I created my company’s official blog almost 2 months ago (http://aprilrainskinscience.blogspot.com) and we’ve actually received steady traffic, but the numbers are not as high as we would like. Hopefully all these great tips will have people flocking to our blog.

PS I’ve noticed a lot of suggestions not to use Blogger…can someone explain this to me in detail?

Typepad is pretty limited in its features. I can vouch for it as I have used both. I have just canceled my typepad membership and moved to WordPress.

My Wordpress blog is brand new and i am in the process of transferring over 3 months of posts from Typepad to Wordpress, manually mostly,as I don’t know how to automatically integrate the posts and I don’t want to take any chances with my links. But If you would look it ain’t that shabby either, and I think its better than Typepad, as it gives amazing choices in Templates as well.

Also, If you start a new blog in a relatively unknown Niche, it is most probable that soon guys in your niche would follow suit and start blogging. Here you can actually befriend them by sharing your knowledge of Wordpress – from start to end, making good friends in the process , also regular readers of your blog.

Hope these Tips help. Lemme know!

Regards,
Vik.

I like your site. It looks good!

I have a blog for moms.

You might be interested in a post that my twin sister wrote on our blog about wordpress. (We work together. She is a former software developer and handles all the tech stuff for our business.) http://www.5minutesformom.com/46/do-you-blog/

As the others have said, getting away from blogger is pretty much a must!

Good luck!

How difficult is all this to do, and what are the disadvantages of hosting a site on the same account as your other sites?

I know that at some point I’m going to want to move, and that the longer I put it off the harder it will be. But I’m not even sure how to get started. Ultimatly I’m annoyed at the default blogger templates, and would like to create something like http://www.adintegration.com/ which forsure would have a very very high CTR.

Market Participant — http://gewinnvortrag.blogspot.com/

Please!!!

J.

All the suggestions are great, but since you don’t have a tech savvy target audience, consider hard copy’s.

Include your Blog address and when you complete it, your Website address on everything.

Put it on business cards, presentations, proposals, include it in your address on the head of stationary.

Let your customers know you have a Blog, if they ask, explain what it is and what you are trying to do.

Don’t neglect an important part of your target, and you may be able to bring them along for the ride.

Just my 2 cents,

Joe

Mike

So here again, and replace brackets for greater or less than…

Either this …

( n o e m b e d )
( b o d y )
( / n o e m b e d )

or this … right before the closing style tag ( / s t y l e ) and after the closing tag of #footer p

#b-navbar {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none
}

Good luck and if these still can’t get through … then I rest my case. =(

While you’re pondering your options to move to hosted blogs site, may I suggest you add this code to your blogspot template. This is to take away blogspot embedded top bar. Nothing personal to blogspot, but I think it’s an eye sore to the site layout especially with such a nice graphic header you have there.

Here are the two options, either one works perfectly. REMEMBER, there is no spacing at all for all tag codes. I use it here as not to trickle some funny characters.

Either this …

or this … right before the closing style tag and after the closing tag of #footer p

#b-navbar {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none
}

All the best! =)

I’m experimenting with something on my blog. I’ve created sub-sets of my About Eat4Today.com pages that have more information for users. And on one of those pages I tell people how to read or make a comment if they choose. I know from friends that are new to blogs that clicking on ‘comment’ isn’t obvious to them — it never occurs to them.

You might think back to how your brother introduced you to blogging and use some of those ideas and language to create a ‘what’s this all about’ page.

Good luck! I think you’ve got a good thing going.

I agree with Tom – first thing get onto WordPress. In the long run it will do you good.

Regarding attracting an audience and increasing your blog traffic while you say the old posting comments isn’t working for you I wonder how diligently you are doing so?

Your audience may not be very net savvy but I’m certain there are people out there who currently read websites about your topic – these people are your target audience.

You need to think like these people and consider what other blogs they would visit. They may not realize they are blogs given they are not very net savvy, but that doesn’t really matter – the audience you attract doesn’t have to realize that your site is a blog for it to be effective.

Start by building a list of blogs with an audience you suspect would enjoy your blog and then test by commenting on those blogs (contributing to the conversation of course – don’t SPAM – demonstrate your expertise). See which blogs bring in traffic, those that do spend more time commenting, those that don’t, spend less time (80/20 rule style).

Give yourself a daily task to make 10 solid comments on other blogs before you go to bed and that will do wonders for your traffic.

Other options-

- Offer to write articles to other blogs as you have done here with ProBlogger – but try and find blogs or websites with your target audience. ProBlogger while having loads of traffic probably doesn’t have the audience you want (but hey, it certainly doesn’t hurt!).

- Start recording a podcast. Getting listed in iTunes can bring in a lot of targeted traffic quickly and it gives you a new channel of communication beyond text.

- Send out more trackbacks. Just like comments, trackbacks are good to get the attention of other bloggers and of course people are always interested when you link to them so they will very likely come and check out your blog after you send the trackback. This may result in them writing a blog post about you.

- Email other bloggers to make friends. Start building a relationship for potential joint ventures in the future. If you have contact with 10 of the top website owners in your niche and you do a special product launch blog post or really solid quality article you can email your friends and ask them to link to it. If you have an established relationship you will much more likely get a positive response as opposed to being a stranger asking for a link out of the blue. Be prepared to return the favor of course.

- As you did with blog comments, do the same for forums. Start joining in and demonstrating your expertise in forums that have your target audience and use your signature file to advertise your blog. If you stick to it this technique can bring in a lot of targeted traffic.

If you start doing all these things the compound effects over time will bring in traffic. There are of course heaps of other techniques you can try (I’m always testing new ones myself), but whatever you do be consistent and be smart – focus on what works and not what doesn’t.

You may want to start implementing a few changes in your blog design to increase its “stickiness” too – for example adding an recommended articles page linked from navigation bar so you can highlight your best content.

If you were on WordPress I’d also recommend you install the related entries plugin and the tag warrior plugin.

Phew! I’ll stop now…

Try my blog traffic tips newsletter too for more advice like this.

Cheers,

Yaro

As for the online stuff… I hope to learn as much as you do from your case study!

How about writing a post called, “Great gifts for bloggers”, and then contact about 50 bloggers and ask them if they will post it on their blog. You can count me as one. If a blog like Boing Boing picks it up, then watch the traffic flood in. That idea was inspired from another Problogger case study that could help you called, Gaining a Top Google Ranking in Two Weeks – Blog Case Study. Check it out.

Try looking at your blog as a way to express yourself and your creativity, instead of a customer-centric vehicle for advertising. It will be way more fun for you and your readers. You are helping us think more about the gifts we buy and why. You give us tips, and spur our imagination. People will buy more into your passion and creativity, than the physical stuff you put on the shelf. Your blog is very new so give yourself time to attract readers.