Photography by etoile.
Making a blog isn’t only about writing great content. Sure, content is king, but what is it worth if no one is reading it? If you’re writing quality new articles on a daily basis, to get the most out of them you’ve got to make sure they can be seen. Right after maintaining great content, getting exposure for your blog is the most important. So what can you do to get people coming to your blog and noticing it?
1. Comment on other blogs. Being community involved is a very important thing. If you drop by other blogs, especially ones related to yours or in your niche, and leave a quality comment that adds to the discussion, the author of that blog will surely notice what you have to say and visit your own site in return. And besides the blog author, it’s pretty likely that several of their other commentators will see the great comment you left and wonder who wrote it, visiting your site to find out. Caroline Middlebrook has written a great post on blog commenting that you should read.
2. Link to other blogs and sites. I know that personally whenever someone links to me and I get the trackback for it, I will go to their blog to see where exactly that link is coming from. Linking to other bloggers helps to get those bloggers to notice you, and besides that, often times they might return the favor and link back to you in one of their posts, sending more of their readers and more exposure your way.
3. Guest write on other websites. Something I don’t do a lot that I should is writing or guest blogging on other sites. At least once a week you should write up a quality article and have it published on another blog in your niche, thus reaching a whole new readerbase and audience and hopefully extending your own by doing so. Guest posting is probably one of the greatest and easiest ways to get exposure if you know how to write! Read A Guide to Promoting Your Blog Through Guest Posts for more information.
4. Use social media sites. If you’re already writing great posts, then take the time to submit some of them to sites like StumbleUpon.com, Digg.com, and BloggingZoom.com. If one of your posts becomes popular and gets a lot of votes, it can hit the front page, thus sending you thousands and thousands of visitors! After a while of using social media, take some time to figure out what kind of content does best on those sites and use that knowledge to your advantage. Quick Tip: Adding an image to your post and using lists increases its chances of doing well with social media by almost twice as much (as long as your post’s quality is good to start with)!
5. Ask other blogs to link to you. This one is iffy, and you have to do it right if you want exposure and a good reputation. In fact, if you implement this method incorrectly, you could have the opposite affects you were hoping for! The key thing here is to contact other bloggers in your niche, even the big names and the small ones too, and tell them about an article you recently wrote and why it might be helpful for their readers. As long as you are polite and considerate, it’s worth a shot and won’t hurt - you might get some links in return, and even if you don’t you’ll still get the attention of everyone you’ve contacted.
6. Hold a contest or give something away. Everyone loves free things and competitions. If you can come up with a giveaway that provides something people will want, you’ll surely generate some exposure and backlinks to your blog, especially if your contest is well-run and organized. You can give away something like a cash prize, or if you don’t want to spend anything you can write up a GOOD QUALITY e-book or give away a month’s worth of advertising space on your site. This is a surefire way to increase traffic if implemented properly!
7. Create some linkbait. Not everyone is good at creating awesome linkbait, but it’s always worth a try. If you can come up with a new idea or something creative and off-the-wall, you can generate tons of links and traffic. Lists of the top blogs are good ones that often draw in lots of links and visitors. But linkbait doesn’t always have to be some new and fantastic idea, you can also create controversy instead - if your opinion on a topic is different than the opinion of everyone else, say so - and don’t back down from your position!
8. Hold a blog carnival or group writing project. Write a post on your blog asking for all of your readers to submit the best articles they’ve written on a certain topic. Set a deadline, and afterwards gather all the articles you’ve received and create one post linking out to them all. This not only creates a great resource for all of your readers, but gives your other readers and fellow bloggers a chance for some exposure of their own - which they may return by linking back to your resource! I recently ran a group writing project called The All-Time Best Blogging Articles, and it turned out great and drew in plenty of new visitors!
9. Purchase advertising on another blog. If you buy advertising on another site or blog related to yours, you’re going to get exposure and traffic, no doubt about it. Search around and find a quality blog with affordable prices that targets the kind of audience you write for, and purchase a banner or some other form of ad space on that site. If you can find a blog that is willing to write reviews for money, then you can order one of those as well. If people read a well-written, positive review of your blog, then that will increase your exposure and reputation by a mile!
10. Keep writing fantastic content. Like said earlier, if you have great content but no one reading, then there is no point. However, if the opposite is true - you have people visiting your site but no great articles for them to read - then that is even worse. Set yourself a schedule and maintain great content, and no matter what, in time the exposure and traffic WILL come!
Hopefully the above ten tips will help you generate some attention to your blog and get it noticed. As you might have figured out, visitors are one thing and loyal readers are another. It’s important to convert the people who visit your site into people that will come back on a regular basis to read what you have to say: that’s what makes your blog successful! So pick some of the methods above, implement them, and once you start getting traffic to your site make sure you have buttons for people to subscribe to your RSS feed on display in an important part of your blog. (Notice: my feeds are promoted in the top of the sidebar.) Reply to all your comments and emails and keep in touch with your visitors so they’ll be willing to come back to your blog continuously.
Good luck on getting exposure for your blog, and if you have questions or remarks feel free to ask or share what you know in the comments area below.
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Happy Friday, and I hope you enjoy all of these great articles written by some great bloggers! I usually find the posts I link to either because I am subscribed to the blog in my RSS feed, or because I check the sites of the people who leave me comments - and if I find an article you’ve written interesting enough, I’ll link to it! Do you think I should subscribe to your blog? If it’s new on the scene or if I maybe haven’t heard of it before, drop me a comment and let me know - I’m willing to check out any cool site there is! 
