I have been working on my blogs for a
while and every time I tweak something, I learn something new. Today, I
am basically going to recap what I have posted so far. Previously I have
posted on why blogs are important and I provided several traffic
generation tips. Today, I will share some common working methods which
you can implement right now to
make your blog popular and stand out in the crowd. Some of the methods have been posted earlier. That’s why I said I am going to recap
Keep in mind that these methods are simple to implement and they always work.
Making a blog popular is every bloggers dream. It cannot be done
overnight and I know it is not easy if you are new in the business but
if you are hard working and are willing to learn and adapt, I can
guarantee success my friend.
There are many ways to take your blog to the next level but always
make sure you know what you are dealing with. I have seen people
spamming the shit out of social bookmarking and networking sites such as
digg, reddit and requesting people to vote for their links. Please do
not do that. This is considered spam and it really sucks. But then
again, reddit is very popular. If you have something awesome to share
and it goes
viral on reddit, you will get ton of traffic.
So without further ado, I am listing out several killer ways you can get your blog popular in the right way.
Make your blog popular – 9 methods that work!
1. Customize Your Blog Design
I have posted this like what, hundred times before. Well without a doubt,
design matters.
This is very important my friends and that is why I have listed it
first. Every blog should have a unique design. People are attracted to
something that is unique and interesting. When a person visits your
blog, the design gives them the first impression and this determines the
amount of time they spend browsing your blog. Now to be honest, if your
blog has a crappy design, I am not going to visit it. Even if I visit
it accidently, I might spend a few seconds before I leave and bam.
Look at this blog. How cool is it?
I am sure you can setup something similar or decent. Practice makes
perfection so keep tweaking and trying out new layout, design and
navigation and focus on creating the best user experience for your
readers.
There are plenty of decent templates you can find online. I am running a customized
thesis theme which is one of my favorites and it powers almost 80% of my websites. I chose thesis over
woothemes
and others because it gives you ton of sweet options such as buttons to
easily change fonts, color and seo capability. It is easily
customizable and if you know a little code like I do, you can create
awesome designs in no time.
2.Add your BLOG to BLOGS communities
Blog communities are really popular for blogs. Other bloggers and web
enthusiasts are constantly checking out these communities for
networking and information. There are many communities you can submit
your blog to but it’s better to stick with the ones which are popular
and have a decent Google PR (pagerank).
I have posted a list of
top article and blog directories so check them out and submit your blog right away.
Remember: When you follow a blog that you find interesting, and you
contribute something nice through commenting on it, you are basically
increasing your visibility in the community. A lot of people will check
you out and also subscribe to your blog if you are good. Always try to
participate in a network and engage in conversations. Whether you write a
blog post or a comment, make sure it delivers some value to the
community.
3. Write Tutorials and Pillar Articles
I have followed Yaro Starak who is one of the top bloggers. Yaro has always emphasized the importance of
pillar articles.
Now think about this, if you write an article about what happened on a
certain day, the content is meant only for that day and with time it
gets old. But, if you write a How-to Article or a tutorial that solves a
problem, it stays there forever.
Let me explain. If you write something about “How to get rid of
twitter spam or How to get loyal readers to your blog”, you know that
you can use these tutorials whenever you want and they won’t get old
because the same method would apply all the time. Lots of people will
share it and bookmark it for future reference. Pillar articles are
killers and you can easily write at least 5-6 a month.
Check out my
wordpress hacking prevention guide
which got shared over thousand times throughout various social
networks. The post was retweeted more than 700 times and is growing
every day. It’s really not a big deal to see such numbers especially
when your posts are awesome and solves a community problem.
4. Be a Guest Author on Popular Blogs
Most blogs you will come across these days accept guest posts.
Popular blogs like problogger, shoemoney, johnchow just to name a few;
they all give new bloggers a chance to get noticed through
guest blogging.
Now this is a great opportunity and shouldn’t be missed. You can’t just
post anything you like but it should be related to the niche and you
have to prove your worth. One blog post on some of these popular blogs
can get you huge amount of traffic.
How to find blogs that accept guest posts? How about you Google terms such as “guest post by” or you can check out this
blog post on kissmetrics that explains guest blogging in details.
Writing guest posts is a truly amazing way to get noticed and drive
traffic to your blog. Don’t forget the link juice you get and waves of
new subscribers.
5. Give Something to Download for Free
I love free stuff, don’t you? A good way to gain readership and
make your blog popular
is to give free stuff to the public. It can be almost anything; an
eBook, a wordpress theme, some popular tools or even free online class.
Based on the experience from my other blogs, people love free things
especially when they are premium and valuable.
There are several PLR content that you could give away to your
readers. Whatever you decide to give, make sure it is worth downloading.
Ask yourself, would you download it yourself? If you wouldn’t download
the free stuff yourself, you can’t expect others to download it either.
Quality matters my friend and if your stuff is good, people will just
keep coming.
6. Blog Frequently
Fresh content is the key to your blog’s success. Do not just blog
once a week and expect people to check in every day. Your readers are
hungry for information and they expect to see something valuable and new
on your blog frequently. I know sometimes you can get busy and have
days when you don’t feel like blogging, and it is completely ok. If
blogging is your passion, you will manage time for a post; it comes
naturally my friends.
The search engines can find out how often you blog and they love
fresh content. The more often you post to your blog, the better it gets.
Of course, unless you follow a different blogging style such as Glen at
viperchill
who makes 1 – 3 posts per month. Glen has a unique style of creating
blog posts. Most of his posts go above 4000 word limit and if you
carefully notice, he has a lot of lengthy pillar articles on his blog.
And as a result, viperchill gets 10 times more traffic than most other
blogs combined in the similar niche. Viperchill is the proof that
quality content matters over quantity of posts.
Whatever style you adapt, make sure your content is unique because at the end of the day, that is what matters the most.
7. Link Love
One of the best ways to get your blog noticed is to trade links with
other bloggers in the same niche. There are multiple ways you can
approach a blogger or an author and request for a link love. You can
email them (make sure you don’t spam), you can comment on their blog
post and request and of course add them on your facebook and discuss
about it. I personally do not do this right now because
google doesn’t give much value to such links.
The best way to get link love is through guest blogging as mentioned
earlier. Try creating some great blog posts in some popular blogs and
you will get both traffic and quality backlinks.
8. Create a Facebook Page and Promote it
Facebook pages are rising in popularity. Check your account right now
and tell me how many invitations you got to join a page. I bet it’s a
lot. Create a facebook page for your blog right now and start sharing it
with other millions of facebook users. When requesting to join your
page, make sure you don’t spam because it can be really irritating. You
can also set up your blog’s RSS Feed on the Page itself so that people
can check out your posts without even visiting your blog.
The new
facebook timeline
gives you lots of options. There are lots of amazing facebook apps that
you can use to integrate your blog with facebook and make sharing easy
breezy. Some good methods you can use to promote your facebook page is
by adding a widget on your blog, adding a popup like button, writing a
blog post on it and also including the page details in your newsletter.
Facebook is huge and the traffic is legit. The quicker you create your
page and get involved with it, the better social presence you will have.
9. Get a Twitter Account and Tweet your Posts
I am sure by now most bloggers have a twitter account. Forget
bloggers, pretty much everyone has a twitter account today, and they use
it to broadcast what they eat, when they sleep etc. There is no problem
in doing that but to make it a little more productive, how about
tweeting your blog posts to your followers instead.
People follow you because they are interested in sharing things with
you. When you tweet, they are most likely willing to check it out. I
like the idea of microblogging because it makes it easy for you to share
your opinion and cool stuff with the world. Achieving the celebrity
status on twitter is everyone’s dream. If you deliver value through
tweets, you will have created a huge network of
loyal followers who will retweet your stuff which eventually drive massive traffic to your blog.
Retweets matter. Remember, retweets do not only help in driving traffic but also help in search engine optimization.
I hope you have found this article useful. I would appreciate if you
share it and spread the word. Keep following the right thing, learn and
adapt and, I promise that your blog will reach new heights. What other
ways can you
make your blog popular?
