3 Top Tricks for Driving Readers to Your Blog

That are free and can be done by anyone.

Cross-promote with another blogger. I really enjoy reading Productivity @Home . Lisa's blog is similar to mine but with a different twist, so I contacted her about cross-promoting. Much to my delight, she said yes! So I did a post introducing her readers to me and she did the same. It gave both of us a bump in traffic. It's been pleasantly surprising how open nearly everyone is to this. Ask! The worst they can do is say no.

Join a network. If you are using Feedburner , you can become a part of a Feedburner Network. Or even more powerful, you can create a new network.  I am a member of the Getting Things Done network. Members of the network list your headlines and help drive readers your way. It's also a service to your readers because they can see posts from bloggers like you.

Look for opportunities to post to other blogs or blog carnivals. A couple of weeks ago, Slacker Manager was holding "try outs" for new authors after they had been sold. The blog has about 8000 subscribers. I posted every day the try outs were open and saw a large increase in readers. What surprised me is only about 10 bloggers posted. What a great opportunity missed by so many!

So what are your top tricks? I'd love to know because I'm just getting started.

For more tips check out Problogger.net .

Comments

[Michael from Pro Blog Design]

Thanks for the tips, I liked the first one especially. It's an interesting idea.

I suppose link-worthy content is too obvious to be called a strategy, so I suppose my strategy is simply participation. I like to join in conversations, forums, answer questions etc. It's a lot of fun, but very rewarding at the same time.

[Widgett Walls]

Craig: Just FYI, it looks like one has to be a member of an existing Feedburner Network before one can start a new one. And apparently the only way to join an existing network is to track down the owner of the network and ask for entry. I've had to figure this out by reading through the Feedburner forums...apparently it's not a publicized service as going to networks.feedburner.com just kicks me out to the Feedburner homepage. And there's no easy way within Feedburner to seek out networks that one might enjoy and look to join. It seems like it's easier to join the Illuminati...

[Gitte Gorzelak]

Thank you very much for posting this. I am just starting to get involved in groups, posting in forums and so on and it really is a good way to gain more traffic. I am really interested in cross promoting but I am not sure how to find anyone who will participate. I have a personal journal blog with different subjects.

Anyway, thank you very much for these tips. Very helpful.