The most popular blogging tool in the world is WordPress
There are 1,319,460 blogs on WordPress right now.
THIS blog was just ranked the 8th fastest growing blog out of over a million!
Thanks to YOU, the reader for visiting, coming back again and again, reading the posts, and commenting on the issues.
Recently, on LinkedIn Answers, someone asked a question about how to promote a new blog. I provided a brief answer there. However, I figured my visitors should have a more thorough response to that question.
So, in honor of being ranked #8 on the “Growing Blogs” list, here are 8 tips to help you grow YOUR blog as well…
#1 Put your blog URL in your email signature, so everyone you email with will be aware of it.
#2 Make sure aggregators and social bookmark sites such as Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us, and Stumble are aware of your site by opening accounts and marking your blog.
#3 Visit other blogs relevant to your target audience, and leave comments on the blog postings other people have created. DO NOT make these posts blatant invitations to your blog. Simply add useful, relevant information that adds to the quality of the original post, along with a link to your blog in your signature.
#4 Add the URL’s of other bloggers in your niche to your “Blogroll”. Then notify them that you have done so. Do not ask them to reciprocate with a link from their blog. If they like what you have to say, they will. If they don’t, they won’t. But at least adding them to your blogroll starts the conversation.
#5 Use a blog “pinging” service such as http://www.pingmyblog.com/ or http://pingomatic.com/ to let search engines know your blog exists.
#6 When invited to post or be interviewed on other blogs, graciously accept. Provide them with good quality content which will make people want to read more of what you have to say. Make sure they place a link to your blog in the post.
#7 Pick a niche (or not). Have you ever heard the quote “Get rich in your niche”. It means to focus on one area, and don’t get distracted by anything else, and you’ll be more successful. I’ve heard it related to writing, public relations, marketing, and blogging. Unfortunatley, in my case, I have multiple niches. So I blog about all of them. So far, it seems to have worked. My main areas of focus are business, DRTV, internet marketing, bringing new inventions to market, teleseminars, and customer service. Each of these niches are related, and each brings in niche specific traffic to my blog.
#8 Find a way to piggy-back on other media. On thing that has led to huge traffic on my blog was the TV show American Inventor. By blogging about the show from an Infomercial/DRTV perspective, rather than an entertainment angle, I received a lot of traffic from search engines and other blogs who recommended others read mine because of the unique twist. The millions of people who watched the TV show, then went to search about the inventors or inventions now find my perspective on business, marketing, and new products.
Wow. Wish I would have found this post months ago. great informtion. Thanks!
By: Cicely Rocha-Miller on August 17, 2007
at 2:36 am
Thank you for sharing his information with us. Very useful.
By: Shamoon on August 17, 2007
at 9:30 am
First of all, congratulations on being the #8 fastest growing blog. I found this blog by your answer on LinkedIn. Thanks for this very helpful information. I have just posted a link to it at one of my web sites that encourages coaches to write (including blogging) about their wisdom, knowledge, and experiences, WritingByCoaches.com
Thank you.
By: Jeanie Marshall on August 17, 2007
at 6:33 pm
Just letting you know, months later, (Its Oct) your great suggestions are giving life to new bloggers! Thanks SO much!
Best regards~~
By: Houseonahill.org on October 5, 2007
at 5:39 pm
Thanks for sharing these valuable tips. I really like tip no. 1 and 2.
In terms of making the URL available in your email signature, I think the integrated marcomms of your online presence is so valuable overall, also make sure that your LinkedIn profile is available via your blog and vice versa.
Thanks again for sharing.
By: Jacob on November 9, 2007
at 6:16 am
Very nice tips, thanks for sharing/expounding.
But, I do have to respectfully disagree with tip #3.
I don’t believe that you should include a signature in your post comment which includes a link back to your own site.
In all honesty, when that is done on my site, I delete the comment, because I assume they’re only attempting to use me to drive traffic. That irritates me, there’s no reason for it because…
Most blog commenting systems allow a ‘website’ field when you sign in to comment (like yours here). I believe that is more than sufficient to identify yourself, and make yourself available to be tracked down if the reader and blog owner choose to.
It’s not quite so blatant.
Cheers!
By: MistressOfTheDorkness on January 30, 2008
at 7:34 pm
–> Mistress:
Thank you for stopping by my blog and posting a comment. You make a good point.
However, some blog comments do NOT have a “website” field for you to put your URL, so you would then need to put it in the body of the comment.
In an effort to keep the tip simple, I think I’ll keep it like it is, rather than trying to explain the difference to people.
By: martyfahncke on January 31, 2008
at 12:46 am
Thank you for the wonderful tips. I found your blog on Linkedin. Best wishes in your business ventures.
By: Vic Liu on February 21, 2008
at 11:19 pm
Vic,
Thanks for stopping by!
By: martyfahncke on February 21, 2008
at 11:35 pm
Great Tips, most of which are easy to implement. However it would be nice to have a word press plug in that would automatically ping services such as http://www.pingmyblog.com/ or http://pingomatic.com/ to let search engines know your blog exists. Does anyone know of a good tools to put this on automatic. Given time is always a challenge automating would save a lot of time.
By: Nick on October 26, 2008
at 3:43 pm
@Nick – Great idea. I think such tools may exist now however. I did a Google search for WordPress SEO plugins and WordPress ping plugins and found quite a few. Try it out, perhaps you will find what you are looking for.
By: martyfahncke on October 27, 2008
at 9:59 pm
Great post. SEO has much influence too. All-in-one-SEO has done me much good, traffic doubled on my blog!
By: Christian Gude on December 2, 2008
at 1:55 pm
Great Postt!
By: Mamud Abbas on February 1, 2009
at 7:51 am
Nice post! If I may add, promote trough facebook is also effective.
Garner Woods
FamousPick
Book recommendations from famous people
By: Garner Woods on February 22, 2009
at 11:43 pm
@Garner — You bring up a good point. This is an older post, and lots of things have changed since I first wrote it. As you so correctly add, Facebook IS very effective for blog traffic. Twitter has become even more important for blog traffic in my case. So many other changes are taking place, you’ve inspired me to write updated post on this topic…thanks! Keep an eye out for it in the next week.
By: martyfahncke on February 23, 2009
at 8:55 am
I actually found that asking people for a reciprocal links works most of the time, if you’re asking nicely.
At least it worked for me.
By: Ilya on July 30, 2009
at 6:59 am
And also it depends on who you’re asking for a reciprocal link – big blogs most likely won’t pay attention to you, unless you’re really popular, so it makes sense to connect to blogs of your size.
By: Ilya on July 30, 2009
at 7:02 am
Hey I have just started a blog and these tips seems to be very useful. Thanks for writing
By: Jigar Shah on August 4, 2009
at 9:16 pm
wow !! This is really great information. Thanks for the great advice. keep up the good work !!
By: skunkworks25 on August 12, 2009
at 12:11 pm
So good!, i am newbie on WordPress, Yesterday i develop my first blog, please comment me at http://jzsilver.roietonline.net/jewelryblog/
Figure out that after i read your article. I have many idea.
thanks so much
Decha Kunla
http://jzsilver.roietonline.net/1-Body_Piercing_Jewelry.html
By: Decha Kunla on October 31, 2009
at 10:30 am
Great info, thanks! I’m a wordpress newbie and this info has helped a lot. Congrats on growing your blog successfully.
By: Matt on December 14, 2009
at 3:42 pm
This information is great thank so much
By: swytchrealty on December 20, 2009
at 9:44 pm
some good ideas, this should help out my blog at lots thanks
By: adstur on March 9, 2010
at 12:25 pm
These ideas are straight to the point. Looks like great advice.
By: MSU on March 19, 2010
at 11:32 am
@MSU – Thanks, glad I could be of service
By: martyfahncke on March 26, 2010
at 2:56 pm
Great ideas. Hopefully I can generate some views to my blog (mainly for critique :D)
By: TBird on May 31, 2010
at 6:51 pm
This is a great tips! I’m wordpress newbie and since I want to get feedback for my site, this is best place to do.. Here goes:
I created a simple image board Zchan, cleaner more web 2.0 than the well-known 4chan (if you’re unfamiliar with it, let me know). With this I’m thinking to create a tighter community based around high quality relevant images, blogs and expresseions.
Quick info about zchan:
1. No need for registration to post submissions (submissions could be image, link or a blog)
2. If you wish to use more features, such as custom avatar, username, faster commenting, follows and filtered feeds) you may login using facebook. You may delete your account at anytime.
3. Submission is quick and easy, on the right sidebar, browse for file, click “upload now!” then submit.
Let me know what’s working and what’s not, and if you could pass the info, that’d be much appreaciated.
By: Zoot on July 24, 2010
at 3:20 pm
Exactly what i needed to make my blog more effective. Thanks for the post!
By: Coach Rob Campbell on August 21, 2010
at 4:45 pm
Thanks for the information! Nice one!!
By: Hello Bridget on September 15, 2010
at 10:25 pm
Great article… Thank you for this!
By: Dimitris on November 11, 2010
at 3:18 pm
This was just the info I needed to start trying to generate traffic and interest to my new blog. I liked tips #2 and #4. Going to try this and see how it works. Keep up the good content!!
By: graeme82 on November 24, 2010
at 4:30 am
Glad I could be of assistance Graeme. I just checked out your blog as well. Very interesting!
By: martyfahncke on November 24, 2010
at 9:50 am
I would like to thank you for a few of your suggestions. I need to drive more traffic to my website. The hours you put in to make it a nice site for your visitors…and then it is so hard to get the traffic.
By: Paul on January 7, 2011
at 6:04 pm
You are welcome Paul. Glad I could help.
By: martyfahncke on January 7, 2011
at 9:18 pm
Hi Martyfahncke, are there any different between pingmyblog and pingomatic? I normally use pingomatic. I only know about pingmyblog when i came across to this site. Thanks again for the sharing.
My Millionaire Mentor 2011 mind blowing from Micheal Cheney
By: My Millionaire Mentor 2011 on January 24, 2011
at 8:14 am
Great tips! Thanks a lot! I just moved from blogspot to my own domain, so i need to start all over again in order to promote my blog!
By: Bani pe net Ok on February 11, 2011
at 3:53 am
I’m trying to improve traffic on our website… thanks for the great tips.
Mabuhay!
By: eClinik on February 27, 2011
at 8:51 pm
Thank you for these tips! -ST
By: ST on February 28, 2011
at 11:38 am
You are welcome Stephanie
By: martyfahncke on March 2, 2011
at 2:19 pm
I personally liked yoru idea of writing about that TV show :)….will try it at local level
By: msinus on March 2, 2011
at 3:14 am
Good luck! Send a link when you begin.
By: martyfahncke on March 2, 2011
at 2:18 pm
Nice info. Especially the pings. I’m sure failednewyearsresolution will get a few hits (even if it’s one-timers who feel dumb for having visited).
By: failednewyearsresolution on March 12, 2011
at 3:30 pm
thanks a bunch, applying to my word press right now!!! Still don’t really get what that ping-o-matic site does though.. Thanks!
http://www.interactioncoach.wordpress.com
By: socialshift on May 19, 2011
at 4:49 pm
Thanks for the tips! I am super new to the blogging world and would love for this to be successful. Never knew about pinging so Im glad I read this however when I went to http://www.pingmyblog.com it didn’t work. It gave me an SQL error when I clicked Ping. This might be a temporary coding problem. I used the other site pingomatic and it worked. Do I need to ping from different sites or is one enough?
By: sexsinthecity on June 1, 2011
at 10:30 am
Glad you enjoyed the tips. I just checked pingmyblog and got the same error. Strange. For now just use the Pingomatic and I think you’ll be fine. Good luck with your blogging endeavors!
By: martyfahncke on June 1, 2011
at 10:46 am
thanks a lot…the ideas are great…i’m just gonna do it.. 🙂
By: bugger73 on June 1, 2011
at 8:45 pm
Thank you for that, a great place to start and this is exactly what I will start doing. Happy blogging.
HireMarketMan
By: hiremarketman on June 21, 2011
at 5:26 am
A wonderful post with good direction thank you for sharing this with us. I find a certain amount of appreciation should go out to those who share information rather then bottle it up and keep it to themselves.
I am new to this idea of blogging and in fact it seemed to hit me sort of like a brick from out of no where. I will so sure be using the application of these methods.
By: GrailSword on July 24, 2011
at 10:36 am
my blog http://www.shraddharockin.wordpress.com
By: Ankit Patel on October 6, 2011
at 9:28 am
Good info, i’ll have to attempt to repeat for my blog. Thanks!
By: Jenny Halls on November 20, 2011
at 9:18 pm
Thank you. Nice to read an honest article, rather than one that it out to make money from it.
By: Peter on September 4, 2012
at 7:08 am
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By: promote your website , traffic exchange , website promotion , dofollow blogs on September 11, 2012
at 3:02 pm
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By: rahul srivastava on December 5, 2012
at 1:10 am
Thank you. Awesome ideas.
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at 6:32 am
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By: ティファニー 店舗 on April 14, 2013
at 2:36 pm
That’s very nice piece of information.as my blog is just 2 months old I really needed those ideas..Thanks..
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By: Harsha on June 28, 2013
at 5:06 pm