This article will talk about an unusual way to get people to visit a blog that doesn't work for regular websites. Keep in mind that all blogs are websites, but not all websites are blogs. My best ways to get people to visit a website are still my best ways to get people to visit a blog. Some of these are article marketing, building links, and creating content and ranking factors.
But blogs are not like other websites. There are other very effective ways to get new people to check out your blog. Linking to other sites was the first one I tried. If you want to market your blog, you need to know that bloggers are part of a community. Those of us who have been on the Internet for a long time remember when the whole thing was a small, close-knit community. Back then, it was fine to send an email to other people in your topic area to let them know you just set up a site and would like a link on theirs.
I'm not suggesting that for the blog community. Even sending a personal email to someone you haven't met is almost a thing of the past. Spam is making it harder and harder to do that. But it's still fine and even expected that you introduce yourself when you join a group. It's also a good idea to let the people in your new area know that you are a nice guy who is willing to help out.
When you start a blog, this post will tell you one way to do that. First, you should find out who lives around you. With the Alexa toolbar, you can find out who the most popular people are in your new community. Start by looking for "____ blog" on Google, Yahoo, or your favourite search engine. Fill in the blank with your blog's subject. Check out the blogs you find.
You like them, right? Good, because these people are leaders in your new town. Add a link to them in your blog roll. Read them every day to learn what's going on in your area. You don't like them, right? No problem. If so, don't link to them. Don't bother. Don't introduce them to your guests. You don't have to get along with everyone in your new neighbourhood, but you do want to be a part of it...
Now, when you read those blogs every day, look at the blog rolls on the side (links they have to other blogs in your community). Pay them a visit. The Alexa toolbar helps with this. You'll find some new people in charge (those with blogs showing less than 100,000 on your Alexa toolbar). If you like their blog, you can add it to your own blog roll.
I just moved to the top of the Utah mountains, to a town of about 300 people. It was a new place to live. I'd never lived in a rural area before, so it was important for me to do the same thing as I joined my new community here in the mountains. Even though it didn't use Alexa or link to other sites, the idea is the same. If you move to a new place and want to be a part of it, you should go out and meet people. In the blogosphere, this is one way to do that.
After only a couple of months, I have about a hundred links from other bloggers. Because of these links, over 600 people visit my blog every day, and over 100 of them come almost every day to read it.
Do I remember asking for any of those links? Nope. They didn't ask me for the links I gave them either. Do I have 100 links that go elsewhere? Nope. Many of those links were there before I linked to them. When I have a chance, I go to their blog and read it. If I like it, I send them a link. I don't add a blog to my blog roll if I don't like it for whatever reason. It's not always a case of one link for another.
Some of you may be wondering how my outbound links turned into inbound links without me doing anything else. You might be wondering why I called this article "Getting Blog Visitors" when I only talked about how to link to other blogs and send my visitors there. OK, let me explain why this works well only on blogs and not on other websites.
In the first place, I use Wordpress. It is the software for blogs that is growing the fastest. I don't know what other blog software has, but I do know that the following is true of Wordpress. When I log in to my control panel to write a blog post, I see a page with a number of blog stats. One of the most important parts of those statistics is the number of inbound links, as well as a list of the sites that have linked to me recently.
Can you just ignore the fact that a blog called "Mattress Cleaners" just linked to you? I can't. I lose focus right away, so what do I do? I hit the button. I go to that Mattress Cleaner blog and look around. Just now, they got a new reader (at least for that day). If they were a good blog that fit in with my own blog's community (which they don't), I would put a link to them in my blog roll so I could check them out occasionally.
Sites that aren't blogs can do the same thing. When you send traffic to a site by linking to it, this is recorded in their referrer logs. But many webmasters don't check their logs or statistics. People who do this might use stats software that doesn't even show who sent them there. They might only care about how much traffic there is, not where it comes from.
Most bloggers do, however, know when someone links to them. When they log in to make a new post, it's right in front of them. To let someone know that you have joined their blog community, all you have to do is link to them. Also, it tells them that you are friendly and that you like their part of the blog community that you just joined. Don't be surprised if they link back to your blog or even write about it.
It's really that easy.
