) by submitting your URLs in these networks. But, if you are an active user then most likely you’ll find readers from these services who’ll submit a well written post by you to these networks and Digg and Stumbleupon can get you heaps of traffic! Sometimes it becomes difficult to handle too.
4. Participate in contest run by bloggers : There are many bloggers who run various contests and ultra popular bloggers like Darren Rowse (You can imagine the popularity of Darren by checking this post, where Pearl couldn’t believe her luck when Darren said that he has subscribed to her blog) and John chow hold them regularly. You’ll find many bloggers in those contests and you’ll find that many contestants will visit your blog too, just to see who is the competitor. Won’t you like to do that, I’m sure you’ll do it, it’s just in the human nature! I think I don’t need to elaborate much into it, as you are wise yourself.
5. Host blog contests yourself : Ok, if you’ve got something to gift to others or have some 
thing which can be of some value to others then you can get good amount of traffic. Because there are bloggers who’ll take part in your contest and will do whatever (till it is sensible) to win the prize. So, if you ask them to just mention about your blog on their blog then they’ll happily do it. But, then again it completely depends on the prize you are giving. Don’t expect lot of people running for contest if you are giving away $ 10 but if you give away something like an iPhone then you can expect lots and lots of crowd running over towards your blog!
6. Group writing projects : There are many group writing projects organized by bloggers and most of the successful bloggers have run something like this and Daniel of Daily Blog Tips (Currently the blog seems to be down because of some error, but it will be up and running in sometime) ran an excellent group writing project and I’m sure that you’ll love all the posts which were submitted in that group writing project.
7. Email is your best friend : Remember that this may be old fashioned but if you can email the link to your blog post to your friends and family members and then ask them to read it and leave comments and participate in the communication then they’ll definitely become the regular visitor. They’ll also forward the link to your blog post, if they find it really good. You won’t believe your luck, if just in case your blog post becomes part of this old Viral marketing. There’s no harm in trying it. But don’t over do it, people may not like it either but once in a while its ok and if the content is compelling then you may expect them as a regular visitor.
I hope you found these basic tips good enough and that you’ll visit this blog again for more tips like these :) Are you a seasoned blogger, if yes then feel free to share some blogging tips in the comments or if you can tell your views about this post, then it will be really encouraging.
Other Important Articles
- The 7 habits of highly ineffective bloggers!
- What Wordpress gave to ReviewSaurus!
- Google suggests : Stop using traffic generation programs!
- Blog Topic Ideas – Find blog posts in Readers Comments!
- Proven SEO Tricks – Make Google to love your blog!
pearl
August 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am #
very comprehensive post Mayank…… although ideas are all known to all of us but its amazing how convenient it is to forget them… thanks for putting them all together …. great trackbacks there and thank you for the link…..
yes, I still cannot believe Darren said that … and with that came the pressure of ‘what to post now?’ :-)
post is definitely worth stumbling :)
TipsoSaurus
August 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am #
@ Pearl : Thanks for the nice comments. Yes, the ideas are all known but as you said that we tend to forget them. Knowing something can’t help until and unless we decide to apply it too :).
Haris
August 13th, 2007 at 12:48 pm #
Amazing tips! I obey the first three points, but haven’t tried the rest. Will experiment with others and see the results :)
jamy
August 13th, 2007 at 5:38 pm #
Hi Mayank,
I know what I am going to ask are some very stupid question. But I hope you will answer me :).
I read Pearl article on trackback and Ken explained to me but I still could not get it right. Might be you can enlightened me.
2 Questions :
1. When I write a post in my wordpress, I saw this feature :
Send track back to : _______________________ ((Separate multiple URLs with spaces)
Is that my own url (my blog or my post) that I insert in the box or other people url that I intend to link to ?
If you can explain to me , I would be very very very thankful.
2. Sometimes when I read comment from other people blog or from other people in my comment box.
I often see the name of a particular post rather than a blogger’s name.
Does that has to do with track back ?
Thank you so very much.
Aunty Jamy
Ken Xu
August 13th, 2007 at 6:19 pm #
Thanks for the link! :)
Well, I pull the link to ashish’s blog is following the nature anyway! :p
You also pulling a smartest way to link to both of us! hahaha :twisted:
Nirmal
August 13th, 2007 at 9:36 pm #
Great post and you are absolutely right with the points here.
Blogging Tips
August 13th, 2007 at 10:12 pm #
great tips :)
TipsoSaurus
August 14th, 2007 at 4:35 am #
@ Haris : I’m glad that you liked the tips and that you’ve got few new tips to help you :)
@ Aunt Jamy : When you link to anyone then it automatically gets trackback. So, you don’t have to do anything special. You can ignore that trackback url thing.
Yes, you are right when you see those links those are the trackbacks from the blog which pinged you.
@ Ken : Yeah, I tried to show that this trick can actually work and you can see that you visited and left the comment. Even ashish visited the blog but he didn’t leave the comment, may be he got scared after looking at such a big article :)
@ Nirmal : I’m glad that you liked this article :)
@ Blogging Tips : Thanks for the visit and hope to see you regularly over here. Your blog has some really nice posts :)
Goutam
August 14th, 2007 at 5:15 am #
I am a newbie blogger. These tips will help me a lot. Thanks!
Your blog is worth visiting again and again.
Bush Mackel
August 14th, 2007 at 6:35 am #
Very solid post. Nice work.
Shankar Ganesh
August 14th, 2007 at 8:50 am #
Hey cool post there..
Comments are good for driving initial visitors, and social bookmarking services for huge traffic later :D
Cliz
August 14th, 2007 at 10:16 am #
It’s good to see these kinds of fundamental blogging ideas structured and listed in a straightforward manner. Good post!
TipsoSaurus
August 14th, 2007 at 1:47 pm #
@ Goutam : Thanks for dropping by and I hope to see you as a regular visitor.
@ Bush : Thanks for the appreciation.
@ Shankar : And you do make quite good traffic from the social networks, don’t you?
@ Cliz : Thanks for dropping by and glad that you liked the post. Another post is coming up which works on the search engine optimization and I hope you’ll like that one too :)
Shankar Ganesh
August 14th, 2007 at 9:27 pm #
@TipsoSaurus: Kind of :D
Anand
August 15th, 2007 at 3:20 am #
Nice post Mayank. Regarding Trackback, the actual blogger gets little return in showing out all blogs that link to him. A small-time blogger might feel that he is throwing traffic away to the other blog as also he gets trackbacks not too often. A bigger blogger might want to show the amount of press his articles receive. But then, nothing of this is something really rewarding to his own blog. So, we don’t probably see too many blogs that show trackbacks..
Moksh Juneja
August 16th, 2007 at 1:15 am #
I am completely unable to understand advantages and “how to use” trackbacks? Am I becoming old??
Loved your post on the same… except this question keeps raising in my mind again and again
http://mokshjuneja.blogspot.com
V. Khawani
August 16th, 2007 at 4:55 am #
Great Tips. I have used some of them, but nice to remind me again!
Sunil
August 19th, 2007 at 10:53 pm #
Well said..Mayank.. Thanks for providing such a valuable tips…
Justin
September 29th, 2007 at 10:43 am #
This site rocks and I took a promise today that I will stick this site.
Justin
September 29th, 2007 at 10:47 am #
People like S.ganesh are the loosers because they never tried anything and never will but they will keep on critising
pc
December 30th, 2007 at 2:25 am #
Cool post..
I am a newbie blogger and to tell you the truth in one day I have learned a lot.
I read many of your posts today and they are very cool.
Bookmarked this and you can expect me everyday.
I even sent you a mail. Hope you will reply that.
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Blogs Hoster
August 1st, 2008 at 7:09 am #
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