How to encourage new traffic

[senior]

Hi Guys,
My blog is over a year old now, it has consistent viewing traffic from certain places / referrers and obviously from google searches and then there are the regular visitors.
The million dollar question is how do I get new traffic, I promote it through my website, facebook, and forums relevant to its basic topic.
I think it's an interesting site with lots of nice pictures, overall I'm quite pleased with it all including visitor numbers but if I could get it out there a bit more then that would be great.
All ideas appreciated, however I don't really want to put adverts all over it from other linked sites.
Thank you.

[Ben]

Write guest posts.

Comment on other blogs.

Don't just use social media to promote your own stuff - use it to have conversations, and share other people's links too.

Follow people on Twitter. Don't follow too many once, follow a few at a time and introduce yourself as you do so.

Link to your blog from your Twitter profile if it's not already there.

Just a few starting points

[JakeSmithOZ]

dont just focus on one specific technique, explore and boost your site combining them..engaging in social media is one of the trends on boosting traffic

[Melody]

Ben - That is a perfect list! And I like your quick and perfect summary of how to use social media!

[ajwalsh]

I completely agree with Ben's suggestions! All great ideas for getting new readers.

In your situation I would also recommend doing some analysis of your first year and what has been going right so far. Many people who ask this question are still in the very early stages and don't have much to work from. But you can take a look back and see which strategies worked the best for getting the readers you have now. Did a particular forum post spark a bunch of new visits? Do your Facebook efforts seem to be paying off? Are your visits from Google viewing multiple pages and converting into regular readers, or just hitting one page and leaving? Having some analytics installed can do wonders for answering these types of questions and finding areas to work on. Do you currently use Google Analytics, Statcounter or any other similar script?

[swood]

Ben mentioned all the ones i was going to say. I'd also recommend throwing a contest every now and then and advertising it on appropriate forums and websites.

[bbrian017]

It's really hard your niche is very small.

I bet this is your biggest challenge to get targeted traffic.

[senior]

Originally Posted by bbrian017

It's really hard your niche is very small.

I bet this is your biggest challenge to get targeted traffic.

I think you're right, I know existing customers look at the blog along with prospective customers.
Fellow cabinet makers follow it for ideas as I follow theirs but at the end of the day I can only post what I have made which if its a kitchen can take a month and during this period I struggle with content.

It's very difficult to just write an interesting blog on ....... "today I made a door"

[rjleaman]

My partner works for a custom cabinet maker, so I have a starting interest in your blog topic... but one question comes to mind when I visit your site: who is the audience? It's not clear if you're writing for potential customers or for other people in the business - but I'm guessing it may be potential customers?

Once you get that audience really clear in your mind, focus on talking directly to them, the way you would if you were on site together: what do they need to know? What kinds of decisions do they need to make to get where you want them to be (e.g., placing an order with you?), and what are they looking for when they land on your blog? Check your search terms in your analytics to see what brings people in, then try to figure out what they do on your blog - bounce away again, or look around? What posts are bringing the most traffic, the most comments, the most shares in social media? I think you may find that tackling these questions will help to extend your reach.

It seems counterintuitive, but the problem is not so often a narrow niche as it is the blogger not having identified that niche quite clearly enough in their own mind... {wow, that's an ugly little sentence - hope you can unravel it!}
Just my 2 cents.

[senior]

^^^ very useful, thank you.