How Do You Increase Blog Traffic?

Between the internet strategy teleseminar for the San Francisco Writing Conference I did on Monday, the blogging presentation I did for the Oakland branch of Ladies Who Launch on Tuesday, and the consults I had with individual bloggers on Wednesday and Thursday, I've been asked several times this week:

"How do I increase my blog traffic?"

Based on my own experience, and after reading posts about blog traffic by folks like Seth Godin, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, and others, here is a list of tips I've compiled:

• Post regularly.
• Link to other bloggers in your posts.
• Comment on other blogs.
• Have a blogroll.
• Make it easy to comment. It's ok to have comment moderation, but don't make people register.
• Allow readers to email posts to other people.
• Enable subscription to your rss feed with Feedburner.
• Enable subscription by email with Feedblitz.
• Include images or graphics with every post to catch the reader's eye. Blogs are a visual medium.
  
• Add your blog URL to your email signature.
• Tell Google you have a blog.
• Tell Technorati you have a blog.
• Write titles with phrases that people are searching for (i.e. How to Bake a Cake).
• Write about current events.
• Ask a question in your title.
• Post a list (i.e. Ten Ways to Frost a Cake).
• Provide a way for people to easily share and bookmark your posts by using something like AddThis or Add to Any.
  
• Twitter.
• Bookmark your posts in del.icio.us, and other social bookmarking services.
• Try writing shorter posts (200-300 words). That's about how many words the average person can read in a minute.
  
• Leave more space between paragraphs. Use bold subtitles. Catch the reader's eye.
  
• Participate in memes, blog carnivals and challenges.
• Tags your post with Technorati tags.
• Let ping servers know when you have a new post.
• Interview people who have blogs or email lists, and will post a link to the interview.
• Have guest bloggers post on your blog
• Include videos in your posts.
• Install web analytics tools like SiteMeter, StatCounter and Google Analytics. Look at what kinds of posts get the most traffic. Write more of those!
• Highlight your most popular posts in your sidebar.
• Create a MyBlogLog community.
• Participate in social networks like Facebook and MySpace, as well as niche social networks related to the theme of your blog.
  
• Participate in online forums and communities.
• List your blog in blog directories.
• Run a contest.

Finally, write posts that people want to read!