For many of us, blogging is a great pastime. But for some, blogging is a good source of supplementary income. There are even some whose primary source of income comes from their blogs. There are many ways to earn using your blog – Google Adsense, paid advertisements, affiliate marketing or many other revenue-generating options. However, to make it all work, you first need visitors to come to your blog.
The more visitors your blog receives the more money-making opportunities.
So, how do you get visitors to come to your blog?
1. Content
Yes, an eye-catching blog design will attract them once, but to get them coming back continually, you need to give them a memorable reading experience – good content. Providing good content means you need to know what your audience wants to read and fulfill their expectations. Nothing is a bigger turnoff than lame content – viewers will notice if you lack passion for what you are taking about.
Don’t post for the sake of posting, but have something meaningful to say. This applies to blog-comments you post on other’s blogs. Impress people with what you have to say. Get them interested in your blog and will they will most likely come back.
Always remember, quality over quantity, and money is not a good motivator for good content.
2. Participate in forums, comment in larger blogs
These are good places to demonstrate your expertise, establish recognition, make friends with other bloggers, and advertise a link back to your blog.
Once you’ve gotten to know people, you can start exchanging links.
Remember, don’t spam these sites with your blog URL. You want to be known as a reputable contributor, not an annoying self-promoting spammer.
3. Take advantage of social networking sites such as Facebook
Anyone can sign up on Facebook. It’s a great place to find old friends and colleagues, just like any other social networking site. But, what’s great about Facebook, other than that it’s the hottest site now, is you can import you own blog’s RSS feed – a great way to tell people you have a blog.
4. Mention your blog in profiles
Include a link to your blog in your email signatures, online profiles, etc.
5. Use the features on your Doteasy Blog: Email to Friend and RSS
Email to Friend – This allows your visitors to forward your posts to their friends. Think of it as the combination of “free advertising” and “word-of-mouth”.
RSS – When visitors subscribe to your site feed in their newsreaders, they are more likely going to read your entries.
6. Register your Blog
Blogsphere is a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It’s a connected community of blogs. Yes, you can register your blog to these blog communities and directories.
Here are some you should check out:
• Technorati
• Bloglines
• BlogsNow
• TailRank
• BlogRush
• Blog Carnival
• MyBlogLog
• BlogCatalog