Who am I to tell you how to get more traffic, I can hear you asking. After all, this post is only the tenth post I’ve made on here. But I would answer you by saying that I have plenty of experience writing blog posts for other websites and for several of my clients.  So in that sense I consider myself quite a seasoned blogger. And as a marketing consultant, I wouldn’t be doing a good job for my clients if I were not up to date with all the research and statistics about blogging. And besides all this, getting more traffic for your blog comes down to one thing – it’s all about promotion. And that certainly *is* my game. Marketing your blog is not very different from marketing your services or products.  The means and channels used may be different, but you just have to choose the ones that are right for what you are promoting.

I will assume that you have already done the basics and have submitted your blog to the main search engines and  the blog directories and feed directories that are right for you.

So here are my top ten tips that will get you more readers:

• Write regularly. Your visitors will get used to checking your site for new posts, or will expect your new post to turn up in their RSS feed or inbox.  If you don’t write regularly, then they may decide to dump you for someone who will give them more regular information. Pick a schedule and stick to it.  It may only be once or twice a week, or it may be three times a day. But make your choice according to the time you have available and remain consistent.

• Write frequently. The more you post, the more visitors you will get!  It’s as easy as that. Each time you write a post – and promote it by doing all the other things on this list – you will get visitors to your site.

• Promote your posts using social media. Every time you publish a post, promote it via the social media you use. Tweet a link to it on Twitter; add a link to it on your status for your company’s fan page on Facebook (and your personal page too, if applicable); and add a link on your LinkedIn account.

• Comment on other business blogs. When you comment on someone else’s blog, your comment is linked to your own blog or site. This is good for boosting your search rankings and for demonstrating to the readers of that blog that you know about that subject and that you have a certain level of expertise in your field. Do choose relevant – but non-competitive – blogs though; blogs you expect your own target market to be reading. For example, if you target facilities managers, make sure you’re regularly reading and commenting on the blogs run by the various FM associations.

• Write guest posts for other blogs. Again, you need to target blogs that you would expect your target market to be reading. Contact the blog owner and offer them a guest post in exchange for a link to your website. Choose blogs that don’t directly compete with yours, but which complement yours, and where their target audience matches yours. Ones with good traffic levels and a good page rank are the best.

• Add your blog on LinkedIn. You can integrate your blog into your company’s LinkedIn page. You can add it near the bottom of the Overview tab, which you are presented with after selecting Admin tools > Edit.

• Ask people to subscribe to the feed or to sign up to receive emails when you post. As with all types of marketing activity, you need a call to action, and on your blog posts, every now and then, ask your readers to sign up. That way they will visit again and again.

• Include relevant keywords in your blog post titles. This can be harder than it sounds. You want to write a title that hooks in your readers and encourages them to click to read more, but Google and other search engines place a fair bit of emphasis for search rankings on the page (and therefore blog post) titles. Hopefully you’re already using SEO-friendly page titles – like http://www.anyoldsite.com/how-to-write-great-blog-post-titles. But you also need to put the keywords and phrases that will get that post found into the title, and write the title so that it makes sense when it comes up in a search engine.

• Include a photo with your blog post. I know I am more inclined to click and read posts when there’s a nice-looking image used. But apart from that, an image can help bring incremental general traffic to your site. A search using “Google images” may show your photo in the results – especially if you’ve named and linked it with SEO in mind – and this can bring in a whole new tranche of visitors.

• Tag your posts. Again, this is for the search engines. Use relevant keywords and phrases to tag your posts – most of the blogging platforms and services have this feature. If you’re canny, you can even check out the social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Stumble Upon, reddit and Delicious, to see which are the tags that are relevant to your business that are being searched for the most.

So there you have it. I’m now going to take my own advice and do something which I have not yet done … if you enjoy my blog and find it useful, why not subscribe to receive new posts by email or subscribe to the RSS feed? Oh , and while you’re at it, why not also share this post using the links below? 😉