10 Easy Ways to Generate Traffic to Your Webdesign Blog

Traffic is something that everyone is after. It represents one of the best way to measure success of your blog. If you have traffic, you know that people find your posts and resources valuable, you can sell more ads, ads will bring more money, that will help you to cover your costs and generate profit…

I tried to put together 10 easy ways that will help you to generate more traffic to your blog. I hope that you will find this post helpful. I would like to hear what are your ways to generate traffic. Did I miss anything? Let me know in comments…

Image source: sxc.hu

1. Try to write great articles

Follow current trends. Make sure to orient in what are the best people in your niche doing. Visit their blogs, follow them on Twitter, see what gets tweeted

Think forward and write articles that readers look for. If you follow trends, you will know what that is. My previous post Ultimate Wordpress Tutorial Collection got to second page on Google search for worpress tutorial, just because it was about wordpress and brought highest daily traffic.

Time your articles well. Few days ago when the ice hockey world championship started in Switzerland, I put together a Showcase of 32 Ice Hockey World Championships and Team Logos, that someone submitted to a hockey group on Facebook. It resulted in bringing highest daily traffic to my blog ever and that article was (and still is) on first page of Google search for ice hockey world championship.  Pretty good for a webdesign blog :)

Do something extra. At the time when I was starting this blog there were many articles that suggested great webdesign blogs to read. I wanted to make a similar article, but instead of putting few links together, I spent some time and added links to their Twitter accounts and sorted links based on Google PageRank and Alexa rank. That ended up being most read article on my blog with biggest number of comments and trackbacks.

2. Twitter

Tweet about your posts. Let your followers know about new articles. Do not spam by re-submitting it in a short time. Quality will show up and will get tweeted. Let your followers do it for you.

Tweetmeme. Use Tweetmeme - a great plugin to get your articles tweeted and to show how many tweets it gets

Use Hashtags to get retweeted. For example #wordpress  will get you retweeted by @hashwordpress @hashwp and @pimpmywordpress

Other interesting hastags: #followfriday - people that you suggest to follow,  #themethursday - each Thursday has a theme related to webdesign -  follow @themethursday or @gracesmith to learn what that is for current Thursday, #webdesign #design #typography

Follow top designers and submit your link/designs to their showcases. They often create roundups or showcases and ask for suggestions. Follow @abduzeedo, @smashingmag for example.

Retweet valuable links. Share grate articles and links that you come across with others, retweet what you find valuable.

3. Submit your posts/designs to design related promotional sites

I found psd.tutsplus.com, design-newz.com, noupe.com, net.tutsplus.com and devsnippets.com to generate most traffic, but here are some lists with great sites where you can submit your posts

• 40 promotional sites where to submit your design related links
• Web design blogs that generate free traffic for your site

4. Submit and Bookmark links to social networks

Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Myspace, StumbleUpon… you name them, there are hundreds of social networks and bookmarking services that will promote your articles to thousands of people

• Add social buttons to your blog. Top 35 Plugins of Wordpress to Share Your Blog Post,
• Stumbles made easy will Stumble your links 3 times.

5. Create and Submit RSS Feed

Create RSS Feed for your posts. Let your readers subscribe to be notified each time you write an article. You can also have options to subscribe to comments only, subscribe to categories, subscribe to get news by email. Choose what is best for you and your visitors.

Use Feedburner to manage your feed. Feedburner is considered the best solution to manage your feeds. It gives you statistics, ways to promote your feed, lets you show your followers count and many more.

Submit your feed to feed agregators. “Take Action Today” Generate Traffic and Sales With….Customized RSS Feeds and RSS Aggregates

6. Blog catalogs

Blog catalogs are a powerful way to bring more readers to your blog. Here are some huge lists of blog catalogs, where you can submit your own blog to generate traffic.

• Submit blog to blog directories and increase the traffic
• Blog Directory List - Where to submit blogs to blog directories

7. Niche related forums

Write about your articles on related forums. Do not spam, but rather link to your articles that talk about the same topic. Be a help to others and you will help your self.

See the article at Smashing magazine for list of best webdesign related forums: Professional Web Design Forums

8. Comments

Comment on other sites, show your expertise and link to your articles when they are helpful to the theme/situation

Respond to comments on your site, show that you respect and value your readers and that you are a real person and not an article generator

Use comments related services. Install Wordpress CommentLuv plugin to show your latest post after your comments on other sites. Register with Gravatar to add your comments a personal feel with an avatar.

9. Don’t be lazy and do some SEO

Read and learn about Search Engine Optimization for WordPress. Use All in one SEO plugin for Wordpress and other great Useful SEO Plugins For Wordpress to configure your Wordpress blog

Submit your site to Google Webmaster, Yahoo Site Explorer, Live Webmaster Center

10. Wordpress update service

Update Services are a Wordpress built in feature that you can use to let other people know you have updated your blog. You can create a list of update services that WordPress will automatically notify each time you create or update a post.

Similar Posts:

• 50 webdesign blogs with highest Google PR
• Ultimate Wordpress Tutorial Collection
• A - Z Twitter Creative Elite to Follow
• 11 Ways to Get Inspired - See What Best Designers Do
• Weekend to-do list for design nerds

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