FOR every performance, there should be an audience. The same applies to blogging. Without your audience, your blog won’t survive. So what do you do in order to increase your traffic? Simple –- by promoting your blog.

Your blog will only take off when you know and understand how to sell your ideas to your target audience. The key is in finding out which strategy works for you best.

Sounds easy, right? Yes, but take heed — so many bloggers tend to cut corners by resorting to sneaky promotional methods (eg. spamming) in the hopes of gaining overnight success, and they end up compromising their own credibility and integrity. Those tactics hardly ever work in the long run.

Although increasing your blog’s popularity and hits takes time, it is well worth the effort. There are several sure-fire and legit ways of doing this, and the following are only a few tried-and-true methods employed by professional bloggers. Best of all, these techniques are free and can be immediately implemented.

1. Blog Commenting

While posting links in your comments is frowned on these days, it’s still a favorite promotional tool. The key to making this work is to post relevant comments in blogs that you actually subscribe to. Find a topic that is in the same niche as your blog, and post your comments there. This way you will attract the attention of the blog’s readers AND owners. It also will lessen the chances of your comments being deleted. Trust me, I am one of those who actively deletes comments that sound spammy or even remotely off-topic.

2.Email Marketing

This is another fast method for driving traffic to your site. If you have an email list – and you should – you can regularly send out messages telling your recipients to check out your latest blog post. It’s that simple.

3. Social Communities

Plenty of bloggers swear by posting scheduled tweets on Twitter, creating Facebook fan pages, or posting links in LinkedIn. This is an extremely fast way to create a buzz and get both traffic and backlinks. Facebook fan pages also allows you the opportunity to interact directly with your fans and readers.

Aside from popular social networks, you can promote your blog in forums, blogging communities, and general directories. You can also post your own linked articles in a blog carnival. However, promoting your blog without any other active group participation is considered distasteful by many and could get you banned or even blacklisted as a spammer. One obvious example of doing this is posting your blog link in your forum signature.

The best way to go about this is to actively participate in group discussions on topics that are related to your blog. Build a community of like-minded people, and you don’t just get traffic, you may even establish yourself as an expert in your blog niche.

4. Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are a tad different from social networks, in the sense that the former is used more often for link building. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of bookmarking sites, including Del.i.ci.ous, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg, where readers sign up to bookmark links to their favorite sites.

The upside to promoting your blog in these sites is that your blog can quickly go viral and can receive a huge amount of traffic in record time; however, you don’t get much backlinks from bookmarking, so save this tactic for getting more hits and readers.

5. Direct Interaction

This is an oft-overlooked promotional tactic. With the sheer volume of bloggers cropping up, personal interactions with readers go down. Many blog readers find it flattering to be the subject of a blog author’s attention, and this ultimately helps create a buzz through their testimonials.

Frequent interaction with your readers also allows you to encourage them to keep on reading, participate in your contests, subscribe to RSS feeds, etc. As with real-life businesses, this kind of personalized service inspires loyalty and attracts new traffic.

These are only a few strategies for putting your blog out there. Remember that success isn’t instant, and you’ll have to deal with plenty of rejection as well. You will have to resist the urge to take underhanded shortcuts, but if you apply the aforementioned methods strategically and consistently, chances are your blog will eventually double or even triple its readership without sacrificing your reputation. Good luck!

Photo credits: dressful.com, tipsblogger.com

Carmela Maraan has written on various topics ranging from marketing, advertising, blogging, and creative writing to adult material. She is enthusiastic about expanding her repertoire as she views the world as one huge library. During her free time she is also a voracious reader, an irrepressible singer, and a mom who hardly sleeps.

Related posts:

1. Marketing the “You Know What” Out of Your Blog, Part 2

2. Marketing the “You Know What Out” of Your Blog, Part 3

3. Marketing the “You Know What” Out of Your Blog, Part 1

As I’m sure you have noticed, Google has gotten a new favicon. It has gotten a lot of attention on the web, and even TechCrunch wrote a post about it. How is it that a stupid little thing such as a new favicon can spark so much discussion throughout the web? And why isn’t it that your blog is getting talked about on big blogs like TechCrunch?

The answer I’m going to give you for that question is not because Google is the most visited site on the internet because that would be really boring and wouldn’t make much of a great blog post (no matter how true it is).

Google has helped people in the past. It continues to do so now, just like it will be doing tomorrow

Bottom Line: Google isn’t going anywhere. If I asked you when Google will shut down, you would tell me “Never”. If I asked you when a starting blogger will close their blog, you would probably tell me “Within its first month”. But what does any of that have to do with Google’s new favicon?

Google provides users with consistent and accurate information

Every time you search on Google, you get search results. Google provides you with 3rd party content, and it is by far the most accurate search engine to date. You can’t just leave a company who gives like that alone. Everything they do has to be written about and criticized.

They’re always working to give their users more: New Services, Upgrades to current services, etc.

They’re like a giant blog (excluding their “official” blog), they’re always updating and improving how their readers learn and use their system. If your blog can do that, then success can (not always) come. Obviously I’m not talking about creating web tools like they do, and I’m definitely not saying your site will grow as big as Google.

Because Google always keeps their user base updated with current web standards, and setting them, they got where they are now. That’s what you should be doing in your blog: setting a standard on how content should be reached across to different readers.

Like all news stories, you want to be the first one to report it

News spreads like wildfire on the Internet. They say that you should always try to be the first one to report on a potentially top story. Being the first to blog about it could result in sending pings/trackbacks to other blogs (which can bring you traffic, and other things), getting linked to from other blogs, and plenty of other scenarios.

So with that information, you want to be the one to tell the web about this story. A story about that humongous web beast called Google will surely do great as Google is a resource that everyone uses, and will be something you will undoubtedly go back to when they have a question.

An example of being the first one to write about a news, take the release of WordPress 2.7. Before Janith and I merged our blogs, I had written a post about the WordPress 2.7. My blog (kolakube.com) was the first one to send the WordPress Development blog a pingback. As a result, I got some decent traffic.

So imagine getting a link to an article on the Official Google Blog and all the traffic that could come your way.

How can I apply all of that information to my blog?

We all know in reality that Google getting a new favicon isn’t anything special. It’s just how people react to it, making it a bigger deal than it should truly be.

The point I have been trying to get across in this whole post is this: if you want your blog to get talked about on the web, just be a great blogger. Use the information I highlighted above and apply it to your blog. Just to sum up what was covered:

• Provide users with consistent and accurate information.
  Simply enough, keep writing up to date, useful information.
• Always work for more.
  Keep messing with your design until it’s perfect. Always write new posts, build a strong social media profile. Work like you’ve never worked before, and don’t live in another bloggers shadow.
• Break the news.
  Blog your way to the top of the trackback lists. Always report on topics in your niche, and you could get noticed if you provide the most useful information in your story.

If the web isn’t talking about your blog, then go out there and get them talking! Even if it’s about you having the best designed favicon, when the web talks about you, you will certainly feel the impact!

Related posts:

1. Official GOOGLE SEO Guide Released!