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65 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

Posted By Guest Blogger 16th of October 2011 Blog Promotion 0 Comments

This guest post is by Satrap of BlogStash.com.

What is the best way to drive traffic to my site? What’s the fastest way to generate traffic to my site? What’s…?

We all want to know the best way to drive the greatest amount of traffic to our sites. However, the truth is that there is no best or fastest way to drive traffic! What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. Just because I manage to get 500 visitors a day from an article I submitted to article directories doesn’t mean you can get that much traffic doing the same thing.

Of course, there are some traffic generation methods that produce better results than others. But again, it all depends on you and your situation. Let’s take article marketing as an example. Article marketing is one of the oldest and best ways to generate traffic. But the success of your article marketing campaign depends on many different things, like the number of articles you write, the number of article directories you submit to, the quality of your articles, how many articles a day you submit, and more.

My advice would be to pick a few methods from the 65 I’ve listed below, and start implementing them. Test them for yourself. Depending on your skills, you might find a method that would work wonders for you.

Don’t just follow what everybody else says. I’m not saying, “Don’t listen to experienced people who are successful in generating traffic to their site.” By all means, listen to them and do take their advice—but experiment to find out for yourself which traffic generation methods work best for you and your situation.

With that said, here are 65 simple and (mostly) free ways to generate traffic to your site.

  1. Turn your articles and blog posts into PDFs using free PDF converters like OpenOffice. Then submit your PDFs to document sharing sites like Scribd and DocStoc.
  2. Write truly informative and useful articles related to your niche, and publish them on WikiPedia.
  3. Hold a contest and give prizes to your readers. Use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to let people know about the contest. A good contest with good prizes will attract a lot of people.
  4. Build a wiki page for your blog. To ensure your page doesn’t get deleted, create an article that is educational, informational, and not self-promoting.
  5. Write list posts like the one you are reading. Readers love posts like “10 ways to make money” or “6 ways to drive traffic to your blog”. List posts are amongst the most popular kinds of posts, and people tend to share list posts with others more often than other posts.
  6. Make flyers with a catchy title and a description of your blog, and post them on bulletin boards in the entrance to supermarkets and other community buildings.
  7. Post frequently, but don’t sacrifice quantity for quality. Both search engines and visitors like to see fresh, quality content. The more content you have, the more chances you have for ranking for variety of keywords, which will mean more organic traffic for your blog.
  8. Make a lens (or more) using Squidoo and in it, place a few links back to your blog.
  9. Submit your blog to directories relevant to your niche, like InsLink.com (an SEO/webmaster directory).
  10. Make it easy for non-technical readers to link to your blog or share your links with other people by making a “How to link to us” page. Here, give readers easy instructions on how to link to your blog with your keywords as anchor text.
  11. Submit your blog to search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Or simply use AdMe.com to submit your site to over 25 search engines for free.
  12. Use sites like Odiogo to turn your blog into a podcast, then submit your podcast to podcast websites.
  13. Answer questions related to your niche on YahooAnswers and other Q & A sites. Include a link to your blog in the resource box.
  14. Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
  15. Write and submit articles to article directories like EzineArticles and ArticleDashboard.
  16. Turn your articles to videos using free video creation services like Animoto, and submit them to video directories such as YouTube and DailyMotion.
  17. Build a Facebook fan page for your blog.
  18. Make use of plugins like Tell-a-Friend to let your readers quickly share your posts with their friends and family vie email.
  19. Use Hi5 to build a page for your blog and create a community around it.
  20. Don’t clutter your blog with too many pictures, ads, and so on. Keep it clean and easy to navigate. This will help both search engines and visitors to navigate around your blog easily and quickly.
  21. Join BlogEngage to submit your blog and create a community around it.
  22. Ping your blog posts using free ping services such as Pingler and Pingoat.
  23. Create a hub about your blog on HubPages.
  24. Register with few good niche-related forums and use your signature to place links pointing to your blog. Participate in discussions and contribute as much as you can.
  25. Make it easy for your readers to share your posts by installing social bookmarking plugins like SocialMarker and Digg Buttons.
  26. Readers like to read other people’s comments, especially those who responded to their comments. So, take advantage of that by using a plug-in like Comment Notifier to automatically let your readers know of new comments posted on your blog.
  27. Make your blog more search engine friendly by using SEO plug-ins such as Platinum SEO Pack.
  28. Target long-tail keywords with low competition and try to rank for them. Such keywords are easier to rank for in search engines and give you much more targeted traffic.
  29. Make a MySpace page for your blog.
  30. Make business cards with your blog info on them, hand them to friends and family, and ask them to pass them on. Mall parking lots are good place to pass your cards around. In some states you can even put your business card on windshields. You can get up to 250 free business cards using sites like VistaPrint (although you do have to pay $5 shipping).
  31. Submit your blog to the free directories like DMOZ (hard to get into, but well worth the effort!).
  32. Write a good press release, or hire a professional to do it for you (you can get a pretty decent press release written for you for $5 on Fiverr.com), and submit them to free press release distribution sites like PR.com.
  33. Write creative and attention-grabbing ads about your blog, and publish them on free classified ads sites such as CraigsList and UsFreeAds.
  34. Controversial posts attract visitors. Write a controversial post. Be creative and bold, but be careful not to cross the boundaries.
  35. Ask an expert or a trusted, well-known person in your niche for an interview. Then post the entire interview on your blog, either as a text post or as a video.
  36. Leave quality comments on blogs that are related to your niche. Make sure your comments add value to the blog. Don’t just spam-comment and hope for the best. It never works, and your links will get deleted. Worst of all, you might get blacklisted from the site. If you leave a useful comment, people will be more likely to visit your blog.
  37. Use free banner-making tools like BannerFans to make an interesting banner for your blog. Then find other bloggers in your niche and exchange banners with them.
  38. Exchange links with other blogs in your niche. Don’t go overboard with this technique, or exchange links with each and every blog you find—be selective and make sure the context for your link is appropriate. Most people use their main keyword as the anchor text for their link, that’s good for SEO. But, if you want to get more traffic from those links, instead use attention-grabbing text as your anchor text. Don’t use “Make Money Online” for your link text—people are used to seeing those links all over the web. Instead use something like “10 ways to make $10 in 10 minutes.”
  39. If you find interesting posts on other blogs, write a post about them and link to them. The other bloggers will notice and might do the same for you.
  40. Find good blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. You can either search manually or make it easy for yourself by registering for free with MyBlogGuest, which matches guest bloggers with blogs that accept guest posts. Write and submit your best articles to get the maximum exposure. Don’t just submit the article and leave. Make sure you follow up and respond to comments and questions that readers of those blogs ask.
  41. Submit your site to review sites that write reviews on other websites and blogs, like CoolSiteOfTheDay.
  42. Submit your blog to BlogCatalog.
  43. People love free stuff, so give out freebies that are related to your niche. If you are in “online money making” niche, a free ebook that teaches people who to make money on Twitter might make an appropriate freebie.
  44. Write a page on 43things.com about your blog and what you want to do with it.
  45. Use your keywords in the title of your posts. Having your keyword in the title makes it easier for you to rank for that keyword, thus bringing you more organic traffic.
  46. Use your blog’s name as your username on forums, social networking sites, and other places like YahooAnswers. People are curious by nature, so they may check out your blog out of curiosity and if you have good compelling content, they may become your loyal readers.
  47. Make a bumper sticker with your blog address on it, and place it on your car’s bumper. You can even ask your friends and family to do the same for you!
  48. Make a Twitter profile for your blog and tweet each and every post you publish on your blog.
  49. Register with EntreCard and start dropping your card on other blogs. You will be amazed how much traffic you can get from EntreCard.
  50. Register with ComLUV.com and download their plugin.Then use the Global CommentLuv Search to find blogs related to your niche and comment on them. It will return up to ten (recent) posts that will be sent back when you comment on a CommentLuv enabled site. Most are dofollow blogs, and you will get dofollow links back to your most recent posts. This is good for link building and getting some traffic.
  51. Make a free ebook with a link back to your site in it, and submit it to free ebook sites like GetFreeEbooks.com.
  52. Buy .info domains with long-tail keywords in them and use a redirect to send the traffic they receive to your main site.
  53. Rent a mailing list and send high-quality content with a link back to your site to all the subscribers. Take care with this technique so that you’re not blacklisted as a spammer, though. Find a reputable list broker—or, if in doubt, why not start your own?
  54. Post a classified ad on eBayClassified with a link to your site.
  55. When you eat out, leave a good tip along with a business card with your site info on it.
  56. Create a short report with resell rights and and include your links in the report. Give it to people for free: those people can sell the report to others as their own, so long as they don’t remove your links. The results of this technique will surprise you.
  57. Come up with a really crazy but buzz-worthy post and submit it to NowPublic.com (Previously known as Truemors). If it’s good enough, it might just go viral!
  58. Go to YouTube, find popular videos related to your niche and start commenting on those videos with a link back to your blog. Youtube videos get thousands of views, and since most people are sociable creatures, they will read the comments no matter how far down the list your comment is.
  59. Create a page (personal or business) at LookUpPage.com. You can add as many links to your blog as you like. Write a short “about” post about yourself or your blog, and make sure to link to your Twitter and other social networking sites as well. After creating the page, bookmark it using SocialMarker and ping it with Pingler (or any other tools you like).
  60. Register with Visible.me for free, and add links and information about your blog. Its a great way to build your brand and get a few backlinks from a high-PR (6) dofollow site.
  61. Submit your RSS feed to RSS aggregators. Here, I don’t mean just your blog’s RSS feed: grab the RSS url of every site you have a link on (example: if you submit articles to ezine.com, you will have your own “author RSS” URL), and go to RssMix.com. It will let you make a custom RSS feed. Take that and submit it to RSS directories and aggregators. This will put your RSS feed on steroids—and will give you many more backlinks.
  62. Make a few (yard) signs with your blog’s URL and a good title related to your niche, and place them on highway exit ramps, at busy intersections, and so on. Make sure you abide by the laws in your own state or country if you try this approach.
  63. Put an ad in your local newspaper. If you live in a small town, it may not be very expensive to have an ad on your local newspaper—or on TV or radio, for that matter.
  64. Order some T-shirts with your blog URL and title printed on them and give them away. People will check out your URL!
  65. This is just for fun, so enjoy it! Make a big and I mean big sandal (or flip flop) with your blog’s URL engraved on the bottom, go to a busy beach, and start walking all over the sand! Leave your mark for others to see.

These methods will keep you busy for a while. But perhaps the most important tip I can give you is to be patient. Getting traffic to a blog takes time and a lot of work. You cannot expect to have hundreds of visitors after a few weeks, or months of starting your blog. But, if you are a dedicated person who’s willing to put enough time and effort into it, you can’t help but attract more visitors to your blog over time.

Which of these ideas do you like? What has or hasn’t worked for you? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

Satrap writes at BlogStash.com about different work from home opportunities. Visit BlogStash to learn real ways to make money online.

About Guest Blogger
This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see their details in the post above.
Comments
  1. Thanks for this post. I did only 10 ways to drive traffic to my blog and this time i will try remaining 55 ways also thanks sir

    • Hi Naveentechies,

      You are welcome. Yeah, as I said, you may not be able to do all of these. But as long as you start somewhere and get going, then you are taking some action and thats what matters.

      Thank you for your comment.

  2. A few of these ideas I’ve heard or thought of, but most I had not – plus I picked up a couple other tips from the commenters. Excellent article!

    • Hi Felicia,
      I am glad you found a few new methods. Yeah, the comment section is always a great place to find more information related to the topic of the post. Thanks for commenting.

    • I went through the whole list and I don’t think that I missed any. It has been a month now and let me say that there are a few things in this list that are very helpful and can make your site a success. I can guarantee that because I went from getting 50 page views daily to a 600-700 page views daily. Not the amount that I am aiming but I am surely on the right path. Thanks again for this marvelous list. You ROCK!!!

  3. @Satrap, Thanks for this list! This is the most comprehensive, as well as the most unique list of ways to drive traffic to a blog that I have ever seen. You are most creative! Thanks for the advice and I will taylor the list and make a plan that will work out well for my blogging situation. Thanks again!
    krissy knox :)
    follow me on twitter:
    http://twitter.com/krissyknox

    • Hi Krissy,

      Well thank you for your kind words. I am truly happy I was able to be helpful through this post. I wish you the best and thank you for taking time to make my day better.

  4. Thanks for the traffic tips Satrap! You’ve helped me find more ways to build more links back to my site.

    • You are welcome Carla. Glad I could help you find a new backlinking methods. thanks for your comment.

  5. This list is marvelous! I am energized by it and cannot wait to begin, thanks!

    • Thank you Kim. Good to hear you were energized and ready to go. Best of luck and thanks for commenting.

  6. Wow, what an incredible list! I love ‘list posts’ like this one – so many amazing ideas all in one blog post. No wonder we all come back to problogger for inspiration!

    • Hi Christina,
      Yeah list posts are my favorite as well. They are always hot with readers. Glad you liked it as well.
      Thank you for sharing your thoughts Christina.

  7. I tried the first 10 and within 2 hours my traffic tripled compared to its average for this time of day for the last few months… THANKS SO MUCH, I’m implementing the rest and sharing this article with a few business people who are not utilizing their websites to attract clients, but should be… this post was awesome!

    • Wow Amie, I am so happy to hear that. Yeah, that’s a good thing about many of these methods, almost instant traffic. But remember, many of these methods, will give results as time passes by as they help you acquire quality links that will help you rank higher in search engines.

  8. Hi,

    Thanks for a good post. Also some good aspects when wanting to build links to ones website.

    Best regards
    Michael

    • You are welcome Michael. Yeah, as I mentioned lots of these methods are great for link building as well. Thanks for being here Michael.

  9. I like the flip flop idea. I will make a sandal to wear on the beach and also if possible some Digger boots to make an impression on the roads too.

    • Hey James,
      Yeah flip flop idea is a fun one that can also be integrated in many other ways. Thanks for sharing.

  10. Some good tips.. but a few of these (yard signs??) are kinda shotgun marketing, don’t see the value. And I doubt that my server bringing me my queso and margarita really cares to read my blog. ;-) FWIW.

    • As I have mentioned a few times, not every single method is right for everyone. It just really depends on you, your niche and the kind of audience you have. For example, a yard sign will work great if you have a political blog. People are more intoned to politics these days than ever, so a good catchy title on a yard sign, will surely get their attentions. Thanks for commenting Davina.

  11. This is a truly amazing list! Heading off to implement some that I have not done before! thank you

    • Thank you for calling it “amazing” Joshua. Yeah, the sooner you get started the better. Good luck and thanks for taking time to stop by and leave your comment.

  12. I have never created a blog. My site is ranked first page Google out of 1,150,000,000 search results.

    Even though I am top and generating over 5000 page views per day, you think it is still a good idea for a blog to be created for this site.

    • Impressive results Gaza. What are the search volume for the keywords you are ranking for?…

      And yes, I do believe having a blog gives you lots of advantages. The biggest one being that you can constantly add new posts whcih gives you more pages, more content, thus enticing search engine boats to crawl your site more often whcih is a factor 9howver small) in giving you an authority status in the eyes of search engines.

      Thank you for your question and comment Gaza.

  13. God, this is the most comprehensive blog post, which I have ever read so far. Thanks for the excellent post…):): Hope some of these ways work for my blog. I have been blogging for months and months without much success of driving proper traffic to my blog. Thanks.

    • Hey JR,

      If you truly work on these methods, they will work fro you. I am sorry to hear that you are not having success. but please don’t be discouraged. It takes a while to get there It took me over a year to get some decent traffic to my site. I am sure with a little more work you will get there.

      Best of luck and thanks for stopping by JR.

  14. Thanks sartap, I have only used 5 or 6 methods to bring traffic to my site. Hope your listed methods will help me to do better.

    • You are welcome Rakesh. I am sure if you put some effort into a few of these methods, you will get some good results. Thanks fro commenting.

  15. Dear Sartap, I am new to blogging and your post will surely help me to get some real traffic to my site. You have almost covered every field to get traffic to your site. Thanks – swarnima

    • We all are new when it comes to learning Swarnima. I hope you put these tips into good use. I wish you nothing but success. Thank you for stopping by.

  16. @Swartap. Thanks a lot for big list here. Surely will try for my blog.

  17. This list is just what I needed! Thanks!

    • That’s what i like to hear Kate. Thank you for making me happy and I am so glad you liked the list. Best of luck and thanks for sharing your thought.

  18. Great article. I definitely have not thought of or implemented all 65 ways. I will definitely start using more of these to create and drive more blog traffic!
    Thanks!

    • Thank you Michael. I am sure if you do use even a few of these methods, you will get some results. Good luck and thanks for commenting.

  19. wow…65 ways…I will try as many as I could. I tried the number 1 tips. That was a good idea. I also want to ask: can we really leave a comment on Youtube with a link to our website? So far I know, our comment will be flagged as a spam.

    • Yeah, #1 is a favorite of mine.

      Yes you can leave a link in youtube, however, like in any other situation, it has to be relevant and helpful to other people how are trying to learn more about the topic of the video.

      Thanks for your question and comment Timothy.

  20. Oh thats a huge list of stuff I have not done, shall bookmark this and try and do as many of these as I could do. thanks a ton man !

    • Yeah David, you don’t have to do all of this at once. Juts pick a few and star working. Thanks for commenting.

      • I have tried to leave a URL in a youtube comment before (several times) and it doesn’t work. You have to spell it out like, Noahsdad (dot) com – so it’s not a real link. When is the last time you have actually left a url in a youtube comment? Would you mind posting a link to where you were able to do it so I can see it? Because I still can’t do it.

        Thanks.

  21. Satrap,

    Great post.I’ve learned some new methods from your post.It’ll help me to get more traffic to my site.Thanks a lot!!!

    ~Mir Imran Elahi

    • Mir Imran I am glad you learned a few new tips. Use them and you shall see results. Thanks for commenting.

  22. Awesome post! I will reblog this on my website and reference it back. Lots of my readers will love it. I’m especially keen on No. 1 and will do it today!!!
    K

    • I am honored you find this post worthy enough to share it with your readers Kemi. I really appreciate it. Thanks fro taking time to comment.

  23. Thanks. This is incredibly helpful. I did some of those, but should work on doing a few more!

  24. This is an amazingly useful list, thank you. There are so many blogging blogs and blogging tips out there, it gets a bit overwhelming sometimes. It’s wonderful to have all these good ideas in one easy-to-manage list. I have put a link to this article on my site!

    • I know what you mean Abby, it does get overwhelming. The best thing to do is just implement whatever you learn as you go along.

      Thank you for taking time to comment and also for linking back to this post. I really appreciate it.

  25. Blogging is a sport, exercise. When you get the rhythm, develop a voice and harness the media streams, you are making literary music. Give the blog reader a reason to visit, graze, and have a take away. The experience if all about serving them.

  26. amazing post! I will start doing these one by one after I finish designing my blogsite.. inspirational articles from intelligent people! :)

  27. Thanx a lot and a little :D
    There are some very creative and successful tips.
    Thanx again!!!!! for your important post.

  28. Normally when you open a poet that starts like ……65 ways to drive traffic to your blog it starts off well but ends up with not much relevancy, however this one is different.

    As a newbie to blogging I am grateful for any help or advice that comes my way – and there sure was plenty in this post!

    Will I use them all? I’m not sure, however I will give it a good go :)

    Many thanks for an great post

    • Thank you for your kind words Glenn. I am glad I didn’t disappoint you.

      I wish you the best in your new blogging journey. Thank you for making my day by leaving such a humbling comment Glenn.

  29. As a new blogger, you’re tips are very insightful. Some, of course, I’ve already been implementing, but there are so many good ideas.

    Are there any you reccomend starting off with?

    • Tisa, I would say pick the ones that are easier for you to implement first, after you get some results from those methods, you will be more motivated, so you can start working on harder methods. Though most of these are really easy to implement. Good luck and thanks for your question Tisa.

  30. Excellent blog traffic tips…you’ve just added to my to-do list for tomorrow afternoon.

    • Thank you Anita. I am glad you are going to take action and put these tips to use. Good luck and thanks for leaving a comment.

  31. Awesome list Satrap, I going to print this and turn it into a personal challenge, not sure if I’ll do one a day for 65 days, or what but I’ll go over it this weekend and let you know what I end up doing.

  32. Thanks for sharing, I found a few methods useful and new.

  33. Some of the methods on the list I saw for the first time. Thanks for the great list

  34. Great info. Many excellent ways to drive traffic to your blog. Many will say “create and they will come”
    I totally disagree. Noone knows you are there unless you promote yourself.
    These 65 different ways to promote your blog pretty well covers it all.

  35. Definitely some new ideas for generating traffic. Thinking about the t-shirt and giant sandal options. Though my wife would not be happy about me storing the branded sandal. :-)

    BTW – If you do create a t-shirt, check out http://www.iwearyourshirt.com/. They do some pretty funny stuff and you get lots of traffic. Not an affiliate link, just a tip. I used these guys previously for a company and got great results.

  36. I think this is among the so much significant information for me. And i’m satisfied studying your article. However wanna statement on some normal things, The website taste is ideal, the articles is truly great : D. Excellent task, cheers

  37. i think adding page about your blog at aboutus.org will get some quality backlinks.

  38. Terrific work! This is the type of info that should be shared across the internet. Shame on Google for now not positioning this publish upper! Come on over and talk over with my site . Thanks =)

  39. You can definitely see your expertise within the paintings you write. The sector hopes for more passionate writers such as you who aren’t afraid to mention how they believe. All the time follow your heart.

  40. Wow. Hands down the best no bs list on driving traffic to blogs I have ever seen! Add a paragraph per tip and I would buy this e-book! Keep up the great work, thank you.

  41. Thank you so much for sharing all this knowledge. Awesome.

  42. Really blogs are very useful in generating good amount of traffic and for that blogs should be unique and attractive ones. and the content of your blogs should be very useful.

  43. Thanks! There are a few really helpful ideas in there. Particularly for someone just starting out!

    John

  44. thankful to you….helpful post

  45. Awesome post! Picked up quite a few new ideas and has reminded me to actually stick up the flyer for my site that I printed off last week! Need to get business cards made also, like the idea of leaving them with a good tip :)

    Thank you!

  46. This is the most comprehensive (and creative) list I’ve come across. Thank you. How long did it take you to compile all of these ideas? Cheers!

  47. thank you for sharing been looking on where to find traffic for my blogs. I will surely read again your posts. Actually i used 5% of your list. Thanks again.

  48. Excellent article on the ways of making backlinks. I was actually looking for some better ways to build backlinks to my blog. Your article gave me some excellent ideas.

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