If you are reading this article probably you just created your first blog and you have to learn how to gain the first substantial traffic.
Or may be you want to check if in this list there are some suggestions and things that you have not done yet.
Let’s suppose that you have chosen WordPress as a platform and you have already installed it : well done, because it has a built-in search engine notification system for new posts (you may choose also a good customized theme like WooThemes that are SEO friendly).
To find out if Google has indexed your site, go to Google and enter in the following : “site:yourdomain.com” .
If Google has any results for you site already, congratulations, because you are on the good way to get visitors from Google.
If your blog is not indexed yet, do not worry, because Google regularly scans blogs and social networking sites for new content. To help the process, you can start here :
1 -go to Feedage and sign up for an account. Then, click “Submit Feed” ;
2 - go to Blogger and register for a free account. Create a new blog, that takes just a minute or two and write a quick post that includes a link to your site. Do not worry about the content of the post, or the anchor text or anything, just put something up with a link to your site. Since Google owns Blogger, this should new post should be picked up by them quickly.
3- go to a social network like StumbleUpon for example, and register for a free account. Then, submit a link to your site there.
After doing these easy steps, your site should get indexed by Google within 72 hours or less.
Once you are indexed in Google, submit your site also to other search engines like
5 - Bing.
Insert your blog in these directories :
7 - Pegasusdirectory
8 - Prolinkdirectory
9 - Premierdirectory
10 - FreeWD
11 - Dmoz
Now that your site is up, it is time to start attracting visitors to it and get traffic.
There are many different ways to generate traffic, including search, social media, article marketing, viral marketing, email marketing, paid advertising and more.
Search engines can send to your blog high volumes of relevant and sustainable traffic that you do not have to pay for.
You have to do a lot of work above all at beginning, but after this, traffic will keep coming from the search engines with little maintenance effort from your part.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of making URL rank well in search engine results.
Basically, there are things you can do on your blog to help your rankings like :
12 - Choose a keyword-relevant domain.
13 - Include your keywords in your title.
14 - Include your keywords in your content (in headings, throughout the text, in images alt tags, etc.).
15 - Include keywords in your meta description and meta keywords.
16 - Provide a sitemap and clear navigation structure.
17 - Make sure the content on your site is relevant to visitors (the search engines are placing more and more weight on relevance).
18 - The most important aspect of search engine optimization is getting links to your site. The main things that matter are the quality of the site where the link is coming from and the anchor text that will be used for the link.
Anchor text matters because it helps the search engines understand what the site being linked to is all about.
You have to be careful though, because Google does not like to be manipulated : if Google sees that of dozens of links pointing to the same page are all using the exact same anchor text, it will suspect something unnatural is going on and will start to discount the value of those links.
This is why it is important that you vary a little the anchor text of the links you get.
Now you should :
19 - Ping the search engines. WordPress has Pingomatic built in. This tip is wonderful : use Pingfarm ! It is exactly like pingomatic with one huge difference : with Pingfarm you can add as many URL’s as you like at once and then you can hit “Submit. You will have for free your links pinged to all of the major services.
20 - Comment on some other blogs related to your market and it would be better related to the material of the post you just published. Check blogs that have Comment Luv enabled, in order to get a link back to the post you just wrote (see this wonderful Comment Luv lists of PR 2 until PR 6 blogs).
21 - Bookmark your own post as well as the posts of the other blogs you just commented on social media sites. Use Delicious, Digg, Reddit and others social network.
22 - In your own post, include at least one link out to a related blog (send trackbacks). Also, include one link in to one of your own internal posts (this will also help your blog structure).
23 - Share your new blog posts to your Twitter followers.
24 – Do not forget the power of Facebook : make a profile, build a page or a group, work and have fun getting fans and friends. You may share your posts and links.
25 - Try also article marketing. Sign up to EzineArticles and write a useful guide about something that you are expert about : it must be unique content and after you will get approved, you can point to your site,getting a link to an high value site.
In few words, you want to be everywhere in the web : everything you do on your blog should be as visible as possible all over the Internet.
Processing all these steps may takes time, but they will bring traffic to your site.
And when you have traffic, you can make money online, if you desire.
September 24, 2011 at 11:06 am
By the end of the year I will be making a new blog site, but I’m still not sure about the niche that I want to blog about. Anyway, I would like to know if what is the most ideal blogging platform for beginners. Is it Blogger or WordPress?
Candice Michelle recently posted..tactical holsters
September 24, 2011 at 10:41 pm
Hi Michelle,
Blogger is a free service offered by Google : it is a simple and very intuitive platform to use and you will fast set up a blog.
This is certainly more professional-looking than if you have a “name.blogspot.com” and this is an automatic choice for most business bloggers.
Unfortunately you do not have a lot of control on your blog and you will find soon the limits of Blogger.
Also WordPress offers a free hosting service (WordPress.com), but if you want a permanent solution for your blog, you should choose to host the blog on your own server or in one of the company that offers web hosting and create your blog with the free software that you can download from WordPress.org .
At beginning it can be a bit complicated if you do not have the appropriate skills, but there are a lot of guides, forums and also videos tutorials that can help you step by step from zero to your first post on your WordPress blog self hosted.
Good luck !
September 26, 2011 at 8:11 am
Hi Erik,
I appreciate your effort for all the help you’ve given me. As of now, I’m still unsure whether I should pursue becoming a blogger or not. By the way, I would like to know how did you start your life as blogger.
Candice Michelle recently posted..דיאטה
September 26, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Michelle,
my main activity is import/export business.
I work mainly with that, for now.
In the free time I opened this blog, at beginning the first platform I used was blogger with a “Blogpost name”, then, always with Blogger, but with registered domain and finally I installed WordPress.
I use HostGator that is a leading provider of web hosting and I use also Aweber.
Check my FREE eBook here, you can download it and read information and suggestions on how you can start a blogger, from the market research at beginning until the internet marketing and first traffic you need to build.
The first main suggestion is to pick a topic that you like to write about every single moment of your day and you will be already on your road to success.
Let me know and enjoy !
September 26, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I’ve tried all the tips that you’ve given above. I hope that I can see results In 3 days. Is it also useful to create a Facebook fanpage to promote my blog site?
Julie Hayes recently posted..חג סוכות
September 26, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Hello Julie,
I’m afraid that it takes more than three days to see the results of the recommendations listed above …
Of course you should create a Facebook fan page to promote your blog,
check some suggestions here.
Let me know and good luck !
September 27, 2011 at 9:47 am
Thanks for the reply Erik! I maybe rushing things quite a bit. =)I’ve checked the link that you’ve given and it gave me a lot more new ideas. Thanks again.
Julie Hayes recently posted..סוכות
September 27, 2011 at 10:14 am
Julie,
thanks to you for your reply !
If you wish, you can check my FREE eBook here, you can download it and read information and suggestions on how you can start a blogger, from the market research at beginning until the internet marketing and first traffic you need to build.
You will find also a little bit of social media marketing, as you are interested in Facebook, you should check also Twitter tactics.
Let me know and good luck !
September 27, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Keyword-relevant domains are so important and under-utilized!
September 28, 2011 at 8:47 am
Hello Annie,
it would be nice to be able to find good domain names with your keywords, but the fact is that they are all taken!
September 28, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Sad but true!
September 29, 2011 at 8:39 am
Even if today there is still a world of opportunity,
I would like to return to the time of the DotCom Boom …
September 28, 2011 at 3:17 am
Very nicely summed up. You make it seem so easy but it isn’t. After years I am still trying to figure out how to get steady traffic.
Darren @ Six Pack Transformation recently posted..Bootcamp Exercises for at Home
September 28, 2011 at 9:06 am
Hello Darren,
actually it is not easy, as you mentioned.
But I find that following these rules and tips (and certainly others) can come to have great results in future …
I find that the primary factor is always the quality of content, but of course finding the first substantial traffic is the key!
September 28, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Awesome, comprehensive tips.
My critical tip is to not rush when building backlinks and promote your pages / site over time. It looks natural and this is what Google likes.
You’re not gonna get ranked over night. It can take weeks, months or even years depending on your industry. Just keep plugging away and build links consistently
Sandip recently posted..LivingSocial
September 28, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Hello Sandip,
I agree with you.
Surely you should not purchase links or accept link exchanges.
In your opinion, what is the right number of backlinks to build daily or weekly?
In a way that looks natural, as you mentioned …
September 28, 2011 at 4:48 pm
I’ve tried various link building techniques over the years and the one that works best is to build around 5-10 quality links a week.
Things start going wrong when someone gets hundreds of low quality links in a day or so (after buying them) and then nothing for several months
Quality is most definitely better than quantity
Sandip recently posted..ClassiPress Theme
September 28, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Thanks for the suggestion,
Sandip.
Quality is most definitely better than quantity…
for so many things in life !
September 28, 2011 at 5:34 pm
I like that philosophy
Hope you have a nice day Erik and thanks for this post
Sandip recently posted..Groupon
September 30, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Very good tips, especally pingfarm looks awesome and the idea behind it is superb.
Good blog for beginners and soon to be master practitioner
Take care and Cheers, DaveM
Dave @ Gesundheitsblog recently posted..Schüßler Salze bei einer Erkältung
September 30, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Hello Dave,
I like a lot PingFarm, it is such wonderful and above all Free !
Thanks for your visit
October 2, 2011 at 3:08 am
Interesting post, I have tried to get a few of my sites listed in dmoz but never had any luck. I didnt know any other directories were worth a look but I will check out the ones you shared above.
Thanks!
Lessa recently posted..new driver insurance
October 3, 2011 at 9:02 am
Hi Lessa,
it seems very difficult to get listed in Dmoz.
Here a few tips :
1. Submit once to the correct category.
2. Write your description carefully. Read the guidelines, with objective descriptions. With relation to your category, read a description to a similar site than yours and copy the style of description writing. The easier you make it for the editor, the quicker you will get in.
3. You need a lot of time to get reviewed (over 6 months?).
October 16, 2011 at 2:28 am
These tips really does work. I’ve been integrating this techniques in my link building campaign and it does give me tons of traffic.
October 16, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Hello Gregg,
may be these are basic tips, but may be you can find something useful that you have not implemented in your site yet !
October 20, 2011 at 2:42 am
There’s something wrong with yahoo site explorer for me, like i’ve been losing a lot of links from there and on somedays i’ll be gaining some. Is this normal? Are there any other sites that check links better than yahoo site explorerer?
anthony recently posted..Fast Cash Commissions: Traffic + Commissions… in Real Time??
October 20, 2011 at 5:53 pm
Anthony,
try opensiteexplorer.org .
October 20, 2011 at 6:26 am
Well written 25 useful tips that i’ll definitely keep in mind.
morrison@fast cash commissions recently posted..Fast Cash Commissions: Traffic + Commissions… in Real Time??
October 20, 2011 at 11:30 am
Hello Morrison,
glad to have you helped.
November 2, 2011 at 4:46 pm
I make progress on my site. That`s wonderful!
Thanks alot!
Cheers
November 2, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Hello Dave,
I am happy that you are seeing some good results in your site !
Comments are coming?
November 8, 2011 at 3:10 pm
On zarosa.de comments are not really coming. But on my other site I get a lot of comments by different people. That`s awesome!
Thanks for that
Cheers, Dave
Dave @ Gesundheitsblog recently posted..Gute Nacht – Bettformen im Vergleich (?)
November 8, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Hello Dave,
I am really happy for you, because the comments
are coming to your blog.
I do not understand German, bad luck…
I wanted to leave a comment to one of your blogs…
December 15, 2011 at 11:34 am
Too bad
Anyways. People are coming and I am quite happy about it.
Keep on writing your great blog. I am a satisfied reader
Cheers from Germany,
Dave
Dave Mayermann@Gesundheitsblog recently posted..Was tun bei Alterssichtigkeit?
November 10, 2011 at 8:15 pm
We have been trying to get on dmoz for 4 months does anyone have any tips to get accepted? We have heard it gets great traffic for new clients.
November 11, 2011 at 11:03 am
Hello Don,
it seems very hard to get listed in Dmoz…
I have been trying also to insert my site…
Here you find some tips I wrote in the previous comments :
1. Submit once to the correct category.
2. Write your description carefully. Read the guidelines, with objective descriptions. With relation to your category, read a description to a similar site than yours and copy the style of description writing. The easier you make it for the editor, the quicker you will get in.
3. You need a lot of time to get reviewed (over 6 months?).
Good luck !
December 8, 2011 at 6:20 am
By the end of the year I will be making a new blog site, but I’m still not sure about the niche that I want to blog about. In your opinion, what is the right number of backlinks to build daily or weekly? actually it is not easy, as you mentioned.
December 9, 2011 at 8:28 pm
Hi Lydia,
First, think about what you should write every single free moment of your day, and you found out what will be the topic of your new Blog.
Second, I can not suggest you a number of backlinks that is suitable for you : but I can tell you that it should be a number that seems “natural” link building to Google’s eyes…