Everyone Asks: Increasing Blog Traffic (Blog Reviews On Offer) - Blog Forum

Jaded · #1 October 21st, 2010, 03:08 PM

Everyone wants to know, and I'm part of that everyone...so any ideas on how to increase blog traffic?

A lot of vagueness and generalities usually get thrown around as answers to this: Write well, get involved in forums, comment on other blogs etc. But I'm wondering if anyone could give me some more specific, directed advice for my blog, tinite.com? What forums should I get involved with? (Apart from this one obviously!) What blogs should I be looking at?

What and where should I be doing to increase traffic to my blog? All help much appreciated! And of course, I'm willing to swap blog subscriptions etc. if anyone's interested, I'm happy to review your blog on my blog, too, or link too it. I would love to perhaps agree to swap posts linking to another blog if you want (you create a post linking to me and possibly other blogs, and I'll create a post linking to you with a little description etc.)

Any useful advice? Please help!!

christov84 · #2 October 21st, 2010, 04:41 PM

Front page sucks. Not aesthetically so much just doesn't convey what the site is about.
Even if its meant to be a jumbled type front page it needs some visual structure to it and some colour.

If its a site about photos and art, occasional amusing photoshops, atheist/left-wing rants and reviews. You may as well say that somewhere on the front page so people get the idea straight away.

the mouse over thingy while technically cool i think a normal text caption/title would help. Also it might help with SEO.

Jaded · #3 October 21st, 2010, 05:35 PM

Thanks for your comments, but I am actually asking for advice on how to boost a website's popularity/hits...But thank you anyway.

Melody · #4 October 22nd, 2010, 12:11 AM

Your thread almost fits better in the "show off your blog" forum, but I won't worry about it.

Honestly, that front page is a huge issue. I don't see a blog. Are you trying to blog? Your layout is far removed from a traditional blog.

Are you asking how to get more visitors to a static website?

I think all of the things that you've mentioned really are critical. Informative, timely, well-written, great content.

I can only give you examples from my own blog of what works and what doesn't. So for example, what's unique? what's hot? For me, I love writing about "test" products. They're interesting, and not something that most people know about. I wrote about test pastries & desserts in Arizona based on a tip, and that blog post generates all kind of traffic because if you are in Arizona and you want to figure out why your Starbucks has different food than anywhere else, my blog is pretty much the only thing on the whole web with information on it, at this point. Or "informative" ... It's been in the news that Starbucks opened a store with beer and wine. Writing about that store with lots of beautiful pics has caused a huge spike in traffic (732 visitors the next business day from my blog post) because it's a hot news topic for Starbucks fans, and I was able to post tons of really unique beautiful photos of the store. When I write an ordinary store review of just any random store, I don't see that spike in traffic, but writing about something that is also featured at the same time in USA Today created a spike in traffic.

Maybe you could come back and help me understand what you are doing with your website. That front page doesn't look like a blog, and you have a tremendous amount of internet competition. Lots of blogs compete for traffic. You sort of have to give your readers something they instantly know is a blog, but you can't expect that they will dig for your content.

Looking forward to hearing more from you ...

ChickenFreak · #5 October 22nd, 2010, 01:19 AM

I'll start with your questions:

I'd say, participate in other blogs in your niches. Photo blogs, political blogs, movie and TV blogs. Comment, participate, become a member of whatever communities you're most interested in. Oh, and one specific suggestion - you just say "reviews" up by your title, but if they're mostly movie or TV reviews, say that.

And the same for forums - photo forums, political forums, movie and TV forums, blah. That's a lot of ground to cover, so I'd suggest picking an area of focus.

But then I'll move on to what I see as the main issue:

Your blog is visually cool-looking. Looks fabulous. Everybody who connects to it will look at front page and say "wow".

And then they will click away and go somewhere else.

Because that "wow" front page is just not transparent enough. A reader has to do some work to find a post that he's interested in - in fact, he has to do some work to read _any_ post. And readers don't do work. I know that the "work" seems like nothing - just bleeping click something! But they don't do work. They won't bleeping click.

With most blogs, a prospective reader connects to the blog, and they're immediately looking the latest post in the face. To scan a few more posts and get an idea of your blog, all they have to do is hit the Space bar a few times.

That's what you're competing with - go to the URL, space-space-space, to see several posts and get a pretty thorough idea of the blog. And the most fabuous-looking front page - and yours does look fabulous - is simply not going to substitute for that.

Jaded · #6 October 22nd, 2010, 06:31 AM

Thanks ChickenFreak and Melody you've both been of great help and I'll definitely look at changing the front page following your advice.

Melody: I'm mostly just blogging about stuff that interests me. I write film and TV reviews, blog about random things I'm thinking about, political issues in Britain and the occasional photo blog...Hopefully with a change of theme, this will become clearer.

Thanks so much for the advice!