A Few Simple Ways To Improve Traffic To Your Blog

One of the most frustrating things, whether we’re talking about blogs or websites in general, is having a low traffic day, week, or even month. Checking your stats (which can be quite the addictive activity by itself), and seeing it flop day after day can be a real drain, and is one of the main reasons why most sites/blogs fail.

It’s not the lack of traffic that leads to the failure of the site, it’s the lack of motivation and know how of the site owner that deals the final death blow. I mean hey, if you’re not seeing any traffic, then why continue with your hard work, right?

Wrong!

The lack of traffic, or a traffic slow down, is simply a speedbump. It’s a slight sickness that doesn’t take much to cure, if you know what kind of medicine to use! We’re well into 2008, and unless you’ve been living under a large rock for the past year or two, then you surely know about the power of social bookmarking traffic - I hope.

If you don’t, then what I’m referring to are sites like StumbleUpon (my personal fav), Reddit, Digg, Del.icio.us, Sphinn, Mixx, and countless others. These are sites that people submit links to, and generally speaking, if that link gets “voted”, “thumbed”, “stumbled”, or “dugg” enough times (or whatever cute saying the site has), then it gets put in place like the front page of their site or first listing on a particular category, and the lucky site owner that the link is from gets a healthy stream of traffic for a day or two or sometimes more.

Again, I’m sure you’re aware of these sites by now, or at least some of them, and the point I’m trying to drive home here is that every time you, as a blogger, posts up a new article, you should then spend the next 15 or 20 minutes submitting that article to as many social bookmarking sites as you can stand.

Just because you write good content, doesn’t mean people will see it.

Remember the above statement, because it couldn’t be more true - especially with new bloggers.

Why?

Simple, when new bloggers start out, they usually bring their A-game to the table, and they write phenomenal articles in hopes of drawing large crowds. Unfortunately, without promoting the hell out of each and every article, the chances of seeing large crowds of traffic to your new blog are slim to none. Reason being that your blog probably isn’t ranking for anything yet in the search engines, doesn’t carry any search engine “weight” or “juice”, or it may not even be indexed yet. So without the help of social bookmarking, your early stuff (content) which is usually top notch, may go unnoticed for a long, long time.

I have a simple routine that I use for each and every article I write for a blog, especially this one, since it’s still very new on the scene. But with a steady hand, and some determination, you can start driving traffic immediately.

Wanna know my routine?

1. Article goes live
2. Immediately Stumble the article (find out how StumbleUpon works here)
3. Submit article link to del.icio.us
4. Submit article link to Reddit
5. Submit article link to Sphinn
6. Submit article link to Mixx
7. Depending on the article, submit to Digg
8. Submit article to (insert random social bookmarking site here)
9. Mention article on a popular webmaster forum in the appropriate category

The above process takes me every bit of maybe 10-15 minutes at the very most, and because I spend that extra time, I always get traffic to it immediately, and if the visitor likes what they see, then there is a good chance that they may turn into regular reader, and at best, a faithful RSS subscriber.

I want to disclaim that just because you submit your article to the above sites, does not mean guaranteed traffic, but I promise you that it boosts your chances of getting traffic by a good 50%-80%. Of course, there are a lot of different dynamics tied into each of those social bookmarking sites and all the rest of them, but that would take 200 pages to talk about the fundamentals and processes of each one. So just stick to the basics, submit your links, ask friends or fellow bloggers to vote on them (or whatever its called), and hope for the best!

Some days you’ll strike out, and some days you’ll get more traffic in one day then you’ve ever seen in your life. It happens, and when it does, it’s a lot of fun.

I also want to note for those out there that may comment saying “SB traffic is junk” - well, if you’re worried about internet marketing principals, then yes, social bookmarking traffic converts poorly compared to other forms, but for bloggers, especially new bloggers, getting huge spikes of SB traffic can often be the launching point of the total success of the blog. I’ve had blogs that gained hundreds of RSS subscribers in a month just from getting popular on StumbleUpon - so it does have its benefits!

I hope this helps you in your quest to bring the masses to your blog. I know it helps me, and without social bookmarking, I’d seriously be lost! Not really, but it would make things more difficult then they have to be.

For more advice, and a deeper look at blog traffic slumps, you may want to check out a recent article called “6 Steps To Overcoming A Blog Traffic Slump” by an old friend of mine, Courtney Tuttle. He really knows his stuff, and I highly recommend taking a look if you get a chance