11 Ways to Build Long Term Traffic to Your Blog
Friday, March 5th, 2010
How to build repeat traffic to your blog.
I originally started writing this post as ways to get more traffic to your domain name blog. But it really applies to any type of blog. The message is that you need to think about growing your blog traffic over the long term, and that requires trust. I often see people try to get ‘quick hits’ of traffic by misleading their readers. But getting long term traffic involves building trust with your readers. Here are ten ways to do that.
1. Be accurate - we all make mistakes, and I’ve made plenty here on Domain Name Wire. The goal is to limit stupid mistakes. These are usually caused by a) not knowing your subject matter or b) writing in haste without checking your sources. Just yesterday I came across a domain blog posting that was basically 100% inaccurate. When someone reads that and realizes it’s inaccurate, you lose all of the trust you’ve built up. Reader lost.
2. Don’t write the headline only for the click - this is especially true in the domain name world since many blogs get a lot of their traffic from Domaining.com. I admit I sometimes write sensational headlines, but some blogs write only click-grabbing headlines and the content it leads to is only loosely tied to the headline. In the domain industry, I often see people use people’s names (e.g. Schilling) as attention grabbers, when the article has little to do with that person.
3. Be concise - if you can write something in one sentence, stop at one sentence.
4. Give credit - it’s tempting to act like you know your stuff and came up with that story on your own. But if you learned about it from someone else, you should link to the source. The source you link to will recognize you, and probably start following your blog. If it’s a tip from a reader, ask them if they’d like a “hat tip” in the post.
5. Use Twitter - if you haven’t linked your blog to Twitter, you need to do so ASAP. It’s a great (and easy) way to get traffic.
6. Look at the right analytics - with blogs, a lot of data in your log files is just noise. There are so many scrapers out there, plus RSS calls, that most of the traffic isn’t really traffic. My webalizer stats show 1.3 million page views last month. That’s inaccurate and not helpful. Use something like Google Analytics. It will undercount your traffic a little bit, but is still a better picture.
6. Use search box analytics - what are your readers looking for? Sure, you know what keywords they clicked to find your blog. But what are they searching for when they actually arrive on your site? Implement Google Analytics ‘site search’ data to see what words people are typing into your search box. (You do have a search box on your site, right?)
7. Watch real time traffic with Woopra - most web site analytics programs are good for seeing what happened yesterday or last month. But what about right now? Try Woopra. It’s killer. Here’s how I use it.
8. Use full feeds - it’s tempting to only authorize partial feeds for RSS readers. After all, if they see only part of my feed they have to click over to my site to read the full thing, increasing my traffic, right? Sure, but you won’t get as many loyal readers. Blogs that only post partial feeds often don’t get enough across to the reader to show them that an article is interesting. So these feeds often get dropped from RSS readers. Look, all the biggest blogs use full feeds. Are they just stupid?
On the down side, you will find a lot more sites scraping your full articles if you have full RSS feeds. But you can always monetize your feeds.
9. Get more RSS readers - if there’s one metric that will drive your long term traffic more than anything else, it’s RSS readers. To get more readers you need to a) offer full feeds (see #8) and b) have an RSS button prominent on your site. Oh, and write good content so people want to subscribe.
To get a decent measure of your number of subscribers, you can check log files which sometimes report them. But the best proxy is the data Google gives you at Google.com/webmasters. (By the way, those Feedburner numbers are bogus and pointless.)
10. Don’t post just for the sake of posting - some people feel compelled to post even when they have nothing to say. If your readers find some of your posts of little value, they will eventually stop reading.
11. Proofread your posts - I make spelling and grammar errors in my articles. In fact, I’m sure there are a few in this one. But what annoys me is when someone clearly didn’t even take the time to read their post before they hit ‘publish’. If you have sentences that disappear in the middle, an incoherent structure, or dozens of spelling errors, I start to lost interest.
So there you have it. I’m sure I’ll think of many more tips, but these eleven are ones I strive to live by.
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Nice post, #7 was interesting. I’ll give Woopra a shot.
Many bloggers use Facebook to announce a new post. I am friends/fans with several that I like/trust, and I navigate to their blog posts when they appear on my Facebook stream.
This post is very timely for me Andrew as I am freshly into a new blog effort… it’s quality info coming from you, as i recently discovered your blog definitely gets solid traffic
thanks for the advice, much appreciated
@ Brian – glad I was able to send a bit your way
Sadly, failure to follow rule #10 is prevalent on domain name blogs and I think alot are hurting for it unknowingly.
There is a mood that is set that domain bloggers must post multiple times per day. I believe a result of people wanting to continually be on top of Domaining.com
I have even seen some apologize for “missing today’s post.” That’s ridiculous. I don’t want to read your blog everyday, especially if you talk about yourself. Thanks!
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@Mark I think you are wrong AND right. When you post like Frager Factor and throw up posts shorter than a twitter post it drives me crazy. But…there is a big difference between and a website. A blog is a weblog about yourself and your personal experiences. It’s supposed to be personal. Secondly, consistency of posting is a key to keeping people coming back. Not saying you have to post to post just saying if you’re not going to put in effort into your site, I’m not going to put effort into reading it. Despite what everyone thinks, the world does not revolve around domaining.com. I am thankful for it but I personally post for fun and thought, no more no less. My three cents
Sorry, I should have followed number 11. I left the word blog out “difference between a blog and a website”
I believe that most bloggers are fat people with no social life. They are couch potatoes and the only reason they became bloggers is to complain about something or somebody so they could get advantage or favors that they would not get otherwise.
Here’s another 2:
Write compelling content.
Engage your userbase.
Good content attracts and retains readers
Engaged readers are repeat readers and possibly evangelists.
@ Blog no more – and what does that make anonymous drive by commentors, then?
Blog no more,
I believe Larry Fischer, Sahar, Elliot, Frank Schilling (ret.) and many others might be offended.
“If you have sentences that disappear in the middle, an incoherent structure, or dozens of spelling errors, I start to lost interest.”
nice post.
re: #11 on proofreading you ended with, “I start to lost interest.” … tell me you threw that in there to see if anyone was really paying attention
damn’it. Adam, your comment wasn’t there till i submitted mine and the page refreshed. that’s right, i never violate rule #4, i came up with that all on my own!
@ Adam – too subtle? I thought about misspelling spelling, but seemed too obvious. And cutting the sentence off in the middle would be too obvious too.
My #1 Rule In Blog Writing:
“Don’t comment about “grammatical mistakes” or “writing styles” or “inaccuracies” of other domain blog writers and their blogs.
Because of your post, Dub-A, I wasted four hours re-reading all my blog articles, wondering if you were referring to my blog surreptitiously, and worrying that I weren’t good if anyone every thought I might be verbose, or talked to much, or repeated the same thing over and over again, grammar incorrectly, as in saying it too much, and using too many commas in a sentence, without ending the paragraph, or other mistakes that would prevent persons from visiting my blog, and not reading it, and losing that reader because they thought I weren’t good, and I rambled too much, because you wrote what you wrote that said that… (hold on… gotta catch my breath).
Anyway, thanks for inflicting a lot of self-reflection and worry, Dub-A.
*sniff*
Another thing, which I guess you alluded to in #10 is the content. Try and post stuff people actually find a use for.
I find myself signing up to lots of blogs in my Google reader, and about 70% get weeded out pretty quickly. Why? Because they just post crap content.
Nice work on the proofreeding too BTW