The quest for increasing blog traffic…

Driving traffic to your blog is the only way you’ll make money, right? Well, if you’ve got nothing to sell but other people’s programs (a.k.a. affiliate marketing), then yeah…you’ll need traffic and lots of it to make any money.

However, the quest for “more traffic” is really just the tip of the iceberg. Sure, as a blogger the first thing you look at is your traffic… and let me tell you, if all you want is lots of generic traffic, THAT is easy.

I once had a client who asked me to set up a blog for him in the “background” of his HTML website.   He had signed up for several “get rich quick” type free seminars which were extolling how a blog could make you a millionaire without any hard work on your part.  He was wise enough NOT to purchase their $1500 “magic blog” solution and instead hired me to install WordPress in the backgound of his current site.  He planned on “practicing” blogging on this hidden site before he began “blogging for real” out in the open. So, I did as I was asked.  I set his opening post to his user ID and password he needed to enter the administration area of blog. I sent him and email telling him the FIRST thing he was to do was to REMOVE THAT POST! He confirmed that he was going to get started IMMEDIATELY.

Well… he didn’t remove the post. I’m not sure he ever even went and SAW the post. About 8 months later though, the sex.alt list members had found it and my client was getting 8000 visitors a day to his web site… or rather the “hidden” blog on his server was generating that traffic.  None of those posters gave a rat’s ass about the personal development products my client offered legitimate visitors.

Want lots of traffic? Set your Word Press blog to “allow anyone to register” and then set the default registration status to “editor”. (Let’s not get silly and allow these people to change your theme and plug ins… or lock you out of your own site!)  Publicize this fact and watch your visitor count SOAR!

Oh, you say that’s not the type of traffic that you want. I understand. Then exactly, what kind of traffic DO you want coming to your blog?

THAT is the million dollar question. It’s the first thing Paul Stamatiou addresses in his post How to Boost Your Blog’s Traffic.

It’s easy to say that it starts by improving your blog’s content…. but Rand over at SEOmoz goes even deeper with 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic. He begins with the REAL basics, with advice such as hosting your blog on it’s own server.

See, improving your content may or may not be a good tactic for you.  Over at Problogger, there’s a post on Increasing the number of page views… where some people say they LIKE seeing low page view numbers per visitor because that means visitors are clicking on ads and by leaving the site, are making money for the site owner.

Some of the crappiest content on the web is specifically designed to get you to click on their link in the search engine results… and then you’ll find absolutely HORRIBLE content on the page but several links to “good” content.  When you click on those links, the crappy content site owner gets paid.

So before you begin chasing elusive “blog traffic”… first define your blog’s PURPOSE.  Then, define your blog’s AUDIENCE.  After you have those two covered… then it’s time to address the blog traffic issue.