PinoyBlogero.com has been in the blogosphere for over two months already. During those two months, I tried to provide interesting articles for my readers like “Encourage Feedback: Leave a Question” and “Is RSS Robbing Your Blog of Visitors?”. It was only recently that I noticed that I was greatly focusing on the more advanced topics that I fail to talk about the basic things that would benefit those who are new to blogging.

Danika left a comment on one my posts which reads:

Lol. These tips are a little advanced for me. I’m not that worried yet about hardly getting comments. My worry is not having any visitors. Maybe you could give me some tips on that. Hahaha!

In response to this, I have made this article for the benefit of those who would like to know more on how to get traffic on their blogs. Keep in mind that these are just the basics and should be always practiced by bloggers who are looking forward for an increase in readership.

1. Write GOOD content – The main reason why people go to blogs is to look for content, make sure you give it to them with extra toppings and cheese. In other words, write about things that would interest your visitors while making sure that it is both unique and well-written.
2. Update frequently – Isn’t it a little annoying when you go to your favorite blog and find out that they have nothing to give you but scraps from yesterday’s post? Don’t let this happen to your readers. Updating your blog regularly increases the chances of people coming back to your blog to read more.

   It doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to update daily. Set a posting frequency according to your own preferences and let it be known to your readers so that they would know when to come back for more.Here in PinoyBlogero, I have a posting frequency of one post every two days (MWFSu).

3. Make friends with your readers – Regularly interact with your readers so that they would always feel welcome to your blog. Listen to their opinions and try to reply to them if you can. By making friends with your readers, they would likely promote your blog to others. Just make sure to maintain your friendship afterwards, blogging friends aren’t just there for you to gain some links and extra traffic.
4. Read other blogs – I always stress out in my articles that blogging is not just limited to writing entries on your blog, you must also set out and read other blogs of your interest. Read their posts and join in on the conversation. Read their blog, and they will read yours, it’s the principle of equivalent trade coming into play.
5. Share the link love – Linking to other blogs unconditionally are a good way to earn respect in the blogosphere. Eventually they will also link back and bring visitors to your blog. Also, exchanging links with other blogs helps your blog grow in terms of ranking.
6. Create your own gimmick – With the millions of blogs in the blogosphere today, you must set yourself apart from others in order for you to be recognized. Create a unique gimmick that only you will be offering to your readers.

   You could have a weekly blog review, you could organize group writing projects, you could give incentives to every readers who leaves a comment, or you could also post some eye-catching drawings within your posts like here in PinoyBlogero.com.

7. Optimize your blog for search engines – Search engines are one of the most important sources of a blog’s traffic, which is why many bloggers are optimizing their blogs for search engines.

   I’m not going to tackle this here because it’s a little advanced and extensive. You could check out other blogs like CarlOcab.com or PinoySEO for SEO related articles.

8. Submit your blog to directories – A lot of people don’t seem to see the usefulness of blog directories like topsites, search engines, and portals. These directories make it easier for people to find you, it even brings your blog a number of spare traffic.

   You could submit your blog to the following to get you started: Technorati, Ranking.PinoyBlogosphere, Ratified, and Google.

9. Promote your blog offline – You could also promote your blog offline. You could promote it to your family or friends. You could also promote it during offline blog events such as the SM’s Taste Asia Blogger Meet-up event this coming August 23 (Punta kayo dun! Pupunta din ako, e!).
10. Advertise – To those who are more serious in getting raffic on their blogs, you could try paid advertising. Paid advertisements some money but the return traffic is worth it. You could ask blogs within the same niche to promote your blog for a fee, or you could try submitting it to advertising campaigns like Adwords or Text Link Ads.

So there you have it. Ten of my tested basic tips on getting traffic on your blog. There are many other methods that you could use and I shall be discussing more of this next time.

Happy blogging!

Do you have other ways to attract traffic to your blog? Is there any method that didn’t work well on your blog? Share it and comment below!