Do you blog?

Do you have a website?

if so, and if you’re depending on your site or blog to create an income, getting traffic to those is what your life online should be about.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

No matter how good you are and whether or not you consider yourself a pro marketer or not, the fact of the online matter is that it all takes time.  And (much like life, I suppose, and finding that dream job) you need to do a lot of things on faith . . . over and over again. 

Earlier I wrote about Stephen Hopson and how he goes about his own life and work.  (There’s an interview with Stephen coming soon, so please check back for that).

I’ve been concerned that I didn’t seem to be getting as much traffic to this blog — Dream Jobs Dialog — as I’d wished.  I spend a huge amount of time with it because I enjoy it and I believe I have something to offer; but, at the end of it all, I need to pay the bills from time to time and I count on traffic here at the blog and click-throughs on the advertisers that advertise here to help me do that.

I’ve created a rather larger subscriber list and following at the Dream Jobs Dialog newsletter that’s part of my other business at Dream Jobs To Go, but I’ve found it rather confounding in trying to lure those readers to the blog here.

So, in talking with Stephen, who’s been at the blogging business a bit longer than I, here’s the advice he gave me and has allowed me to pass along to you.

Stephen Hopson says, regarding increasing blog/web traffic:

There really aren’t any quick fixes from what I’ve learned so far (and I continue to learn every day).  However, here are some tips I can share with you that seem to help:
 
1.  Write articles often - several times a week

2.  Then ping your blog often by using the following links:
 
http://www.pingoat.com/
also
http://pingomatic.com/
 
Every time you have a new article, go ahead and ping your blog.  It sort of brings your blog to the forefront, letting those other sites know you have new material.
 
3.  Other ways to draw traffic is to visit other blogs of interest to you and write in comments about how you liked theirs and leave your blog address on the bottom of the comment you just made.  Subscribers to that website might be interested in checking you out simply because you took the time to leave a comment for them.  On the other hand, sometimes the blogger himself might check you out and then mention it to her subscribers, kind of like what you’re doing.
 
4.  Exchange links with other bloggers by linking their blogs to yours and vice versa — in my blog, I have a favorite links section where other blogs are listed for anyone who cares to visit those sites.
 
5.  The more you link with others, the more Google likes you and brings you higher in their search index thing — whatever it’s called.
 
6.  The other way to increase traffic is to write articles for places like EzineArticles and other article websites that you mentioned in one of your articles (I found an article you wrote about free Internet marketing tools).  I signed up with EzineArticles about 2 weeks ago and already 2,500 people have read my articles.  Unfortunately not many of them clicked through to my website and I’m still trying to figure out why.  The weird thing is I am suddenly getting emails from people complimenting me on my articles in the blog, but those who find me through EzineArticles are not necessarily clicking through.  It’s a strange situation.
 
In other words, on one hand, I’m getting more and more compliments and a few more people are subscribing.  What that tells me is I’m on the right track, I must be doing something right.  However, out of 2,500 visitors to my articles in EzineArticles, only a tiny fraction of them are clicking through to my website.  This behavior is strange because, if I’m doing so well (per emails from other people), then why aren’t EzineArticles readers clicking through?  That’s the weird part.
 
It’s probably all about timing.  It takes time for traffic to grow.  Whatever, it’s really fun to watch.
 
Let’s see.  Of course, you want to put your blog address everywhere you can.  You want it in your email signature box, your business card, your main website, and so on.

Another thing is you want to get listed with places like Technorati. There are also places like MySpace that you can sign up with (I haven’t done that yet). 
 
And then, of course, you want to use certain keywords in your titles.  There’s a neat place where you can test the popularity of keywords and then insert the most popular keywords in your title(s).  That way when people Google a certain keyword, your website will be in the top 10 or 20 listings. 
 
Then there’s this place for webmasters at Google and Voelspriet’s site has some neat tools as well.

Look through them and find the tools you think would work best for you.  Google is the top search engine and I would work within their parameters to get more traffic.
 
I’ve been slowly learning and tinkering with my blog over many months, in an effort to increase traffic.  It’s hard work, but it’s rewarding when you find what works and can get rid of what doesn’t.

So, whaddaya think, Dream Jobbers?

How do you get traffic to your blog and site?  What works?  What doesn’t?

Check out more about Stephen Hopson at his SJ Hopson site.

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