Whether you are just starting to blog or have been blogging for a while there is likely nothing more important to you than knowing how to get traffic to your blog.

One of the good ways you can get blog traffic is to comment on other blogs as I have covered in my post Get Blog Traffic With Comments. Another good way to increase blog traffic is to build links to sites that will help your blog to be found by others.

Link building is a part of SEO. I have mentioned some elements of SEO in my post called Blogging SEO Strategy.

There are hundreds of blog directories that you can list your blog in. I would start with the top ones first. I’m Vance Sova and I invite you to read on.

The following is a guest Post by James Adams:

Top 10 Directories That Will Help Get Your Blog Noticed

Once you’ve got your blog set up and have been blogging for a few days or weeks, you may have wondered why the readers and visitors aren’t flocking in.

The answer is: you’ve got to get the word out. If you don’t tell anyone about your blog, then no one will even know that it exists.

One of the best ways to get instant exposure for your blog is to submit to a blog directory. There are hundreds of these around the Internet, but some are much better than others. Here are the top 10.

1. DMOZ: This is one of the oldest and most respected directories on the Internet. DMOZ.org won’t accept your site until it has been reviewed by their editors to make sure that it’s not spam. Unfortunately, this process can take several months, so it’s a good idea to get started early. When your blog finally does get listed with DMOZ, Google will look upon your site with much more respect.
2. BOTW: Best of the Web is also an established and highly respected directory. It has been in business since 1994. A link from BOTW will instantly give your blog a boost in credibility and visibility.
3. Business.com: If your blog is commercial in nature, then this is an essential place to get it listed. For a listing fee of $299, you’ll be able to get targeted traffic all year.
4. Yahoo: Yahoo bills itself as the oldest directory on the Internet. Although Yahoo may not have the prominence that it once did, it still gets a ton of traffic every day. If you can get your site listed here, it can be well worth it. It’s free for non-commercial sites, but $299 for commercial sites or if you’d like your site reviewed within 7 days.
5. Bloggeries: Bloggeries is a great directory because of its organization. Visitors will be able to quickly find your blog by category, which will result in more targeted traffic for your blog.
6. Eaton Web: This is another highly respected blog directory. One of the strengths of this directory is that blogs can be rated and will be listed based on their overall strength and popularity momentum. This can get you a lot of exposure if people begin to find your blog valuable.
7. The Blog Frog: This is a directory that is quickly rising in popularity. The Blog Frog combines a blog directory with a social media platform. Not only can you list your blog, but you can interact with other bloggers directly on this site.
8. Blog Search Engine: Blogsearchengine.com is another highly selective blog directory that can give your site a nice boost. Many Internet users come here directly to search for blogs, so you want to make sure that your site is served in their search results.
9. MyBlogLog: MyBlogLog already had 45,000 members when it was acquired by Yahoo in 2007. Now, it has more than a quarter million members and 22 million visits per day. You can list your blog and encourage other members with similar blogs to form a community around you. This is one site you don’t want to skip.
10. Blogged: Blogged is similar to news aggregators like Google News. The only difference is that it pulls news stories from blogs rather than traditional news sites. If you write about topical subjects on your blog, then you definitely want to list your site at Blogged. You’ll be able to show up on the radar screen of web surfers looking for fresh content.

If you haven’t yet begun to promote your blog, or if you have been using other methods to get the word out about your blog; then your next course of action should be to begin submitting your blog to a few directories. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll begin to see the results you want. Update July22, 2018: The most prized blog directory at that time DMOZ is now gone. So is Yahoo blog directory and My Blog Log. I think that getting listed in the remaining blog directories may still be beneficial but I wouldn’t bother anymore. Building links has lost it’s value. Google was placing a lot of value on links at that time. Now it almost punishes sites for links, on balance. By their algorithm changes and biases, Google has built and destroyed many bloggers lives. That’s what some people think anyway. 

This guest article was written by James Adams who is a full time blogger working with an online supplier of ink cartridges. Check out their blog for more of his posts about design and marketing.

Please go ahead and make a comment. Have you submitted your blog to any of the directories above or any other ones? Have you noticed an increase in traffic?

Bookmark and tweet the post for others to see.

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Authored by Vance Sova

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It has been said more than a few times that you can get blog traffic from twitter.
Whether you have tried it or are just wondering if it works you will want to read what I have found so far.

First of all, let me say that I am no expert on twitter and that I don’t use any automation or clever software to submit my tweets. I also don’t follow people and stop following them if they don’t follow me back. I think that there is a program for that too.

All I do with twitter is follow some people that I know and some that I think are worth following. Most of my followers decided to follow me first and I do follow them back sometimes but not automatically as some twitter user advisers seem to teach.

Since I follow about 600 people and have only about 600 twitter followers (to me that is more than enough to keep track of), I realize that I can’t expect to get much blog traffic from them.

To get a significant blog traffic from my own twitter followers I’d need tens of thousands of them.

But would I really get that much traffic from twitter to my blog even if that was the case?

It is my qualified opinion that I would not.

I say qualified opinion because I don’t have that many followers on twitter and therefore can’t be absolutely sure.

What I am sure of is that even with having some of my blog visitors who on occasion like what I have to say tweet or re-tweet some of my posts, the resulting blog traffic from that is more than pitiful.

Even if just 5 of those readers, who kindly want others to also read what I post about had each just 600 followers like me ( I know that some of them have thousands or even tens of thousands), tweeted my post then in theory 3,000 people would be notified and invited to my blog.

In such scenario, which is the worst case of what actually was taking place within the last 2 weeks, I should be justified in expecting at least 1% of the 3,000 twitter followers to show up on my blog and I should get blog traffic equaling 30 visitors from twitter.

According to Google Analytics, within the last month this is the blog traffic I got from twitter: full 3 visitors. (Update April 28, 2010: 4 more twitter visitors since this post was written – i.e. about one twitter visitor every 4 days).

Unless I’m doing something wrong, which anyone reading this is cordially invited to point out, (in fact I beg you to do that), the amount of blog traffic one can get from twitter is hardly worth the effort.

Anyone who blogs wants more traffic.

I have written several posts on this subject where as opposed to my twitter experience the methods I write about actually work very well.

You can read my Get Blog Traffic Increase with Comments which will give you a proven way to get traffic to your blog where previously there was none and that will also help you increase an already good existing traffic.

My blog so far has been getting most traffic this way.

There is even, arguably, a better free way to get blog traffic increase.

You can read about it in my post Earn Money Blogging, Get Traffic Without SEO?

The second best source of my blog traffic is the search engines and thus SEO.
It has brought me more than 17% of all traffic within the last 30 days according to Alexa and about 34% according to Google Analytics.

I choose to trust Google more because of the research that I’ve done on both.

But either way, SEO traffic plays a big and significant part in getting visitors to my blog. And I’m sure it will do that for your blog too.

I have heard a hugely successful blogger and online entrepreneur say “screw social media”.

I wouldn’t go that far but there is some truth in that saying for those of us that spend too much time trying to get blog traffic from twitter and other numerous social media platforms.

Again, I’m not here to knock down anything. If you get a lot of blog traffic from twitter I want to hear from you. Please voice your opinion and experience in the comments.

If, on the other hand, twitter underperforms for you as it has surely done for me then pay attention to what I wrote and for sure read my two posts mentioned here.

I want to hear from everybody.

So post your comment regarding your twitter and blog traffic experience.

Then bookmark and tweet it so others have the chance to contribute to the discussion as well.

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Authored by Vance Sova

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Increase Blog Traffic, Get Traffic Using Blog Comments

You can get blog traffic to go up dramatically within hours, days and weeks when you decide to use blog comments.

Blog traffic increase can mean a boost to your mood and in some cases even to your bottom line.

If you are just starting to blog and have no traffic at all you will get traffic to your blog for sure using this method. It produces results very quickly.

Blog comments are a great way to increase blog traffic at no cost to you, except of course you need to spend some time.

But if you like blogging you most likely also like reading what other people blog about. And when you read interesting blogs, commenting is not hard at all.

Blog Commenting Is A Part Of SEO Strategy

If you’ve read my previous post on blogging seo strategy you’ll know that I mentioned link building there. If you haven’t read it here’s the link: Blogging Seo Strategy.

By writing comments of value you can be reasonably sure that your comments will be approved. What is a comment of value? I’ve covered that in my other post on traffic which you can read (it’s covered under point #4) here: Get Traffic To Opt In.

How You Get Traffic To Your Blog Through Comments

I must admit that when I first heard about commenting in connection with getting traffic to my blog I was very skeptical. But I started to do it anyway. And I continue doing it because

I found that it produces results in at least three tangible ways:

1) You get blog links when your comments are approved

2) You get visitors to your blog that read your comments

3) You get comments on your blog from some of those visitors

And then there are some intangible and long term benefits

For example you’ll meet people and some of them you’ll become friends with.

That alone is a great benefit. But friends talk and that may bring you more visitors too.

There is a potential of future JV partnerships but we’ll leave that alone now.

Another long term benefit will come through the accumulation and aging of links which will help your blog to be placed higher in search engines.

This is the SEO benefit which starts early but takes more pronounced effect with time.

Ninety Eight Visitors From One Comment

Yes, I’ve received 98 visitors to my blog from just one comment. That comment was on a blog post that attracted a lot of visitors many of whom decided to visit my blog.

None of them left a comment but they spent on average 16 minutes reading what I had to say here. They kept on coming at the rate of 4 to 5 per day for three whole weeks.

A few days later a comment on another blog brought me 37 visitors over one week.

The traffic from both blogs started to pour in within 10 hours from posting my comments.

Not every comment will produce exciting results like these.

Sometimes it may take a couple of weeks or even months before a visitor arrives as a result.

But when such visitor spends half an hour reading on your blog I think even that is well worth it.

And to be sure, some comments won’t bring you any direct visitors at all.

But you’ll still get a link.

And some links are amazingly valuable and will bring you traffic for a long time sooner or later.

I may cover the kinds of links that are out there and their values at some other time.

What to do now?

1) You want to leave a comment on my blog whether you like this post or not and express your opinion.

2) If you liked what you’ve just read Digg it, Delicious it, Tweet it and Technorati it or use any other bookmarking of your choice.

The bookmark icons are further below.

3) Start practicing blog commenting on other blogs after making a good start here.

Thank you for visiting and for doing the above 3 points.

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Authored by Vance Sova

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