Building Traffic

When I first started my blog I was worried no one would even look at it. 

Through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, I was able to easily and quickly promote my blog. There are a few key tips that can help build traffic for your site.

How do people come across your site? Usually people search the web for a keyword which leads them to different sites. 

I found using Google Keywords is a great way to find out what words are searched the most so you can use them in your posts and tags. Google Analytics is also really helpful in finding out what specific words brought people to your site the most. This is an easy and fast way to build traffic to your site. 

Using Google Keywords I discovered "celebrity apprentice" was being searched quite often. So I quickly wrote a post on the show. Checking my Google Analytics recently I discovered "Celebrity Apprentice" is one of the keywords that led people to my site.

This brings me to my next point - tagging. You have to use tags to your advantage. Tag as much as possible because the more tags you have, the better chance someone will land on your site. 

For a good example on successful tagging look at my "ER's Big Goodbye" post. You can see that nothing worth tagging was left untagged but all the tags make sense.

When you have a new blog, you should create a blog roll and follow the blogs that relate to your niche audience. Now to build traffic simply comment on those niche blogs. 

By commenting on blogs related to your topic you are putting your voice out there. This will generate traffic not only by hopefully evoking a comment back from that blogger but also from all the followers of that blog.

Once you have done this, the next step is to use backlinking. Getting other websites to link back to your site is a great way to build traffic. An example of how I used backlinking effectively is in my "Bachelor Spoiler Alert or False Speculation? We shall see . . . " post . I backlinked to Steve's site which inevitably created traffic for his blog and mine.

Finally and most importantly, pick a unique and searchable name for your blog. The name of your blog is the first thing readers see. If your blog title isn't easily searchable, you are going to hinder the traffic of your blog.

I realized recently that my blog title was hindering the traffic to my site. Finding the perfect title can be very tricky. 

My blog used to be called "My Longest Relationships" which I thought was unique and very true. I found that most people were coming to my site for relationship advice so I decided to change my blog title to something more relevant and blunt. My new title is "Television Addicts Anonymous"  which, according to Google Analytics, seems to be increasing my traffic a great deal.