By Michele Scism
The Results Lady

Blogging has become a way of life for so many people and companies.  According to Technorati.com there are in excess of 100 million blogs on the internet.  It is a very popular way for people and businesses to create an online presence.

You can start a blog for free and begin posting content right away. But, what good is that content if no one is reading it. You need to direct blog traffic to your site.

With the extreme volume of blogs on the internet, blog traffic may be a little hard to come by.  How do you make your blog stand out from the rest?  How do you drive targeted web traffic to your blog?

New bloggers aren’t always prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful blog.  Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you.  You have to pursue the audience and give them a reason to read what you have to say.  You must figure out what you can do to increase traffic to your site.

Here are 7 ways to increase traffic to your blog:

1.    Joining Forums – as a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Right now you are marketing yourself to find traffic and then profit. Become a member of business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. You can add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can find you.

2.    Fresh Content – no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and use your programs post scheduling feature to post them at the appropriate times.

3.    Social Networking & Social Bookmarking – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, LinkedIn, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of like-minded people who are also bloggers or entrepreneurs. Submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog.

4.    Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

5.    Article Marketing – the niche you’ve chosen for your blog should be one that interests you. If it is interesting you will spend more time doing it. Create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories. Using the resource box to advertise your blog will help you get traffic.

6.    Visit other blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. Add links to your blog in your comments.

7.    SEO Marketing – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Keyword density between three and ten percent is good for getting higher page rankings in search engines. Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.

Ok here is bonus – an 8th idea! Submit Blogs to Search Engines – doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google and Yahoo are two of the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages. It doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that.