Synicate Me

27 April 2008

Build traffic to your blog by providing great content

Building traffic to your blog is the key to making money from your blog. It is not as simple as it sounds, because if you market your blog to your regular readers, you are preaching to the choir. You need to market your blog to those who are not on your blog, while still keeping the loyalty of those who are regular readers.

A useful site for Wordpress users


If you are using the excellent Worpress software for blogging, you owe it to yourself to visit One Cool Site. One Cool Site offers simple and clear advice on topics you might be puzzled by, like how to resize pictures without losing quailty. In fact, they even offer ten great tips on how to build traffic to your blog.

Great content is the key to traffic


It is not that hard to get a single post on Stumble Upon or on Digg. What is hard is to prevent your blog from showing a peak in traffic, which returns to 10 or 20 hits per day shortly after. You need to build consistent traffic.

The key to enjoying consistent traffic to your blog is to provide great content. We have already dealt with the format you should use, namely the inverted pyramid style of writing. We will cover how to write great content here.
  • Write at least five cornerstone posts

  • Market your cornerstone posts

  • Network with other blogs

  • Encourage other blogs to network with you

  • Link back to your other cornerstone posts


I build traffic to my main blog, The Necro Files, by using tips from dosh dosh, ProBlogger and One Cool Site. This series of posts on how to build traffic to your blog is based on their advice and my own experiences using their advice.

Write at least five cornerstone posts


A cornerstone post is a post that teaches your reader something. Most how to make money blogs are based around cornerstone posts. It is a tutorial that is extremely useful.

This proves to be a problem for certain niche blogs that do not cater for readers who want to learn how to do something. My main blog reviews heavy metal albums and horror films. It is difficult to write a tutorial on those topics. Here are a few ideas for five cornerstones:
  • write a series of posts on the same topic or the same product

  • write a series of posts on related products

  • write a series of posts which give information to your readers about your topic


I have written a few successful series, sometimes months apart. The idea is to use one of your cornerstone posts as a flagship to promote the other related cornerstone posts when
  • you link from your flagship cornerstone post to your other cornerstone posts.

  • you link to the flaghsip cornerstone posts of a different series


This solves the problem of getting one day of peak traffic and the next day very little. Readers who like your flagship post will want to read further, so they follow the links and browse around your blog. While you are publishing the cornerstone posts, one per day, you also create anticipation for the next post. This is a great way to win readers and create a buzz around your blog.

Some useful links for building web traffic


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