Saturday, June 20, 2009

6 Ways to Get You New Blog Started Right

By Steven Snell

The number of blogs that are online is growing astronomically each day. New blogs are being added constantly, thanks in part to the ease with which anyone can start a blog. Some blogs are for personal purposes and others are for business purposes. Those that have any type of intent to make money or represent an existing business will need to attract an audience in order to have any impact.

Because of the huge number of blogs that already exist and the exponential increases that are occurring, getting yours off to a great start is key. The launch phase is a great time to promote your blog and pique interest from potential readers.

In this article we will look at a number of different things that you can do right away to start the traffic flowing.

1. Announce the Blog Launch to Friends and Family

When you're trying to get traffic to your new blog, one of the easiest places to start is with those that already know you. Mention your new blog to them and send out an email with a link to your blog and a brief description of what they can expect to find there. While you won't get thousands of visitors this way, it's still a good place to start, and some of these people may become repeat visitors.

2. Link to Your New Blog from Your Other Sites

You may or may not have other websites or blogs at this point. If you do, you will be at an advantage. Use that existing site to help send some traffic and start building links by linking from your own site. It's an easy way to help out your new blog.

If you don't have any other websites yet, this may seem like a disadvantage. While it may make things a little more difficult for you now, once you get your new blog established it will give you an excellent platform with which you can promote other new blogs that you may launch in the future.

3. Link to Your Blog from Your Social Media Profiles

Almost all bloggers have profiles on at least a few social networking sites. There are literally thousands of networking sites to choose from, and there's no need to have a profile at every one, but be sure that all of your existing profiles mention your new blog and link back to it.

As a new blogger, link building will be more of the most important hurdles that you will have to overcome. Simple links from profiles can be a start.

4. Write Posts and Submit Them to Social Media Sites

One of the best ways for a new blogger to quickly start seeing some real traffic is to leverage social media websites. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of social media sites, some much more popular than others. With interesting and unique content you can get amazing results with social media.

Social media is capable of being the great equalizer for new blogs. Any blog with the right content, a little bit of promotion, and probably some luck along the way, can benefit greatly from social media. Creating content that is targeted towards specific audiences and submitting it to the social media sites is one of the best ways to generate traffic to a new blog.

Man bloggers get excited about social media, only to be disappointed when it doesn't work for them. In order to have success you will need to create content with social media users in mind, and work on building a network of other social media users.

5. Commenting on Other Blogs in Your Niche

Leaving intelligent comments on other blogs with related content is a proven way to bring some visitors back to your own blogs. Like some of the other strategies mentioned here, this will not bring huge amounts of traffic, but they will be interested visitors.

In order to have success with this strategy you will need to leave significant, intelligent comments, not something like "Nice job". Most blog comments are pretty worthless, so when you leave one that adds some type of value to the post, people will notice.

6. Get to Know Other Bloggers in Your Niche

All highly successful bloggers are well-connected with others in their niche. Building a network is one of the most important things you will do throughout the life of your blog.

If you want to network with other bloggers you can start by commenting regularly on their blogs so they'll start to get to know you. Other than that, you can be active at social networking sites, and also you can simply reach out to them by email to introduce yourself and see what happens from there.

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